how do i stop my son form weaning himself?

Question

i have a 7 month old and i have been breastfeeding the whole time and my goal is to get to a year but i feel like my son wants less and less milk i am down to one good feeding in the morning and a small one right before bed. He is 21 lb and 28 in long so he is a big boy. he likes apple juice so i don't want to take that away from him and he is also not wanting any thing from his baby spoon. if it is something small like fruit chunks or cheerios he will eat it but when we try to feed him real food he doesn't want it can any one help

let me add to this my son has been eating solids since he was 3 months but it has just been the last few weeks that he doesn't want anything that comes on a spoon. and yes i do put water in his juice 25% juice 75% water and he dosen't like sippy cups

Answer 1

No more apple juice- and it should be diluted but you may be doing that. Even diluted apple juice is filling and has not much nutrient value as well as the fact that it is high in sugar.

It sounds like he is ready for finger foods- and you can do this by cutting up food small. When our baby who is also breastfed was 10 months she refused anything off of a spoon. She nurses 3-4 times a day now. She turned 1 last week.

It often happens that when babies get the taste of real foods they no longer want baby food- and that is what happened to us with our baby at 10 months of age. This was fine since she was doing so well.

What to do?
1. Get rid of the juice or give him 1/2 cup of diluted juice for the DAY. Our baby only gets 1 cup which is a 6 oz. serving- and it's more water than juice all day long. The rest is milk and breastmilk. I pour in all water and a drop of juice. That's it for her. Juice is not good for her teeth and I don't want issues later on.
2. Offer finger foods. Anything soft he can self feed with. If it is in a circle shape- cut it in 1/2. He can have any foods right now that dissolve in water as 1 rule of thumb.

Answer 2

Cut out the apple juice. I know he likes it... but youre the parent and it's your job to do whats best for him. Maybe give him some as a treat every once in a while?

Two nursing sessions a day is not enough for a 7 month old, he should be getting a majority of his nutrition from your milk at his age.

It *is* common for a child to get distracted and slow down on nursing... is he learning to crawl? I would just offer it as often as possible durring the day. He should pick up on nursing here soon (and your supply will adjust)

Answer 3

It's great to have a goal of one year, but if your son is breastfeeding less, there's not really anything wrong with this.

All babies have different schedules of when they slow down on breastfeeding.

I don't think you are going to increase his feeding time. What I would do is supplementing the breastfeeding with a formula, which he can drink out of a bottle or sipy cup, if he will use one.

It sounds like he is healthy enough, so I would not worry too much about him not eating a lot of real foods. He's not starving. In time he will increase the food consumption. You could try mixing some formula with cereal.

Try not to worry about how much he eats, unless he starts to loose weight. If you see this happening, they you may want to get some advice from your pediatrician. He's more than likely not going to loose weight.

Good luck and don't worry so much.

Answer 4

Good for you for trying to be persistent about breast-feeding. Most parents give up at 6 months or earlier.

I would say probably your best bet would be to limit the apple juice. Infants will eat when they are hungry, and it's possible he's simply replacing your breast milk with fruit juice. I would suggest that you only give it to him (watered down 1:1) with meals in a sippy cup.

The breast milk generally isn't enough calories for him at this age, which is why we recommend starting solids at 6 months. It sometimes takes some work getting him to get used to the spoon, but you should be persistent in offering it to him and eventually he'll figure it out. Just don't try and turn it into a huge battle with him. Also, he should still be getting primarily purees at this age, as many kids are still trying to developmentally wrap their head around how to deal with chunks in their mouth. Teething biscuits, cheerios, and other sort of "melty" solids are fine, but I would recommend avoiding anything more substantial.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly where other difficulties might be, but that's what I can suggest given what you've mentioned.

Answer 5

There is a time period between 7 and 10 months where baby's seem to go through a period that they don't breastfeed a lot and women mistake that for a child trying to wean. Babies at this age only play with their food. I'd cut back on the apple juice. Juice is one of the culprits for causing early decay. Keep offering to breastfeed and he'll probably pick up again.

Answer 6

NURSING STRIKE! It's very common to have a nursing strike (a period where your child is less interested in nursing) around this age. Just keep offering the breast and he'll almost certainly become more interested after awhile. Then you'll wonder how you'll ever get him weaned! It's just that he's becoming more and more aware of the world around him, and more able to interact with it, and exploring has become a higher priority for the moment. Also, your son is getting better at extracting milk as he gets older, so he may be getting the same amount of milk as always, but in a shorter time.

Answer 7

Seems like a couple of questions here. First you don't stop him from weaning himself. He will quit when he wants, and his body will tell him when he needs something else. He is ready for small finger foods, like the Cheerios. Put those in front of him, and he will eat them. Try him on some yogurt as well, from a spoon, he might just surprise you.

Answer 8

For one thing, babies RARELY wean themselves that young. I think something else must be going on. Another thing is that juice (even baby juice, even watered down) is junk food, so if you really do want him to keep nursing, and to be getting the nutrients he needs, you need to cut out foods that he doesn't need, namely the juice, to leave room for the food he does need (breastmilk).




"True SELF-weaning before a baby is a year old is very uncommon. In fact, it is unusual for a baby to wean before 18-24 months unless mom is encouraging weaning. However, it is very common to hear a mother say that her baby self-weaned at 9 or 10 months old, or even earlier. How do we reconcile these statements?"


http://www.kellymom.com/bf/weaning/babyselfwean.html


You also may be feeding him too many solids. A breastfed baby gets all he needs from breastmilk alone for the first six months, then solids MAY be introduced, slowly, working up to 25% solids/75% breastmilk at one year of age. Are you, at seven months, feeding him more than perhaps 10% solids? If so, you might consider slowing down on the solids, and that will naturally increase the amount of milk he takes in. Solids now are just for practice, and to introduce your son to textures, etc. His main source of nutrition should still be breastmilk.



http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/index.html

Answer 9

congrats for nursing for that long!! will he take it from a bottle? if so can you pump?granted it not the same? most kids at 7 months are too busy to sit and eat anyhow so that may be his problem. how much juice do you give him? less than 6oz? if its more maybe hes filling up on that. well i would say put some soft foods on his high chair tray and let him have to it. he wants to be like everyone else i guess. i know its hard to let go. but just think how much fun dinner would be when he feeds himself and you can just feed yourself. good luck

Answer 10

I also wanted to nurse my daughter til her first year. But she weaned herself at 6 months! We switched to formula and kept feeding her the gerber and she was fine. The apple juice is okay, but I would recommend watering it down, there's lots of sugar in it. The fruit and cheerios are okay too. Try giving him formula, see how that works. It supplies enough nutrients for your growing boy!