Really confused about his feeding :(

[SamiH]

Hi ladies - i dont have much time so I hope this makes sense.

My little boy turned 1 a few weeks ago and we are still predominantly b/f - I work 2 days a week and at child care he has around 200mls of formula during the day (and currently offering him 50mls of cows milk which he couldnt care less about LOL)

Anyway - my dilemma is I don't know what he wants at the moment. We get up and on work days I b/f him straight away - but then he is not too interested in brekkie 20 mins later - however I dont have time to do it the other way around. On home days (the other 5 days a week) I give him brekkie first - and then offer a feed around 45 mins later - and he doesnt really want it!!! If I wait until before his first sleep he will have a few obligatory sucks but pulls off after a minute when the let down comes in - ugh.

I feel like I am forcing a feed into him. However, he wont drink much water at the moment - around 80 mls a day, and will have around 20mls of cows milk out of a straw or cup - so I feel he really needs these feeds to keep his fluids up. His nappies are ok - but some could be wetter for my liking .

So, is he starting to self wean do you think?

He is happy to have a middle of the night feed of course - but I have cut this out to maybe 2 nights a week max depending on his disruptive he is being to the rest of the household hahahaha.

What do I do - I am concerned about his intake of fluid if I dont offer him boobie and let him lead. I have many other things on as well so rely on a bit of routine to these feeds - travelling DH, school runs, appointments etc.

Any help or advice appreciated - hope that makes sense!

[SamiH]

anyone??

[AmandaJ]

Sami I'm not really sure, maybe he is starting to slowly wean.

Julian is having around 4 sometimes 5 feeds a day, so one at around 5am then depending one after school drop off but only sometimes (once every three days or so), then one for lunch, one for dinner and one in the night.

At this age they are cutting down, plus they are quite efficient as well.

Not sure I helped any but I didn't want no one to reply.

Big

[MantaRay]

Sami, that's a bit of a tough one. I think a few things there are related. Firstly, he is probably not very hungry in the morning due to the night feeds. He could well be having the night feeds for comfort rather than food because he is away from you during the day some days. He is probably not drinking as much as you would like during the day because he is feeding at night.

There are a few different things to try, but it might be that night-weaning is an option. This could be easy, or it could be hard. The chances are if you night-weaned, he'd have a good breakfast and might drink more during the day. Another option would be to leave things the way they are. Most likely he has morning tea at day care fairly early on, so he is probably eating enough in the mornings when he has the bf first. I don't think he is necessarily self-weaning at this stage, but he might continue to drop feeds over time until he is. That's what happened with my boys.

I don't think this has been much help, but I guess that I wanted to let you know that it sounds like normal behaviour for a baby with a working mum, and many mums can feed for months and even years afterwards.

[Kmn]

There's also a lot of water in some foods (like bananas are 3/4 water, so is yoghurt, most fruits and vegies are more than 3/4 water), so his total amount of drinking will be less than before he was eating. If I add up all the drinking and bf-ing that my 18 month old does it's probably 500 ml or so - but he seems happy and healthy... I wouldn't worry about the fluids unless you see signs of lack of fluid (e.g. hard poo). Keep offering water pretty often though.
I would stick to the BF first most days and not worry if he doesn't want brekky. He's starting to self wean, in the sense that he's not automatically going to want a boob unless he's hungry or thirsty or tired or wanting a cuddle or..... But finishing self weaning is probably a long time off!