by Shari Criso MSN, RC, CMN, IBCLC
This post made possible by the support of EvenFlo Feeding
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Once a baby is taking solids, how often should you offer your baby the breast, and how do you know when to initiate the weaning process?
Once the baby is taking solids, you should still offer the breast whenever they baby wants to eat. You can still breastfeed before each feeding of solids. But as the baby gets older, into the seventh or eighth month, if you wanted to cut out those feeding and substitute a meal, like breakfast, and have a meal of food and then breastfeed between those feeding, that’s totally fine. By the time my children were about 8 months old, I was feeding them three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I was breastfeeding them maybe 4-5 times in a 24 hour period.
How do I introduce solids and keep my supply up?
And your body will adjust to this. Your body will naturally keep its own supply. It does not need to make the same amount of milk it did in the beginning. Remember, you’re making more milk in the first 6 months of the year than you are in the second 6 months, because your baby will eat a certain amount of milk, somewhere around 3-4, sometimes 5 ounces of breastmilk per feeding, and never increase from there. What changes is that in the second half of the year, they start to eat solid foods, so the actual amount of milk you’re actually producing and feeding decreases in that second half of the year from 6 month to 12 months and beyond. So you don’t need to keep up with your supply; your supply will be adequate for what your baby is taking in. And by nursing more, you’ll just make more.
Shari Criso MSN, RN, CMN, IBCLC
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Find more from Shari supporting your parenting journey including infant feeding on Facebook or at My Baby Experts©
Thanks for EvenFlo Feeding, Inc.’s generous support for families in the their feeding journey.
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