Feeding question

DD will be 5 months. SHe eats cereal (a lot of it) twice a day and then gets a small bottle (3oz) right after the cereal.

Next week I will be starting to add fruit to the cereal.

Am I now suppossed to stop giving the bottle at those 2 feedings? Since she will be eatting even more.

That would make her schedule as follows:
7am- 7oz bottle
10:30am- cereal and fruit
1:30pm- 7 oz bottle
4:30pm- cereal and fruit
7:30pm-7oz

Does this seem right? Only 3 bottles at 5 months? Or do I try and get her to take a few ounces after each meal?

TIA

Re: Feeding question

My boys were on a similar schedule at that age. Keep the 5 bottles for now and just add in the fruit. As she's growing, so is her stomach and appetite. She'll let you know when you can cut down on the bottles. After a few months, we cut the 7am and and 1pm bottles down to 4oz and then cut them out all together. HTH!

Re: Feeding question

I always gave her bottle right after. Dd is 11 months at around 10 months we were down to 3 bottles.

Re: Feeding question

I would keep the 5 bottles and try not to give her enough food to fill her up. These littles meals should not be replacing bottles at this point... at least that's what my Ped tells me!

Re: Feeding question

I have been mixing fruit/veggie with oatmeal for a couple of weeks now with my DS and I give him a bottle immediately after he eats..at first, when he was getting used to the food, he would only have a few spoon fulls, so I would wait until he had enough and then give him a bottle...he seems to be eating a lot more of the solids now though (he even eats a mixture of apples and bananas minus the cereal!), and I was wondering the same thing as you!
He's only eating solids 1x a day, but I want to see what my pediatrician says at our 5 month appointment in a couple of days...I'm sure once they get into the habit of eating solids and eating enough of them, then we can alternate bottles and solids?

oh yes and I have this paper from similac that says 3-6 month olds average 4-5 bottles a day and 6-7oz average amount per feeding

Message edited 4/28/2011 9:29:25 AM.

Re: Feeding question

Re: Feeding question

food is for practice at this age, not to fill them up - i would keep up the bottles

Re: Feeding question

Yes, I am always told that milk/formula is still the most important thing for them so bottles should never be secondary to solids. I always make sure DS gets a bottle or nurses a little while before he has cereal or fruits/veggies, not after. I've definitely noticed a drop in how much milk he has now that he's eating so many other foods, but I still try to make sure he gets that before eating anything else.

Re: Feeding question

Posted by Tilde

food is for practice at this age, not to fill them up - i would keep up the bottles