Hello, I know this sounds like a silly question and I should know the answer! But, I am just weaning my 1yo off of formula and getting her started on milk. Obviously she will need to consume more solids to compensate as she will be getting less milk overall. Right now she has 4 heaping tbsp of oatmeal mixed with rice cereal (1/2 & 1/2) every morning with some Gerber fruit on top (usually bananas her favorite) then 4-6 oz of Gerber veggies or some sort of lunch type of meal, a snack of yogurt later and then another 4-8oz of dinner food (could be Gerber or an organic baby food of spaghetti, veggies, potatoes, etc). All of these meals would normally be accompanied by up to 8oz of formula at each feeding. She loooves her formula so it will be slightly difficult to give her less but the doc said I need to give her only 8-16 oz per day as opposed to the 24-36oz she is getting now. Sorry for the long drawn out post! But, how much additional food should she be getting to sub the lack of milk/formula she won't be getting? I just want to be sure she's getting a balanced day of food. Thanks so much.
8 ounces of formula with meals at a year is a bit much - 8 ounces of milk is a feeding, and at a year, feedings are food, and milk is a drink. She shouldn't be getting bottle feeds. She is old enough to transition to table foods. I am 10 years past this stage so I don't remember exact amounts of food my last child would have eaten at this age, but he was on table food meals at 10 months
My daughter is almost 2 and gets probably 3 bottles worth of milk still (as much as 24 oz if she drinks it all). She also eats almost all table food, cut in bite size pieces now (since she was about 12 months). Try giving your baby tastes of whatever you are eating (except nuts). Also a baby/toddler vitamin is good and plenty of fruits, veggies and foods with iron in them. We use organic milk for the kids.
My daughter who is almost 14 months grazes all day long-its like I never feed her! She sits down to 3 meals a day but eats every hour, whether it be an entire banana, some snacks of thrder joe o's or the like, chick peas-easy to eat and lots of calcium, by the way. She was breast fed and we are just finished weaning-getting her to drink milk was a challenge but I didn't force it. I also make sure she gets 3 oz of yogurt with her lunch, cheese, eggs and offer her the milk in her "princess cup" (we never did a bottle) when we have meals or snacks. She started drinking 3oz a day and I was excited! She has slowly progressed to 15 oz daily along with the food that is rich in calcium. The wholesome baby food website is also my go to place-as someone else had suggested. She will slowly but surely become more interested, and more HUNGRY and thirsty for it! I couldn;t believe that but it happened to me. No stress-my ped told me not to and my little girl is taking the lead and drinking more and more milk each day. I hope this long winded answer was a tiny bit helpful!! Good luck!
My go-to place for baby food answers has always been Wholesomebabyfood.com. Here's the link that brings you right to the food menu/chart for 10-12 months. There's a lot more to explore on this site though. I used to print out the suggested menus and amounts and tape them to my fridge.
http://wholesomebabyfood.com/solidfood10to12montholdbaby.htm
Sounds like you are doing great. Make sure you feed her the non formula first. Then only measure out what the doctor says. Give her as much water as she wants. And try to buy organic milk - the growth hormones, etc, in non organic milk are great to skip.
I never listened much to my doctor if my instinct told me something else. And I always turned out to be right. I see no reason at all to limit your babie's formula. They told me not to let my children lay in bed with milk on their teeth also, and I did that. I gave them all the formula and milk they wanted, within reason, and they all had beautiful teeth with no cavities. Follow your own instinct. I've heard some crazy advice from some peoples doctors. And it's all different. It just depends on which doctor you're going to. Rely on your own opinion. You know your baby better than anyone. And also, I really didn't feel good about switching to regular milk for a long time, so I didn't. And by the way, organic milk and a good brand of raw milk are much better. There is a good doctor's book on that and many doctors who are trained in preventive medicine will recommend that.
Babycenter has a great food guide, it gives portions and meal idea advice as well... also for the formula, if you feed her first, then give her the formula, it will help so she doesn't get all full tummy on it:
http://www.babycenter.com/0_age-by-age-guide-to-feeding-y...
