Hints and tips for weaning (merged)

Ishtar

My sister did this with my nephew. Worked really well, and I envied her not having to take containers of puree with her everywhere (I weaned DD the 'traditional' way...). My nephew eats anything and has no food hangups - not like DD, she's quite a picky eater...not sure whether it was the weaning approach or not, but......

Anyway, I'm expecting another baby and this time there's no way I'll be pureeing anything! Way too much faff.....

D.

Floxxie

I've done this for all three of mine - they have led me and none of them were impressed with pureed food. But have I missed something? Are other parents following some kind of plan?

Floxxie

Jo_R_2

TotallyBroke wrote: »

I exclusively breast fed for first 4months then had to return to work. I expressed and used the Tommee Tippee closer to nature bottles. DS took the bottle fine from the child minder but if any family member gave the bottle he wouldn't take it. He milk intake did change once on solid meals. He dropped a day milk feed but then wanted a home time comfort suck feed. I continued to feed him his bed time milk from breast. The day after his 1st birthday I stopped (felt bad doing it on his birthday) he never batted an eyelid. Gave him warm cows milk in a beaker and that was that.
It can be done it's just trial and error. But do persevere, do not stop one day and then give in the next no matter how hard it seems that willl just confuse baby.
Good luck

I did similar when I returned to work after having DDs though this was a bit later (when they were 8 and 6 months respectively.) I continued to breastfeed at home and expressed for when they were at nursery. Tbh a fair bit of the time both of them would turn down expressed milk in a bottle/beaker and would drink water instead, then when they were honme they'd make up for it. To make sure they were getting enough calcium I used to wake them in the evenings when I went to bed for an extra feed and they often used to wake in the night once when I would feed them to sleep, as well as making sure they had various calcium-rich foods in their diets.

Neither of them were really that keen on having a bottle, so I focussed on the fact that as it was around or after 6 months I would just go straight for using a beaker and doidy cup, the latter was quite messy but the nursery nurses often found both DDs would take milk better from these. I introduced beakers around four months, not necessarily to use but for them to get used to, to play with, so once it came to actually using them they were a little familiar with what they were.

JoJoB

The doidy cups look interesting, think I will try one of those. I certainly won't let the breast/bottle issue become a battle of wills as I think this is a dangerous thing where food is concerned! Luckily I'm not working so can continue to breastfeed if all else fails - am just getting so tired with the night feeds etc that it would be great if she took a bottle again just so OH can take some of the strain sometimes. But perhaps the night feeds will drop off anyway once she starts taking in solid food anyway.

The baby-led weaning sounds great. I really wanted to hold off till 6 months so she is exclusively breastfed till then, but she is a very strong sturdy bubba who is very interested in our food already so maybe we can start introducing some rice around 5 months? She is waking at 1am then 4am then 7.30 for feeds at the mo - is this a sign she needs something more substantial?

jinky67

My DD started to do that when she was around 3 months i would let her lick things just to get the taste.....she was constantly feeding too....I would have been demented if we hadnt started to give her solids early.I did the same with DS and it hasnt caused any problems.
I have also come to conclusion that BF babies are very good at taking the mickey where feeding is concerned..my DD just got into a habit of waking up....are you sure baby is actually feeding and not just sucking at night?

JoJoB

She is definitely feeding... but to be honest I'm sure I could probably just walk her around until she goes back to sleep, she's just in the habit of feeding back to sleep now. And of course it's the easier option for me when I'm exhausted to just bring her in bed for a snuggle and a feed then pop her back in her cot.

And to think when she was 6 weeks old she was sleeping from 7 till 7! I thought I'd cracked it!

jinky67

JoJoB wrote: »

She is definitely feeding... but to be honest I'm sure I could probably just walk her around until she goes back to sleep, she's just in the habit of feeding back to sleep now. And of course it's the easier option for me when I'm exhausted to just bring her in bed for a snuggle and a feed then pop her back in her cot.

And to think when she was 6 weeks old she was sleeping from 7 till 7! I thought I'd cracked it!

I made that mistake too:rolleyes:

Krystaltips

My DD is 4 now and very rarely sleeps through the night... Sorry lol. She comes in and asks me for a cuddle now, sometimes I send her back to her own bed... If I'm too tired I just leave her in my bed and go back to sleep... Safe in the knowledge that she won't be doing it when she's 15!

Extra feeding is not neccessarily a sign that she's ready to wean, she could just be trying to increase your supply and you might find she evens back out again after a couple of weeks... Feels like forever at the moment, but in the grand scheme of things it's about 5 minutes...

Katgoddess

Argh - someone has merged two different topics. Baby Led Weaning and getting a baby to take a bottle are two completely different subjects.

If anyone is interested in BLW the wiki page probably explains it best with lots of links to all the relavant websites. If you search on youtube and flickr you will find lots of videos and photos of babies having their first taste of proper food.
Thanks for the replies everyone. :beer:

Miss_Kitty_Fantastico

i agree katgoddess

the same thing happened to my thread in the oldstyle forum on babyled weaning

im not sure how we go about keeping it seperate