When babies are 4-6 months, you hear a lot about weaning. In fact, it's almost all you hear about. And so the process begins. But when does it end? When can you - or do you - say your child is officially weaned?
Emily's food day goes something like this.
Breakfast
Bowl of porridge/Cheerios/Oats bar
Cup of milk
A biscuit
Snack (only if it looks like lunch will be late, for eg if we are out)
Fruit/Breadstick
Lunch
Could be any of the following, amongst others:
Fried/scrambled egg on toast with beans
Peanut butter sandwich
Froga tat-Tarja
Mini Pizza
Fish Fingers and Potatoes
Jacket Potato with tuna or chicken filling
Followed by fruit as dessert
Snack
Breadstick/Fruit/Biscuit
Dinner
Whatever we're eating!
Followed by a yoghurt as dessert and/or some fruit
Throughout the day she'll drink approximately two bottles of water, and has 8oz of milk at bedtime.*
She will sit through a meal, eat with a fork off a plate or bowl, and drink out of an open cup. I know she is capable of eating with a spoon too but I am not yet brave enough to let her eat a whole meal with one, therefore she'll usually happily eat with her hands.
Save for that bedtime bottle, which I'm happy for her to keep having for as long as she pleases (she's given clear enough signals when it was time to drop her other daytime bottles), I consider her weaned. But I wondered, is there actually an end to the process? When is the point a child is considered "weaned"?
* Three days later, Emily dropped her bedtime bottle too. I think I can safely say she's now weaned. (I'm a bit sad!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
this may sound like a stupid question but what were your clear signs when Emily wanted to drop bottles? i've recently ended up dropping two (although i use one to mix his porridge now so it's not 'dropped' as such), not because he wasn't finishing them but because 3 daytime 5oz bottles and 3 meals seemed a tad excessive and all that feeding took large amounts of time out of our day! he doesn't seem to have missed them at all and is still wetting lots (he drinks some water too!) so perhaps he just kept having them because they were offered? sorry for the long comment haha, just interested as to what emily's signs were as oliver never really had any (except for not missing them once they weren't offered). xx
ReplyDeleteps - he still has that 8oz bedtime bottle too, i'll be so sad whenever that eventually goes!!
I think it was pretty much the way you described it... her interest in food grew to the extent that an additional bottle of milk seemed excessive. She wasn't really fussed any longer about whether she was given her bottle immediately upon waking or not, before that she'd go crazy without it. I knew I was right when I stopped offering it and she didn't even notice its absence. She does still have an ounce or two in a mug, but I suspect that's more for the sake of drinking out of a mug "like mummy" than for the milk itself!
DeleteYou're obviously doing a good job of going with your gut. And if you don't give him one of his bottles one day and he acts like it's the end of the world, maybe give him a few more days and try again ;) It's all trial and error really isn't it?
I've been getting the feeling lately that she's not really that into her bedtime bottle any longer either... it really will be sad when that one goes! It'll feel like a huge chunk of "bedtime" is missing! :( xxxx