Time of Day to feed solids vs. formula

My wife and I just started feeding our 4 1/2 month old girls some smashed peas after going for our pedi visit last week. We have only been doing this for about 5 days and I'm curious about the schedule of feeding them solids vs. formula. We have traditionally (lol, I say we, but my wife stays at home now and does most of the feeding except for nights!!!) fed the girls every three hours beginning when they awake between 6-7am. My wife has been feeding them their initial 6 oz of Isomil and then feeding them some peas an hour and half later, which has been working out fine.

My real question is the evening feeding. We try to feed as close to 5pm as possible because we like to feed the last bottle and put them to bed no later than 8:30pm. After the 5pm bottle, we have been giving them 2oz of peas at 6:30........and then when we go to feed them their final bottle of the night.....obviously they are not as hungry and have only been taking 3-5oz. Is this a good strategy? They have still been sleeping through the night but I just wonder from a long term perspective if this is right strategy or not....

Any comments or suggestions would be awesome!!!

Thanks

 

At that age, solids is more for practice than anything else. All of their nutritional needs comes from formula. Many caregivers do not add in a second meal until 6 months or later. I would suggest dropping the second meal of peas for now. HTH .

 

Once we were eating solids our schedule was something like this:

Wake up and immediately have a bottle
about 1 hour later solids
nap time and then as soon as they got up from their first nap another bottle
solids about 1 hour later
2nd nap of the day
bottle when they woke up

And so on.

I know at 4.5 months the nutrition they get from their bottle is a whole lot more important than what they get from the peas. Peas don't really have many calories, kwim?

Maybe you could move the solids up and do them closer to 4 pm? At 4.5 months the solids are just for practice, so if it were me I would give them right after a bottle, so that way it isn't interfering with the amount of formula they are getting.

 

If they are not drinking as much formula, I'd cut down on solids. I think it's only around 10 months that it's ok if they start eating more solids and drink less formula. What we did at first was giving their solids in the morning, and when we introduced a second meal after the last bottle, so they still had the calories from the bottle.

 

At that age, I would just do one feeding of solids. And at that age, I just did them whenever I could. Not everyday. We did them about an hour after their bottle so it wouldnt interfere with the amount of formula they were taking in.

Congrats on your girls and :welcome: to the First Year and Twinstuff.

 

I agree with everyone else. At that age, i would do one solid meal. For us that was dinner time because I couldn't fathom adding in breakfast with bottle/breastfeeding and getting ready for work. However, it's up to you what you do.

We would offer the bottle first and feed about 30-45 minutes after.

We started off with dinner around 4.5-5 months old and even that was sporadic. Around 5 months offered dinner most every night, at 6.5 months added in the second meal of breakfast and at 8.5 almost 9 months added in the third meal for lunch.

 

I agree with the people when they say to keep the solids to once a day at that age.

We didn´t start solids till 5.5 months but now mine eat 2 meals a day: veg & meat or fish & veg puree plus a fruit puree. I offer them formula at the savoury feed - DD usually has a few oz but DS rarely wants it and neither want it at the fruit meal. I give them water if they´re thirsty. They take 2 full bottles morning and before bed and a small bottle mid-morning which they don´t always want. Their pedi is completely happy with this and mine are growing fast! I´d talk to your pedi about what´s best for your babies.