Solid foods/breastmilk balance?

[Elismum]

I think this is a breastfeeding challenge . . .

I have a 7.5 mo who is a big eater. I started solid foods at 6 months. At this point he eats some purees (e.g. oatmeal and applesauce) but mostly chunky-textured mashed up foods like carrots, beans, chicken, avocado, sweet potato, pumpkin. I also let him feed himself banana and avocado and am in the process of letting him feed himself more soft foods. He eats solids 3 meals a day, usually about 4 ounces at a time. He nurses or has a bottle at daycare about an hour before his meals. Each time I feed him solids, he eats it all. He reaches for the bowl and spoon and fusses if it's not delivered soon enough. I usually stop after 4 oz because I don't want him to just gorge himself. He usually seems like he'd eat more.

I work full time, so I pump 5 times a day, nurse him 3 times and he gets 3 bottles a day of usually 5-6 oz. each at daycare. I figure he gets about 25-30 oz of breastmilk a day. He really likes nursing and I'd do it exclusively but I WOH.

This is the same amount he ate/I pumped before starting solids 6 weeks ago.

The problem is that it seems like my supply is going down. It's harder and harder to pump the 15-18 oz a day that I need to give him for daycare. But he seems hungrier and hungrier.

I expect a lot of you will say that he should only be getting the foods he can feed himself. That's great but he really seems to like the food I feed him and seems to get frustrated when I just give him a banana to eat himself. Please don't make me feel bad for spoon-feeding him.

I'm worried that he's not getting enough breastmilk but I can't seem to produce more - I've never had a huge supply, just enough to get by. I really don't want to wean him but I'm afraid he's just going to want to eat more and more foods and my milk will go down more and more and before I know it, he's weaned.

Any advice/tips/thoughts?

[tanyalynn]

The things I did to try to keep my supply matching my daughter's demand... I started pumping right before bed, and I later heard that pumping again, 30 minutes after, would be a big signal to my body to make more milk (mimicking a growth-spurting baby, since they often eat extra at the end of the day), I pumped a bit Saturday and Sunday mornings, both to increase my frig/freezer stash and to increase my supply (just do 1-2 oz at first, since you'll be nursing all day (if those are your non-working day) and you don't want to be short), and I really worked on relaxing at work while pumping and not stressing about either not pumping well or being away from my desk. Between those, we got by, but I was breast-to-mouth with breastmilk for my daughter, never got a freezer stash (son reverse cycled, so I had a huge freezer stash, just when I'd figured out how to pump enough!).