9 months old aleady!

we are trying to move toward more table/finger foods & less baby food.

they currently each get oatmeal & fruit for breakfast, a stage 2 veggie for lunch, a stage 2 meat/ veggie combo with a stage 2 fruit for dinner.

for those that are off of the gerber baby food...do you find that finger foods are more satisfying & less expensive?

i am still bf & the babies get 2 bottles of ebm during the day since i work. my dd is only taking 3 of her 6 oz. lately. do you think she is trying to drop to 3 feedings? (they feed 4 times a day now) i will ask the dr. this week at our appointment but thought i would check with other 9 monthers.

when did your babies drop to 3 bottles/ or bf sessions a day? how did you fit it in with naps & solids?

finally.... mine still are not showing much interest in crawling. they are still little rollie pollies that push up some. can i be doing anything more than tummy time to encourage the crawling? i am starting to get nervous when i read about others pulling up & crawling...even taking steps already.

thanks for reading this far...i'm full of questions & appreciate your expertise!

 

I need all of these answers too so I hope you get some good replies. I was also going to let you know that my girls aren't crawling yet either. They do spin around and scout and bounce and they can sit up from their tummies but no crawling.

 

Hi Andrea - We just turned 9 months last week, and boy we changed a lot in regards to eating in the weeks leading up to that. For starters we went to 3 bottles from 4, and we moved to almost exclusively feeding table food. I'm supplementing most meals with a Stage 2 fruit or veggie just to get rid of them.

Our previous schedule looked like this:
7:30 Bottle
8:00 Breakfast (Oatmeal/Stage 2 Fruit)
9:00 Nap
11:30 Bottle
12:00 Lunch (1 Stage 2 Fruit and 1 Veggie)
1:00 Nap
3:30 Bottle
5:30 Dinner (Same as lunch)
6:00 Bottle
6:30 Bed

Our NEW schedule is more like this - and we were able to keep our wake/sleep times pretty much the same:
7:30 Bottle
8:00 Breakfast
9:00 Nap
11:30 Lunch
12:30 Bottle
1:00 Nap
3:30 Snack
5:30 Dinner
6:00 Bottle
6:30 Bed

We are feeding the kids pretty much whatever we eat within reason. I'm saving our leftovers from the night before and feeding them that for their dinner the next day. Breakfasts consist of whole grain waffles or toast and lots of different diced up fruits. Lunch could be organic mac & cheese, single servings of frozen veggies, a sandwich cut up in small pieces etc.

They are loving loving loving the table food so much more than the baby food, and it's made their meal times so much more pleasurable for everyone.

In regards to the crawling and pulling up, I have one who is crawling, standing and cruising (Henry) and one who could care less (Ellie). She has recently started army crawling, but is weeks behind when her brother started. No worries, as I'm sure you know, ALL babies are different!

Isn't this a great age. We find ourselves laughing at and with these babies multiple times a day! Good Luck! Suzi

 

susie..
so so soooo helpful to see your schedule changes.

so you just pushed back the mid morning/lunch bottle one hour & replaced the 3:30 bottle with a snack. did you increase the size of these bottles since you elimnated one? how did they adjust with dropping their 3:30 bottle & waiting an hour in the early afternoon?

i noticed you feed dinner & then a bottle 30 minutes later. do they take the bottle that soon after eating? i have been doing dinner around 4:30 & nursing them around 5:45. they are not nursing very long at this time so i wondered if they were too full from dinner. i contemplated switching the nursing with solids (bf at 4:30 & offering solids at 5:45) but am not sure. they always say that solids should not interfere with bm/formula but at what point do solids start accounting for more?

it's kind of confusing. but your schedule really really helped. would love to see more!

 

We are not 9 months yet, but we are on 3 bottles as my children decided 3 was what they wanted and the PED was ok with it.

Here is our schedule.

8:00 wake
9:00 bottle and oatmeal with fruit.
10:30 nap for 2 hours
12:30 wake and have solids. About 8oz. each followed by playing with cheerios
2:30 bottle
3:30 nap for 2 hours.
5:30 wake and solids. About 8oz. Usually 1/2 a banana and a stage 2 meat/veggie combo. Usually followed by a teething biscuit, or toast or something they can self feed.
7:00 bath
8:00 bottle, brush teeth, and sleep!

Hope this helps!

 

QUOTE(andreap @ Mar 4 2008, 02:09 PM) [snapback]652537[/snapback]
susie..
so so soooo helpful to see your schedule changes.

so you just pushed back the mid morning/lunch bottle one hour & replaced the 3:30 bottle with a snack. did you increase the size of these bottles since you elimnated one? how did they adjust with dropping their 3:30 bottle & waiting an hour in the early afternoon?

i noticed you feed dinner & then a bottle 30 minutes later. do they take the bottle that soon after eating? i have been doing dinner around 4:30 & nursing them around 5:45. they are not nursing very long at this time so i wondered if they were too full from dinner. i contemplated switching the nursing with solids (bf at 4:30 & offering solids at 5:45) but am not sure. they always say that solids should not interfere with bm/formula but at what point do solids start accounting for more?

it's kind of confusing. but your schedule really really helped. would love to see more!


I posted a topic about a month ago about going down to 3 bottles, and I got tons of good advice. I was originally going to just drop a bottle and replace it with a snack (leaving all other times the same), but then after getting advice, it just made more sense to space the bottles out more evenly. So 7:30, 12:30 and 6:00 was what we landed on. It did confuse things a bit because we eat breakfast after a bottle and lunch and dinner before a bottle, but it doesn't seem to bother the babies, so it works for us. We had been offering 7oz bottles, and they weren't alwasy finishing them. We now offer 8oz bottles, and they finish them almost always - espeically the one after dinner. With the exception of bath nights, we go right to bottle from dinner, and I don't know how/why, but sometimes I even have to make Henry an extra 2oz on that one!!

I have to be honest, I proposed the new schedule to our daycare provider on a Sunday, and she ran with it on Monday, and it worked great. By the time we had them back during the day (Fri-Sun), they were doing great and didn't seem affected by it at all.

Let me know if I can help in any other way!
Suzi

 

Susie your schedule sounds perfect. I think I will print it off and try to follow it. Your wake & sleep schedules are already very close to my girls. I think when I add breakfast that we will easily transition to 3 bottles a day. Thanks for the good tips and I didn't mean to hijack this post.