I have debated on whether I should post this or not, but I have no idea what I am doing and I could really use some advice from all you professional moms out there. So, if anyone is offended by the subject matter, sorry!
I want to breastfeed Noah until he is 1 year old but I also want to incorporate solids. I have been feeding him oatmeal cereal mixed with a veggie at night and breastfeeding him a little bit after the cereal. I think what I want to do is get to a point here pretty soon where I am only breastfeeding in the morning and at night. But, I have no idea how to go about doing that or even if that is a good thing to do. I am so clueless. I have read a ton of articles online about it but they were all pretty vague. So, I am going to shoot off a bunch of questions and I hope you guys can help.
1. How do I start taking away breastfeed meals?
2. At a meal that has replaced breastfeeding, how much solid food do I give him? Tonight I feed him a Tbsp of cereal mixed with 1/2 a 2.5oz thing of peas and 1/2 of a 2.5oz thing of a fruit. And he was still opening his mouth and fishing for more. Is that too much? Not enough?
3. He is 8 mos old now. Can he have juice? If so, could I bring juice and some of those baby puff cereal things to tide him over at church instead of breastfeeding during Sunday school?
4. Does it matter when I feed him fruits and when I feed him veggies? Like, should I be feeding him fruit in the afternoon and veggies at night or does it matter at all?
5. When it comes time for me to wean him completely how do I keep from getting to full? Because if I breastfeed him or pump to get relief doesn't that just keep the milk supply going?
6. Like I said before, I think I would like to get to a point soon were I am only breastfeeding in the morning and at night. Is it okay to do that? I mean, will he be getting what he needs from the breast milk if I only do it 2 times a day?
Thinking about the whole weaning process kind of stresses me out. Can you tell?! :]
Anyway, I know there are probably a ton of different ways to go about this but any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
6 comments:
My eyes! My eyes!
Heh, heh.
OK, here's what I did with my kids...
I was breastfeeding every three hours or so. The first feeding I replaced with solids was dinnertime. They say that you can't overfeed your baby, they just stop eating when they are full. So, you can feed Noah until he is full, give him juice with it (regular apple juice is cheaper than Gerber stuff, just dilute it by at least 1/2), and cut out the breastfeeding for that time. Then, I slowly, meal by meal, changed from nursing to solids. Usually breakfast first, then lunch. By the time they were eating three meals, I was just nursing first thing in the morning (more just for the sake of staying in bed a couple more minutes :) ), before naptime and bedtime. Then, one by one, cut those out by feeding 'snacks'. I typically would just feed morning and night the last two months (ten to twelve months), and then just decide to stop both of those at the same time. If you cut out nursing one at a time, replacing it by solids, you really shouldn't get too full or uncomfortable for more than a day or two. When I weaned Carden at 8 months, I did get uncomfortable and then I'd wait as long as I could before pumping, trying it make it a couple more hours between each time before I pumped, and it only took four or so days for my milk to dry up.
Anyways, I hope that helps. I'm not an expert, but this way has worked for me for all three kids. :)
I think it is different for every baby, unfortunately. I started weaning Lisi a couple of months ago and I honestly can't tell you how I did it. I remember the first thing I worked on was getting her nice and full before bedtime. Now she takes a jar of food and about an hour later she takes a bottle of formula (in your case you could nurse Noah). Then I worked on the other two meals. Something that worked for me was replacing her lunch time feeding with a jar of baby food and a little later some juice. It doesn't matter what kind of food it is. He'll probably let you know what kind of food he likes. Now Lisi eats three jars a day (Noah may eat more than that..I know a baby who has two jars each meal!). I nurse her in the morning. She has juice mid morning. She has a bottle in the afternoon (usually before her afternoon nap) and she has a bottle at night before bed. She usually snacks on cheerios and goldfish throughout the day as well. Good luck!
okay, i dont know how much help i can give you, but i will tell my mom to look at your blog because she would be the best to ask all those questions to. when chase was 9 months old he bit me and i popped his head and told him no, because, of course, it hurt and he wouldn't have a thing to do with me and nursing. So trying to be a good mom i pumped for him everytime i needed to, so it was pretty easty for me to do it. Soon after i started just giving him breastmilk in the morning and at night. Exactly how old is he? i think that the fruit puffs and juice would be fine at church, but like i said i am no expert. and as far as fruit and veggies go i dont really think it matters when you give it to him, but i typically would feed chase the fruit in the morning and veggies in the evening. my mom always told me that babies will eat only as much as they need, so if he acts like he wants more, feed him till he isnt interested. thats what i did with chase. okay, i know i kinda rambled, but i hope i helped some. haha. like i said, i will def get mom to look at this and help you out! she was a lifesaver for me!!
You guys are the best! Thanks for the advice.
Well, Taylor is now officially a year old, and I haven't completely weaned her yet (I never thought I would breastfeed this long!), so I don't know if I'm the best to give advice. I did, however, only breastfeed her once today at bedtime for the first time- yeah!
I have kind of alternated Taylor's liquids and solids to try to get her to eat more. For example, I would breastfeed her when she woke up, then 30 min to an hour later feed her some fruit and cereal, then around noon or naptime breastfeed again, then 2:30 or so feed solid foods, then breastfeed a few hours later, etc, etc Of course, the times varied. Everything I've read said to just cut out one breastfeeding at a time. So, what I started doing was just replacing a breastfeeding with a bottle feeding (even though she wouldn't drink much). I started feeding her one bottle a day, then two, and then I said I'm only going to breastfeed her first thing in the morning and at bedtime, so when she starts tugging on my shirt during the day and I know that she wants something, I just fix a bottle. This morning, I got up and decided to try to give her a bottle instead of breastfeeding, and I was very happy that she didn't put up a fight, and she chugged the whole thing without stopping! I went ahead and breastfed her before bedtime. She probably would have taken a bottle then, too, but it's probably more for my sake to get my body adjusted. I think my milk supply has decreased anyway, so luckily, so far, I haven't had any problems with feeling too full. Things that I have read said if you start to get too full or engorged to just pump enough to give yourself a little bit of relief. Don't completely empty yourself because that's just telling your body to keep producing more.
I don't think there's any specific amount of solid food to feed them to replace breastfeeding. Like everyone else has said, it depends on the baby, and they tend to let you know when they are full. Of course, in Taylor's case, she's so tiny that her doctor said not to worry about overfeeding her and to try to push as many calories as I could. You'll have Noah's 9 month check up coming up soon, so you might can discuss that with your doctor.
Yes, he can have juice. I've always heard not to give them juice in a bottle, that they should start taking it in a sippy cup. I don't remember the specific reason why. I guess it's just to start getting them used to drinking out of a cup. It can take a while for them to get the hang of it- Taylor can hold her cup, but we still usually have to tilt it up for her so she actually gets something out of it- so it's a good idea to go ahead and get him started with that if you haven't already.
I don't think it matters what you feed them at certain times. When we started feeding Taylor solids, Alisha just gave me the advice to think about things that you eat at certain times of the day and you can follow that. For example, I don't eat veggies first thing in the morning, so I don't feed her veggies in the morning. I usually feed her fruit and cereal in the morning, then we went to veggie and cereal at night, then fruit and veggie in the afternoon, then added in meat dinners, etc. I've mainly tried to give her pretty balanced meals. I started out trying to feed her the same amount of fruits and veggies, but then she started getting picky and wanted mostly fruits and since I needed to get her to eat more and gain weight, I fed her more fruits but still tried to get her to eat as many veggies as possible. If you haven't checked out gerber.com already, that's a good website. I've gotten a lot of information from that. They even give you example feeding schedules and amounts to eat. Of course, I never followed it closely because I wasn't about to measure out everything I fed her (I always just estimate, like if I feed her 1/2 a jar, she gets 2 oz), but it's something to give you an idea.
I think you will be just fine only breastfeeding him twice a day. In fact, if we had been able to get Taylor to take a bottle better, I would have started that earlier too. I think now is really good timing for you to start. It is very apparent that Noah is not lacking in the nutritional department ;-) so I think you're safe.. hehe.. He still needs to get fluids. I don't think it matters if you alternate the fluids and solids like I did or give them both to him at the same time. I think it is recommended that they don't drink more than 4 oz of juice a day. A lot of kids will drink nothing but juice. We give Taylor snacks throughout the day, too. We started giving her those little puffs during sacrament, so I could at least make it through sacrament without having to breastfeed her. I've still been giving her animal crackers and juice or formula during primary to hold her over until we get home. I always feel like she doesn't eat as well on Sundays because church is right in the middle of one of her feedings, and it's not like I can give her a full out meal at church. Then, she usually naps for a little while after we get home, so she kind of just snacks at church and misses a meal. This past Sunday, I did feed her a whole jar of fruit during Primary, so I felt better about that.
Anyways, I just wrote a novel, but I hope some of this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions!
P.S. I totally understand about being stressed about weaning. On my blog, when I posted about "having one of those days," the main problem was that I was stressed out about weaning her. Sometimes it's hard not to give in to them and breastfeed just so you can get things done that you need to do. Just take it one day at a time. You're starting early enough that I think you'll do just fine. I waited until she was a month away from turning one before I said, "OK, I've absolutely got to start weaning her now!"
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