I've been introducing solids to my seven month old daughter for about three months now. She has started eating more of them each day, but I kind of don't know what I'm doing from this point on. I know their stomachs are small, so how much food is enough to replace a breastfeeding for her? Normally, I gave her a few spoon fulls of food to get her used to the taste, and then I would breastfeed her. So now that she eats more of the food, about a quarter of the jar, along with some juice, I think I'd just be stuffing her if I breastfeed her afterwards. I noticed that sometimes, she would only drink a little bit before she went to sleep or just turned her attention somewhere else. So what should I expect? Should I make a routine out of replacing a few of her breastfeedings with solids altogether, or should I try to mix them together?

Also, is seven months about the time for a growth spurt or is it just the new diet changes?, because sometimes after she breastfeeds, she wants to eat something within the next two hours...when we normally feed every three to four hours. :confused:

I hope I'm not confusing anyone, lol.

Every child is different but by your daughters age my daughter was eating a full table meal and wouldn't touch baby food anymore but my son was 11 months and was still on the first stage baby food and wouldn't eat anything with chunks or pieces in it. I would let your daughter eat as much as she wants when you feed her solids. Breast feed her several times a day inbetween meals and if she is still hungry offer her something like a cracker or baby cookie that she can munch on. I am not sure what your plans are for weaning your daughter off of breastfeeding and hopefully some other mothers will offer more advice for you.

like the other poster said, let her eat as much as she wants...she'll let you know when she is full. Then like an hour or two later nurse her. 7 months could be a growth spurt. Typically they go through one at 6 weeks and then at 6 months! 1/4 of a jar doesn't seem like very much food to me, but my son was (and still is) a crazy eater!

1/4 of a jar doesn't seem like very much to me either. My DS is 7 months also and he gets cereal (mixed with some kind of fruit) for breakfast and lunch (both measuring about a jar of baby food). He eats a hearty dinner. 1/2 jar of meat (turkey and sweet potatoes, or Chicken and rice, etc..) 1/2 jar of a veggie and then a 1/2 jar of some kind of dessert (peach cobbler, Dutch apple, etc.) with some apple juice - from the sippy cup (and he drinks from it like a champ - Im so proud). In between meals he gets bottles of breast milk while Im at work. He wasn't sleeping well at all. He would wake up constantly. But now that he is eating baby food, he sleeps through the night. He wasn't at first but all of a sudden, he just fell into it. How is your little one sleeping? Hope this helps.

Well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, she eats a fruit and a veggie....a quarter of each jar...which makes about a half jar of food (I seem to have explained that wrong the first time :rolleyes: ) She also has fruit juice with whatever she eats. She actually eats about four of these meals a day. I try to give her more food sometimes, but after she gets through most of the first part, she doesnt want to eat any more. But like I said, sometimes, she's ready to eat something else an hour or two later. I tried giving her baby cookies, but she just gnawed on it and then spit the cookie out once it broke away from the rest of the hard part. She goes to sleep for about four or five hours at night, then she wakes up...i put her in the bed with me and breastfeed her, and she sleeps there until we get up in the morning.

I will try to give her a bit more food, or mix a little cereal into it to see if that does anything. This whole thing is experimental to me because my mom never really gave me or my brothers baby food, and my cousin, who has a daughter going on one year old next week, never gave her baby food either.

Because of a digestive disorder -- I was told at 6 months to let DS eat whatever he wanted. Just mash up what we're eating. Still gave him formula. He still prefered the baby food -- the smooth texture but he pretty much ate the baby food chicken and turkey, Mac & Cheese, the orange food group -- squash, sweet potatoes. Liked most fruit except applesauce. Hated babyfood cereal -- still does. He also ate a lot of whole milk yogurt. He'd eat most of the Mac & cheese and meat in one sitting and then about half of the veggies.

Didn't give him much juice back then. Think you're supposed to limit the amount of juice an infant gets until they're a year old or so.

my daughter, age 4 now, would not inerested in anything but breastmilk untill she was about a full year old! She was always VERY healthy and never came down with anything that all the other little babies around her would get. I worried for a while about her not getting enough nutrients etc...but after several visits to the Dr. and she was a great weight for age with no other problems. I was encouraged not to worry about it and to breastfeed her as often as she wanted if I could. She started eating baby food a little ways into her 12th month, well after she was walking and has been a great eater ever since.
My son on the other hand wanted to eat everything in site from the time he was about seven months old, although I still continued to breastfeed him because of the obvious health benefits not to mention the inherited immunities they get.
Both my kids are very healthy and doing fine and I am sure that every child has there own timing.
Good luck, first-time-mom!!! It is so much fun to have these precious little ones!

Out of all three of my kids, my oldest was the latest eater, and my youngest was the earliest. He started eating baby cereal at 4 months, and still to this day at a year old eats it for breakfast. My oldest however, never ate baby food, just started on table food at about 9 months. I have nursed all three of my kids, my oldest so far has been the longest, and I am in the process of weaning my youngest now, at 1. I started my last one so early because he was not gaining weight from me nursing him, and is allergic to all the formulas out there, so I could not supplement him with that.
I would say let her eat until she is full, then when she wants something a couple of hours later, nurse her. She could be going through a growth spurt.

I am a new mom and new to all this too. We started my daughter on solids at 4 months old. She will be five months sunday. Right now she is only on fruits and she gets one fruit a week. Our doctor suggested this so that if she would be allergic to anything it would be easy to rule out. Once we are throught with the fruits then we can start veggies. Right now she eats 6 oz every four hours. She get 2-4 oz of fruit with her 5 pm feeding and she still gets 4-6 oz of fourmula at that time too. Sometimes she will get fruit at her afternoon feeding to and the her fourmula too. The way i see it. Is that she is eating fruit and when we eat like that we want something to drink afterwards so why wouldn't she. I really just let her tell me when she is done. She will hold her mouth shut or just chew on the nipple of her bottle. I know she doesn't want anymore then. I am pretty comfortable with how she is eating. Our doctor said now that she is on solids that we might notice a decrease in her eating of formula. Which we have at times. Some nights she will get cereal instead. I talked with our doctor and she said at six months is when she will go over with us on feeding her solids at all three meals. I am not into feeding her table food any time soon. I would perfer to keep her on baby food for whatever the recommended time is. My sister started her little boy on table food at like 8 months or something. I am not really sure. I just see it as unhealthy foods and i fear him choaking on it. My little one has reflux i don't want people giving her french fries and her choaking on them. When you give little ones food they usually try to stick all in their mouth at once. I don't know maybe i am just being werid about all this. I just want to make sure she is getting what she needs to grow and that is why they have food for babies.

Well, we've been at it for a while. We finally settled into something that worked. I feed her baby food at each setting...about 4-6 a day, and depending on what we're doing or how much she ate, I breastfeed her right afterwards. She still wakes in the middle of the night, sometimes, she just wants to get in my bed, other times, she wants to be nursed before going back to sleep.
She's been eating about a third to a half a jar of food at each setting...she's not eating too much right now though because she's sick, so if she doesn't want to eat the baby food, I don't encourage her to eat it, I just nurse her.
As for the problem with school, I feed her baby food and breastmilk right before going to class, and while I'm in class, my mom or my cousin feeds her baby food if she's hungry. And when I get home, I breastfeed her.
She's been weighing in nicely at her appointments, and she's growing well too.

Thank you all for your replies!

You might want to consider that the breastmilk she's getting is over 50% fat, and the baby food you are giving her is mostly carbs. Carbs make it through your system a lot faster, so the baby food is probably not going to keep her satiated as long. Just a difference in composition of the food. I've been reading a few websites that advocate the first foods your baby has being high in fat and protein, similar to breastmilk. It kind of makes sense to me. I'm trying to have a plan ready for when my DD (now 3 months) gets started on solids.