milk & food

i am just now starting to wean them off formula onto milk. I am unsure how to do this. I waited until the doctor said to do it. we had our 12 month visit yesterday and he asked me if I had and I said I was waiting for his ok before I did it. he just told me that I should slowely introduce regular whole milk. they have been on similac soy formula this whole time and taking 26ozs. a day. I did drop bottles so they get 3-4 bottles a day. 8ozs. naptime and bedtime. then 6ozs. afternoon and 4-6 when they first wake up. they have been eating 3 times a day. cereal and fruit am rice cereal and veggies lunch gerber graduates for dinner or stage 3 jar dinners. also get real peices of fruit. snacks are usually cheerios, they also get juice diluted with water during the day. they won't drink regular plain water why i don't know. sometimes i give them waffles in the am or bagels but they seem to want to shove the whole peice in their mouth and choke so i stopped that for now. i feel like i should be doing more but am unsure i give them whatever i eat for dinner so we have a wide variety at dinnertime.

i don't like fish and DH does sometimes. i have never cooked it either. i just hate seafood. i know i need to feed them some because it is healthy for them but is there some way i could get them to have the nutrients without giving them fish. i saw vitamins in the health food store and was unsure about it. what do you do about this. what i guess i am asking is what do you feed your babies and what do you think i should give mine at this age. also how do i get them to drink milk besides formula.

sorry so long just thought i would give a background along with it.

 

come on girls someone has to have something to say even if it is i am doing fine

 

First...relax! You're doing fine. I see that you could "broaden" some of their food options with some more fingerfoods perhaps.

Milk...before transitioning we were on 3 8oz bottles about 30 minutes before meals. When we transitioned, right after turning a year, we replaced the dinner bottle with a sippy of whole milk offered with dinner. Did this for about a week, then we switched the lunch bottle with a sippy of whole milk offered with lunch, and then finally the breakfast bottle. At first, they did not drink much, but they got used to it (also offered milk with morning snack but offered water during the day and during afternoon snack). So don't be alarmed if their intake drops off for the first couple of weeks while transitioning. Mine would not drink whole milk from a bottle...it was like they were confused because the bottle wasn't warm so we just put milk in the sippies (Nuby ones).

Food options...starting at one year we offered pretty much exclusively table foods. Now for the morning they eat instant oatmeal and yogurt which I feed but most other meals are finger foods. We do:

Grilled cheese (diced up)
diced ham or turkey
string cheese (string it for them)/cheese in general
cheerios, other cereals for snacks, etc
toast, waffles, pancakes, etc (diced up)
peas, corn, diced carrots, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, broccoli, etc
french fries/sweet potato fries (diced up)
meatballs, popcorn chicken, etc (cut in half)
crackers (cheez its, ritz, oyster, etc)
fruit diced, grapes, bananas, apples, blueberries, etc (cut in bite size pieces)
scrambled eggs
hot dogs/corn dogs (diced)
fish sticks (diced up)

That's just part of a list...I just make sure everything is cut bite size for them. Certain fish/seafood should be avoided until 2-3 years of age so I only offer fish sticks so far...no other seafood at this time in my house for the boys.

We also started raisins about 2 months ago (at daycare...I was too scared at home because of the choke hazard but they did well with them) and mine love raisins and other small pieces of dried fruit.

I asked our ped about vitamins at our one year check, and she did not recommend them unless there was a void in their diet such as no fruits or vegetables so I'd ask your ped about the vitamins.

Hope this helps you some...good luck and welcome to the 1-4 forum!

 

We are also transitioning off of formula, it's going pretty well. Right now, mine get 4oz in the morning, 4oz before PM nap and 6oz before bed. Once in a while at daycare they get more, I love my provider, but she forgets that I'm weaning them I think! We struggled with the sippy even though I've been giving it to them for about six months. But they are doing better. We give them some of our skim milk if we run out of whole--same vitamins, not fat, but it works in a pinch.

I agree with PP, you might want to consider broadening their finger food, she also gave some great suggestions, we do almost all of those. My two are off of baby food and baby cereal. I have a few frozen cubes/jars to finish up, but they don't show much interest. In addition to many of the items above, ours also love Cream of Wheat, ALL fresh and canned fruit, I just got some dried apricots and cranberries, those were a hit. We also do animal crackers, yogurt, frozen veggies, deli meat, summer sausage, baked beans and quick breads (banana, pumpkin) and give them whatever we have for supper.

 

oh i never thought about fish sticks. that is perfect. thank you for that list it was great. i am going to try some of those see how they like them. I guess i still see them as my babies and needing to be spoon fed. they do like to pick things up and eat them so i will give them more of a variety. thanks sooo much

 

We were at 3 bottles and 3 meals at 10 months. I went cold turkey off the bottles of formula at about 11 1/2 months but actually brought back the morning bottle because I was concerned they weren't getting enough milk. I put 4oz of formula and then fill the rest of the bottle (about 6oz) with whole milk. Next week after their 12 month check-up we'll be dropping that morning bottle. They now like the whole milk and don't have a problem drinking it from the sippy.

I used to give them a little watered down juice once a day, but the milk was more important so they get no juice for now. After we're outside (it's 90 here daily now), I give them a sippy of ice water which they will drink some of.

The finger foods I started with were puffs and cheerios. Even the puffs I cut in half at first. They really liked the gerber graduates ravolis, which I could cut into pieces. At first I cut everything into pea-sized bites.

Breakfast is baby oatmeal mixed with baby fruit - it's easy and they didn't like the regular oatmeal. If they eat their oatmeal they get a microwave pancake which they love.

Lunch is usually ravolis, toasted cheese or chicken. I try to sneak in some cooked veggies. Whole milk yogurt and fruit for dessert.

The afternoon snack is goldfish crackers and cheese.

Dinner is whatever we eat, diced small...even pizza. I haven't given them fish yet. They also like the Progressive soups, especially the chicken and wild rice. I drain off the broth and cut up the chicken chunks. They eat the rice and carrots too.

They have a sippy with whole milk at every meal.

I started with gerber graduates and worked up from there. Once they figure out that real people food tastes better then the baby food and the graduates, they don't look back!!

PM me if you'd like. I know the solids was the hardest part for me to get through and I'm still working on it.

 

Thank you sunshinetwins. i can't believe they are growing up so fast. wow ......at dinner i give them whatever we are having and they tooo love the graduates ravioli's & turkey stew with rice. i will give them more dinner foods for lunches it seems all too easy lol but at the same time unsure whether or not to give them more food lol don't get me wrong they eat very well with 3 meals a day plus the formula i wasnt sure if it was more food once they got milk too. i guess the whole weaning off formula and giving milk got me nervous thank you

i still love to hear what you feed yours