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A ? to those of you who ff and do child-led eating

602 views 8 replies 7 participants last post by  lemurmommies 
#1 ·
Dear Mamas~

do to several unfortunate circumstances that I do not want to discuss any further I need to wean DS. He's finally taking the bottle, even from me (well, we had to try several brands and he's fine with an Avent bottle now...) but I am unsure how many bottles he needs/should drink per day.
When we were still nursing it was approx. 3-4 nursing sessions per day and 3-4 per night. We are doing child-led eating so DS is self-feeding and he truly *loves* food. He's sitting in his high-chair at every meal and makes it very clear what and how much he wants to eat
I am truly amazed at how much that can be


So the question simply is - who much bottles per day are your babes getting?

TIA!
Valerie
 
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#2 ·
Your baby is just over a year, right? At that age, my ds was drinking about 3 or 4 cups (of 6-7oz) of milk per day. He now drinks 3/day.

I taught ds how to ask for milk, and now he sometimes will ask for an extra cup during the day, which makes me think that his body needs more that day.

I hope that helps. This sort of thing can vary SO much child to child.
 
#4 ·
I think I read in a chart somewhere that toddlers need anywhere from 16-24oz of milk daily and big infants need 24-40z of formula per day. What are you putting in the bottles? If I were in your situation I'd probably lean towards using formula, or a mixture of formula and whole milk, until 18-24m, or whenever I felt the baby was consistently eating a balanced diet.

If you're only using whole cow or goat milk, I'd be careful not to let the baby fill up on milk at the expense of foods that contain other nutrients (such as iron.) With formula, I'd feel a lot more comfortable simply following the baby's cues- offer botles of formula, offer a variety of whole foods, and let the baby take in however much he or she actually needs.

I'm trying to think how much cow's milk my middle DD drank at 14mo or so, when she weaned (if I had it to do over again I would have either tried harder to keep her nursing or given her formula instead of milk in those bottles). I honestly can't remember, but she probably drank a lot more cow's milk than was really healthy for her.
 
#5 ·
I'm feeding ds cow's milk, and have been since just after his birthday (I checked with my dr. on whether she thought he needed formula for longer or not).

Around the same time though, his appetite took off and he was eating lots of table foods of varying kinds. Also, I would mostly give him milk after he ate. The one exception is his morning cup - he doesn't like to eat breakfast until he's been up for over an hour, but when he first wakes up in the morning he gets a cup of milk and I get a cup of coffee


I also switched ds to a sippy cup just after his birthday. I know some people don't like them, but it worked well for us. My opinion from my own experience is that it's easier to get them off the bottle earlier than later.
 
#7 ·
AT age 12 months, both my ff'ed boys were taking 3 or 4 bottles (6-8 oz) in a 24 hour period. By 18 months, they were both down to just a bedtime bottle, as we introduced the sippy cup for mornings around 14 months or so, and phased out formula for cow's milk at 15 months.
 
#8 ·
We do EBM, formula supp., and baby-led feeding.

Katie is 15.5 mos, and 19lb. Her intake varies greatly from day to day...some days barely 14-16oz of bm/for, and some days 30oz or more. Similarly, her food intake varies, as well.

We do formula for supp. instead of cow's/goat milk b/c the WHO recommends breastmilk to age 2, and it only makes sense to me that if I can't provide her with all the bm she needs, I should supp. with the next-closest substance, which is formula. She'll get formula until 24 mos.
 
#9 ·
My DS is 10.5 months, and generally takes 32-38 ounces of formula a day, along with three meals of solids.

He is 31 inches tall and 25 pounds.
 
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