Introducing Solids While Nursing

Hi. I have an 8 mo. old boy who I'm still nursing. I started cereal at 5 1/2 mo. and other baby food at 6 mo. I've found it works best to feed him the solids about an hour after I nurse him. He gets cereal for breakfast, and baby food for lunch & dinner. I try to feed him at the same time each day. If I nurse him then feed solids immediately afterwards, he is usually not hungry anymore and doesn't eat the solids. If I wait too long after nursing him though, he wants the immediate gratification of nursing and doesn't eat well either. It is just trial an error, and again, I've found waiting an hour after nursing works best for us. Sometimes breaskfast is after his 1st nap, sometimes it's 1st thing in the morning. It depends on when he wakes up and how engorged I feel. My son is still somewhat unpredictable, so it's not rational to try to have him on a really strict schedule. At your baby's age, the solids are more for the socialization aspect of eating, not for the nutritional benefit. He is definitely getting most of his required nutrients through nursing. I think I dropped 1 nursing per day since he started solids. I still nurse him 7 times per day. Good luck!

Hi A.,

I would suggest always nursing first just to ensure your baby gets the most nutrients. What I did when first introducing solids was offered it at the times I ate (morning, afternoon, evening). If he didn't eat much, it was ok as long as he nursed. As far as an amount, I just sort of let him decide when he was done. When he was about 7 months or so he ate approx. the amount of the small baby food jars worth. As he got older I always offered a little of everything (ie: 4 food groups)So what I did was used a tablespoon and offered a variety to equal the amount of the small babyfood jar so that he didn't just eat one thing.

Oh and I'm sure your Ped. told you this, but be sure to only introduce one food per week to make sure of any allergies.
Hope this helps you!

What I found with my daughter who is still nursing at 11 months and loves food, is that you want to nurse before you give them food because food is still just a supplement so if you gave food first then they fill up and don't want milk and that's how women "dry up." It's not because they just run out of milk as people would like us to believe, I"M sure you've heard that a million times....I started just doing breakfast and then moved to breakfast and dinner. My daughter took to food immediately but some don't care much for it so take your time and don't force it. IF he doesn't want a lot, don't stress, babies won't starve themselves. Have fun!
Bibsters are the greatest invention. Disposable bibs.....

Hi A.:

I was still nursing when my son started on solids at 6 months of age. Per my pediatricians recommendation, I started by giving him baby food once a day before nursing him at that normal time. The doctor's point was that if you nurse him first he won't be hungry thus less likely to try the food. So, we started baby food once and day and slowly increased to multiple times per day. When we first began, he may have only eaten a few spoonfulls to 1/4 jar of food. It was gradual, but you have to keep it going. Good luck!!

M.

I know this probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but babies don't need solids in the first year if you're nursing. The best nutrition for your baby is breast milk at this point. However, at about 5-7 months you can intro small bits of real food (that will be easily mashed by gums and a few teeth) in order to introduce your baby to the socialization aspects of eating.

You can introduce small bits of real food once your baby has a tooth or two, but cereal and pureed baby food offer little nutrition, and they drain your wallet. By the way, pediatricians know almost nothing about childhood/baby nutrition, unless they have a specialization in pediatric nutrition; so they really aren't an excellent source of info on the topic.

If you want more info on feeding your baby solids contact the family doctors at Homefirst, specifically Dr. Rosi. He has a lot of experience/expertise on the subject. www.homefirst.com

Good luck!

Hi -
I have a 9 month old son who I still nurse - he started on solids at around 5.5 months. I first started by feeding him solids in between meals. This helped him stretch out the time between (breastmilk) meals a bit. So instead of nursing every 2.5 hours he would go 3 or maybe even 3.5 hours. Ultimately, adding 1 meal did very little to impact his nursing schedule though.

We added a second afternoon/evening meal when he was about 6.5 months old and this also had virtually no impact. Then at 7.5 months he stopped taking a bottle cold turkey so we HAD to add a lot more solids while I was at work. This was ok because he quite liked food by then.

Either way, if you want to do a "meaL' with food and breastmilk, I'd say nurse him a bit, then feed him food, then offer him the breast again.

The only advice I can say is to nurse before giving solids. I made the mistake of nursing after my son had lunch and dinner and my milk went down because he wasn't consuming as much. I learned my lesson :)

This is a link to the chart our pediatrician said to follow when introducing our daughter to solids (around 4.5 mos we started).

http://www.gerber.com/fpidea?ideaid=idea1

Step 2 is the step on introducing fruits and veggies. He did say do all veggies first and then fruits, since kids tend to prefer fruit (sweetness) and you want them to like veggies. THe 3-5 days between new foods was what he pointed out as most important. I would give the solids to her 1x/day (I nursed exclusively as well) at dinner time, and usually then some cereal to fill out a meal and skip one nursing session (which also helped with fullness through the night, I think).

I started feeding my now almost 6 month old at 6pm. My son is a great sleeper but this made him sleep about on hour longer. In the beginning I would mix in a half a container of fruit or veggies in the rice cereal. I would then nurse him. I have not had a problem with my milk decreasing. I would nurse him as usual throughout the day. Eventually we started feeding him two containers of food and I cut out the nursing afterwards. Hope this helps.

A.:

continue to nurse as usual/ try giving foods when when you are eating...fruits and vegtables are better than cereal.

P., RLC, IBCLC
Pres. Lactation Support Group, Inc
www.lactationsupportgroup.com

We waited until our daughter was older to give her solid, there really is no rush. At your son's age, he is getting all he needs from your breastmilk. That is the best thing you can give to him.

If you are eager about the solids, I would recommend not changing your nursing schedule, but rather squeezing in a tasting of some solids at approximate meal times. Give him a little of the food then nurse him. If you nurse him before the food, then he will not be hungry and will not be willing to try the new food.
Good Luck!