Baby Food 3 Times a Day !

Hi Girls,

My twins are 7 mo old, I feed them baby good once a day around noon, they had been having only one vegetable with cereal and yesterday i introduced them fruits for the first time, so it was a 3 dish meal, ( Cereal, Vegetable, Fruit ) i haven't tried fruits just by themselves. My first Q is that should i try them single fruit or just go with it now?

My second Q they have had most of the veggies by themselves for the allergy purpose but now the pedi told me they are ready to eat 3 times a day, and i have no idea how to do that, My reg schedule is 8 am formula, 12 - cereal, veg, 4 formula, 8 formula. How do i add baby food in this schedule, coz when they eat baby food they won't drink milk. They eat abt 3.5 oz of veg, 3 oz of cereal and 1 small jar of fruit.

Can you please help me how to do it, how do you guys do it, cereal at breakfast and veggie and fruit at lunch and dinner?

and one more thing after how long they eat can we give bath, i am used to giving them bath and then bottle of formula but now things are changing and i am all confused, i'll have to give them dinner then bath and then formula. Please help me make a schedule :unsure:


Please help me out, i am soooooooooooo confusedddddddd.

Thanks a lot
Mina

 

You can start to combine foods they've already had if they didn't show any signs of allergy. You can definitely do fruit alone, too, or fruit and veg, or fruit and cereal, or whatever. Any combination you want, so long as you only introduce one new food every couple of days - you want some time to make sure they aren't allergic, and you don't want to get mixed up by having two new foods at once.

Our ped's advice was that they should be eating 3 full meals by nine months, and I also had a heck of a time figuring out how to fit in three meals, so I took about a month to figure out a schedule that worked for us. That meant some days we had three meals, some days we had two, some days we had two and a snack, but we didn't settle on anything until right at 9 months, and they were FINE with that, and I was a lot happier. It really is confusing.

You should still be giving them formula no more than half an hour or an hour before feeding solids, because formula or breastmilk is really the food they need the most until a year. We nursed about six or seven times a day then, and I THINK I did do:

milk at wake up (6 am)
milk at 9, then breakfast
milk at noon, then lunch
milk at 3
milk at 5:30, then dinner, bath,etc.
milk at bed
milk once at night

That meant the meals got pretty close together, and they never really ate huge meals until around a year when they dropped another session. It's ok if they don't eat a lot of solids right now!

You could try - bottle at 8, breakfast at 8:30 or 9; bottle at 11:30, lunch at noon; bottle at 4, dinner at 5; bottle at 8.

 

I do

wake bottle 6:30-7
30-45 minlater breakfast cereal with fruit mixed
nap
10:30-11 bottle
30-45 min later lunch veggies and fruit
nap
2:30-3 bottle
sometimes snack - fruit in mess feeder or a few puffs

nap( trying to drop this)
when they wake up usually 5 small bottle and dinner- veggies

6-6:30 bottle
bath bed


I don't due cereal at every meal because my Lo's get constipated from to much cereal so this has worked for me. At 8 months I will introduce meats. My Lo's also get constipated from yogurt so I had to stop that too. I would have given them yogurt for lunch too. I had to go to 3 meals because my DS is a hungry hungry boy. He still drinks 4 8 oz bottles, sometimes 9 oz and the food.

 

QUOTE(Zabeta @ May 14 2009, 02:56 PM) [snapback]1313855[/snapback]
milk at wake up (6 am)
milk at 9, then breakfast
milk at noon, then lunch
milk at 3
milk at 5:30, then dinner, bath,etc.
milk at bed
milk once at night

This is pretty much what we did too. Once they went to finger foods (around 10/11 months) I added a "snack" at three after that bottle. We also weren't doing a nighttime bottle at that point. Our ped wanted to make sure they got formula above anything else b/c it has more calories and I had/have little guys.

 

I agree, we just do the solids 30+ minutes after a breastfeeding session... We didn't start solids until almost 8 months... so we weren't doing it at 7 mo. but I think the concept is the same... I delayed b/c I didn't have the time and b/c I didn't want to introduce it all so early... and boy, was I right... it takes time!! but I guess its part of learning, huh?!

I started with a cereal & vege or cereal & fruit. For the noon meal I did whole milk yogurt and either vege or fruit. Yogurt is supposed to be great for digestion and keeping them regular... so that's another idea.

 

Thank you so much girls, i really do appreciate all your ideas

One more quick q, when you do give them bottle, how much formula do you give, my DS takes 6 - 8 oz of formula in the morning feed, at lunch baby food- no milk, around 3-4 6 to 8 oz milk and bedtime same 6-8 oz milk and NO MIDNIGHT FEEDINGS

Thank you so much, i will definatly try to make a schedule like this that you all have suggested Please do let me know how much milk should i make before or after lunch and how much food they should eat, i don't want to over feed them coz the pedi said they are gaining too quickly.

DD is 28 1/2 in tall with 21 lbs
DS is 28 in tall with 22 lbs

since they have been only on one meal a day and 3 to 4 bottles per day, i don't want them to over feed. and is the weight ok or are they over weight?

Thank you so much,

Mina

 

Super Baby food Is a great resource for feeding babies and schedules. Check out an excerpt on 7 month olds here: Super Baby Food

Milk is still the primary source of nutrients. I think your babies sound healthy and honestly as soon as they get mobile they will slim down but im not a doctor
At 7 months we were doing 2 meals. Cereal w/fruit for breakfast and veggies for lunch. Thats it.
At 8 months we added the 3rd meal.
At 9 months we added a snack.
We slowly increased.

 

I have heard that at this age they are supposed to get 18 ounces of formula minimum. Mine have really started getting distracted while eating and not taking nearly as much of their bottles but this is what we do:

6:30 AM - 8 ounce bottle (have started taking only about 7 ounces)

10:30 AM - Oatmeal made with an ounce of formula and mixed with fruit

11:00 AM - 6 ounce bottle

2:30 PM - Oatmeal made with an ounce of formula mixed with vegetable

3:00 PM - 6 ounce bottle

5:30 PM - Fruit, Vegetable

7:00 PM - 8 ounce bottle (taking about 7 ounces)

Bed and start all over again. But, mine are smaller and there definitely aren't issues with too much weight gain so we want to make sure they are getting as much formula as possible!

 

Thanks for posting this. I am having SUCH a hard time figuring out how to get in 3 meals a day as well. For about a month or maybe a bit longer, we have been doing solids at 8am and about 6pm. But we're missing lunch. Plus, feeding is such a struggle with my girls. They simply don't show a huge interest in solids.

Glad to see some schedules that work!!

 

At that age our pedi wanted to boys to get 22-25 oz of formula. I think they can get up to 30. I usually could only get 16-18oz in them though. Try and do the bottle before the meal and see what you get. My boys are in the bottom 5% for weight and didn't hit 20lbs until 14/15 months. From what I understand though 20lbs at that age isn't all that unusual.

 

As far as how much solids, remember they're really still for practice. Until about 9 months or more, they're really not getting a lot of nutrients from solids - that's why it's so important to start with the formula and then offer food. If you do it that way, you can just follow their lead about how much they want to eat. Don't try to get a set amount into them, just feed them until they turn away or fuss or start spitting things out. Some days that was after about 2 teaspoons of food! They'll eat more as they get better at it, and when they do, they'll also start drinking less formula on their own.

The other advantage of this strategy is that you don't really have to worry about their weight. Babies have a really amazing ability to eat exactly as much as they need.