Author Topic: 5mo how much solid and how often  (Read 2319 times)

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Offline yufeiisme

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5mo how much solid and how often
« on: August 12, 2016, 02:09:09 am »
Hello mummies

How  often did you give your los solid at the very beginning? What did you offer and how much to offer?

Although  this is my second baby but I feel like a complete new parent! I even forgot to change ds' nappy the first night he was born!

Anyway initially I wanted to wait until he's six months to offer solid but he's been showing a lot of interest at our food when we eat. He is 5 mo so I gave him some baby rice cereal mixed with breastmilk last night and he took it well. Coincidently, he only woke once last night for a feed (recently he's been waking three times during the night to feed). He's ebf and feeds about four times during the day and twice in the night. Should I keep offering him solid just once a day or can I increase to twice a day? TIA

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Re: 5mo how much solid and how often
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2016, 08:35:17 am »
I know you are already aware that the guides are to wait until 6 months.
Even at 6 months the guidance portion sizes are tiny, a couple of teaspoons counts as a 'meal'.  Although you might have seen a less hungry baby over night last night baby rice doesn't really offer much in the way of nutrition and his breast milk will give him more calories and nutrition than any solids can at this age.  He might have felt 'fuller' due to the rice but might not take in as much in the way of calories as he would with breast milk only.

Guidance at 6 months is one meal per day, Tracy's introduction to solids from 6 months had 2 meals per day, it's here if you'd like a look:
Weaning Guidelines from Secrets of the Baby Whisperer
(scroll down there for another helpful link with lots of suggestions of what to feed LO)
Then increasing to 2 meals around 7 months and 3 meals around 8 months. Later on when meals are fully established snacks might be added morning and afternoon.

Some find LO is ready for 3 meals earlier than these ages, it seems to be more common for BLW (finger foods only, no puree) to offer more 'meals' in the day but these are generally very small tastes, LO self feeds so can only eat as much as they can get in their own mouth which is often not very much, licking and sucking, learning about tastes and textures is more the focus rather than 'eating'.
The important thing with either the puree route or the BLW route is that the milk intake does not drop at all, solids are in addition to milk and do not replace any of the milk feeds.

I would try to hold off on solids for a few more weeks and perhaps use that time to look into the benefits of finger foods.  In the UK now the advice is to either skip puree altogether or if purees are used to also introduce finger foods at 6 to 7 months.  Learning to manipulate food with their hands is great for fine motor development and manipulating food in their mouth is great for speech development, plus baby leads on how big the portion is so they are not coaxed into eating more than needed.  I found with my DS he even appeared to have an inbuilt ability to balance out his food groups, I was amazed, he knew when he'd had enough carbs and wanted veg for instance or how much dairy his body needed.  Worth looking into IMO.
Here's a link if you are interested:
Baby-Led Weaning


Offline yufeiisme

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Re: 5mo how much solid and how often
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2016, 03:03:45 am »
Thank you for taking the time and providing me such useful info. I am contemplating if to offer solid because my doctor suggested that I should start ds on solid from 5mo... There are so many different guidelines nowadays and even the health nurses will give you different opinions depending on whom you see. I'll go through the links today!

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Re: 5mo how much solid and how often
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2016, 06:57:03 am »
I know, it's so confusing with people giving different guidance.
Let us know if you have any more questions and we'll try to help :)


Offline Martini~

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Re: 5mo how much solid and how often
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2016, 08:58:01 am »
Hmmm if that helps I was checking WHO recommendations couple of weeks ago and the advice was weaning around 6mo (it may mean slightly earlier or later, depends on a child). For 6-8mo WHO recommends 2-3meals and 9-23mo 3-4 solid meals. As Creations said, more meals usually mean that they are smaller. Also I second the advice re baby rice - I used it as a first food and it worked very well for me - but, I used a teeny tiny portion of it (15-30ml of milk with 1 tbs of baby rice with 1 tbs of fruit). The whole meal was given to my DS after his BT milk but before bath so in addition to his milk not instead. I didn't decrease milk portion just offer a small solid top-up.. And it helped us to abandon DF - but DS intake of milk at 6-12mo was around 700-750ml. We  had 3 meals quite quickly but 3rd one (in our case breakfast) was very tiny and when his appetite went down for some weeks I usually went back to 2meals.

I would say that important thing is to understand that solid meals are needed because of iron and additional energy after 6mo but they should be a top up not given instead. When the appetite goes down just prioritize milk and reduce solid portions. Some children will love ther solids and that's great, they can eat much just from the beginning but it should be their choice and you should always check if they are not interested more in milk:).
~Marta

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Re: 5mo how much solid and how often
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2016, 10:11:06 am »
Iron stores which are present at birth are lower or depleted around 6 months and many people advise starting babies on iron rich solid sources such as meat and greens, however it's been shown that the iron available in breast milk is easily absorbed so there should be no panic at all if LO doesn't take to solids much in the early days or if they are not keen on the iron rich foods immediately, they will get what they need from the breast milk.
Formula is enriched with the correct vitamins an nutrients including iron.
Whether baby is breast or formula fed there is no need to be concerned about iron rich foods or iron supplements unless there is another medical concern.
http://kellymom.com/nutrition/vitamins/iron/

There are guides for vitamin supplements which vary country to country.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2016, 10:14:42 am by creations »