4 Feedings a Day - 8 Month Old Transitioning to Real Food

A good schedule to shoot for would be:
7am- bottle, rice cereal mixed with fruit
11am- bottle, veggie & fruit(or meat/veggie combos)
3pm- bottle, snack finger foods(Gerber makes lots of age appropriate snacks for infants)
6 or 7pm- bottle, veggie/meat/fruit
This schedule allows for her meals to synch up with your meals and would help to establish a routine morning and afternoon naptime(at about 9am and 1 pm). Right now, since she is waking up pretty early, it may be hard to keep her full from her morning feeding until luchtime. If you can push her 1st feeding back a little and transition into this new schedule, you will be able to fairly easily drop the 3pm bottle after a little bit. She will start to eat more at the other meals to compensate. You might try offering at least 7 oz at every feeding. That way she will still get enough formula when you reduce the number of feedings. Anyway, I hope this helps! I am a nanny and it has been the schedule I have used for years and I just find it to be the best one for the easiest transition when dropping feedings. And this schedule is also good, because she will be eating when you eat your meals, so you can just dice up whatever you are eating and feed it to her!

Personally, I'm not a fan of having the kids on a schedule. Our first was a snacker from the moment he was born. He would nurse for ~5 minutes and be done.

We asked the pediatrician, and his advice was to let them dictate their feeding rather than setting a schedule. That way, they don't learn to overeat, etc.

If you talk to most dieticians, they will advise that we should eat 6 small meals/day vs. 3 standard meals.

At 8 months, our kids were having thinly sliced lunch meat, frozen mixed vegetables (cooked, of course), yogurt, etc. I'm different, though, than most parents as I let my kids experiment with different foods earlier.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has some guidance at the following site. What we learned a year ago from our pediatrician is that their policy on introducing foods has changed in the past few years. Books that warn to stay away from foods (eggs, strawberries, etc) until a certain age are now out of date and not supported by AAP (this includes peanut butter if you can believe it).

http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/f...

I can only tell you what I did with my kids. Remember, babies need 18-24 ounces of formula a day. As long as they're getting that then the rest is for practicing to get use to food and all that.

Breakfast - baby oatmeal, followed by 8oz formula

Morning snack - 8oz juice/water, Gerber puffs or graham cracker

Lunch - fruit (applesauce, banana, pears, peaches, fruit cocktail), followed by 8oz formula

Afternoon snack - 8oz juice/water, Gerber Puffs, graham cracker, etc

Dinner - veggie (sweet potato, squash, green beans, peas, carrots), followed by 8oz formula

These were home made for my youngest 4 as I could make them thicker how they liked them. Soon you can start feeding foods you eat like spaghetti mashed up, leaving out the spicier foods, watch the stools. Soon you'll be able to start adding finger foods as well, like bread and fruit cocktail since it's soft and already cubed. Canned mixed veggies is great for finger foods as well. They're soft and already cubed and you can see which ones she likes and does like when there's a variety on her tray. She should be holding and tipping back her bottle or cup by now. If not, start working on that.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

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Hi, J.:

Have you thought about contacting your peds nurse and talking to her. Or possible a dietician at your local hospital in the pediatric unit.

Hope this helps. Good luck. D.

check out www.wholesomebabyfood.com. they have TONS of ideas for finger food recipes as well as guidelines for feeding schedules. our schedule for our 7 month old is somewhat similar to yours but with a couple extra feedings in there, but just to share,

6 am breastfeed
8-9 ish cereal w/breastmilk with a fruit and sometimes some plain yogurt
11-12 ish cereal with a fruit or veggie & breastfeed after
naps in afternoon
breastfeed when he wakes up
6 ish cereal with a veggie
8 ish breastfeed & bed

We have those extra feedings in there because he is still hungry and needs them still.

Start with the basic foods - 1/4 of a mushed up banana or avocado, or applesauce (plain or with baby cereal). If the baby is ready for finger food, cut bite size pieces. Try one food for a few days to make sure there are no tummy troubles or allergies. Then add cooked squash, peas,carrots, etc.

As far as how often to feed the baby, I would say it depends on the baby. If following the advice of the book is working then stick with it. But if the baby seems hungry other times, don't be afraid to change it up. Most babies, toddlers and small children need to eat every 3 hours. My kids are 5 and 6 and they eat a mid morning snack (at school) and an afternoon snack, plus 3 meals a day.

You've gotten some great advice here... For fruit, I think bananas (cut in disks, then quartered), or applesauce. Very ripe pears, cut in very small pieces (not too much or she might have pretty loose stools), grapes, cut very, very small, anything you can cut in very small pieces. You can do oranges, but you'll have to section them and remove the membrane-- a LOT of work, but you could try cutting up mandarin oranges. For pasta, some of the "kid's pastas" that are in little shapes are a better finger food size than trying to deal with spaghetti, etc.

I'm not sure why you have her on such a strict schedule, but those feeding times are even stricter than those of a 2 year old, to say nothing of an 8 month old. There's nothing wrong with feeding 3 meals (solid food) at this age, but she probably needs at least one additional bottle in there a day. Most kids at that age are eating 5-6 times a day, including bottles. 24 ounces is at the bottom of the recommended amount of formula for a child that age. If she's growing fine, and your ped. is ok with it, I guess you can go with it, but it seems unduly restricted to me.

I don't have any schedule suggestions, but here are some ideas of finger foods:
cut up grapes (quarter them, smaller or bigger depending)
black beans (my daughter LOVED feeding herself black beans)
tofu cubes
avacado cubes
banana cubes
gerber/beachnut puffs

my daughter LOVED orange / lemon / lime slices, but I was warned by other parents that the acidic qualities could be a bit much on her stomach, so that's something to consider.

As with any new, don't introduce too many at once, so if your child has any kind of reaction you can more easily determine which food caused the issue.

Lastly, Annabel Karmel has written several good books about baby/toddler foods. Check them out at your library or local book store: http://www.amazon.com/Annabel-Karmel/e/B001H6OCLY/ref=ntt...