Milk or Solids first at 9m

DD is 9 Months tomorrow (last weight was 1 week ago and she is 7.9kg) and generally i've always given her a bottle before giving her solid foods. As she doesn't consistently eat all her solid foods and I haven't got her drinking good amounts of water yet I'm always worried she won't get enough fluid so have kept up the milk.

In the morning she gets up and has 180ml milk and then I give her weet bix with pear/banana farex mixed in OR maybe apple & oatmeal. She generally eats half of the weet bix but on the odd occasion will surprise me and eat it all.

For lunch she again has milk first (usually between 120-180ml) and then she has lunch of a meat/vegie dish with some fruit/yoghurt depending on how interested she seems in food.

She has a bottle mid-late afternoon which is again about 120-180ml depending then she doesn't have anything else till about 5pm when I give her dinner of a meat/vegie dish with some more fruit and maybe some cheese and a biscuit while i make up her bath. She then has her last bottle before bedtime (about 7pm) and again can be between 120-180ml. Is 4 bottles a day too much at this age or is it fine?

Should I just keep this routine up or should I be offering her solids now before milk. If YES, then how do I keep her fluid intake up if she isn't having water (I'm onto my 4th type of sippy cup in the water department) as obviously if she eats solid food first she'll be less interested in milk.

I'm also a little worried about the morning one as she really goes nuts when she hears me shake it up for her and really gulps it straight down.

P.S. How much water per day is a good amount for her to drink?

I would offer a bottle when she first wakes then do brekky a bit later

Same for lunch and dinner as well. I always offered boob/bottle after they had eaten even when we first started solids.

Water is a tricky one. Have you tried those dinky cups? they aren't non spill though.. Or just a plain water bottle.. Also the nuby ones at woolies are great.

HTH

Ok Miss M is a few weeks older - but this is her routine - and it works for her, she is gaining a good amount of weight (well we don't weigh her often, but it feels like she is getting heavier!!)

Wake up (round 6.30/7.00) = bottle
Breakfast - 8.30 - so I give her toast and some fruit usually and water at the end of the meal.
Then she naps
When she wakes up from her nap she is usually thirsty so will drink some water then out of her sippy cup.
Then she will have lunch at 12.00
Then a bottle at 1.30 - she drinks ALL of this bottle
Then she will have a nap
Then dinner at 5.30 with water
Bottle at 6.30

Sometimes she still has a bottle at 10.00pm as well - depends if she is sleeping or not. IF she wakes up she gets one, or else we let her sleep.

She used to have a bottle after waking up from her morning nap - but she just wasn't finishing it, and wasn't finishing all her others either. So with the huge break between 1 and 2 bottles - I have found this makes her more likely to drink it all.

Anyway - thats just an idea of what we do here :)

ETA - forgot to add - we don't use a sippy cup as such - we use a straw cup and have since she was 6 months. She didn't know what to do with a sippy cup so I got her a straw one of her brother's and she goes to town on it ;)

Hi there

I get really confused about this too. Tara seems more interested in solids at the moment than milk.

Our current really loose routine is:

7am - bottle
7.30am - breakfast (apple/oatmeal, toast and water)
9am - nap
10.30am - snack fruit (handheld) or custard and water)
11.30-12noon - veges
12.30pma - bottle and then bed
12.30pm - 3pm sleep
3pm - snack (bickie/fruit and water)
5pm - dinner (pasta and veges) + water
6pm - bottle/bath
6.30pm - bed

I do base this around Julias day too, I put them both to bed at 12.30pm for their day sleep and feed them dinner both together at 5pm and bed at 6.30pm - 7pm.

With water, she has only started to drink it recently from a Tomee Tippee Nuby cup that has a sippy cup spout made from the same flexibility at the bottle teats. She cant work out straws. I do however put extra 20mls of water in her formula so her poos dont get a pebbly.