8-9 Months Old Babies: Sample BLW Schedule
- How Phase 2 of baby-led weaning (the 2nd 8 weeks of BLW) leads you right into the golden age of BLW: it is GOING to click for your baby in this phase, just wait for it!
- Why it's probably time to consider dropping a milk feed and how that can help increase interest in food and participation in feeding at mealtimes for your baby
- How often 8 months old and 9 month old babies should eat.
LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE
How often should babies who are 8-9 months old eat? And what foods should they be eating? Is it time to drop a milk feed yet? Inside of this episode I’m joined by 5 moms of babies who are 8-9 months old and they’re sharing their current baby-led weaning feeding schedules. Some are struggling, some are succeeding, but all are doing a great job leaning into their baby’s ability to self-feed...and I hope you can glean some insight on possible schedule setups for YOUR 8-9 month old baby from this episode.
SHOW NOTES
SUMMARY of episode
In this episode we’re talking about:
How Phase 2 of baby-led weaning (the 2nd 8 weeks of BLW) leads you right into the golden age of BLW: it is GOING to click for your baby in this phase, just wait for it!
Why it’s probably time to consider dropping a milk feed and how that can help increase interest in food and participation in feeding at mealtimes for your baby
How often 8 months old and 9 month old babies should eat.
LINKS from this episode
Other BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast episodes mentioned in this episode:
TRANSCRIPT of episode
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Latest Episodes
Christina (2m 3s):
We feed my eight and a half month old, twice a day before she turned eight months. We were really just doing once a day, sometimes twice, but ever since she hit the eight month mark, I've really been trying to introduce her to a meal or food at least twice a day,.
Katie Ferraro (2m 19s):
Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian college nutrition, professor and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning here on the baby led weaning made easy podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leading you with the competence and knowledge. You need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning. Welcome back today. We're doing some more baby led weaning feeding schedule info this time. It's about the eight to nine month old babies. So I'm doing a series of episodes. I did six to seven month old babies back in episode 185.
Katie Ferraro (2m 59s):
So if you're in that range, you might want to listen to that. And then we'll be doing 10, 11 and 12 month old Babies schedules coming up in episode 189. But today our focus is on kind of the messy middle of baby LED WEANING around the eight to nine month mark. So inside of this episode, I'm going to be sharing some different moms approaches. I've had five different moms, contribute their stories about what they're currently doing with their babies in the eight to nine month old range. I don't provide any of their stories or their content for comparison purposes. I just put it out there for you guys for inspiration to see some different ideas of what your baby might be able to do or what you might expect as you move into the eight to nine month old range of baby led weaning, and depending where you are in the feeding journey.
Katie Ferraro (3m 48s):
I generally think of the eight to nine month and kind of 10 in there as well, but it's like the golden age of baby LED WEANING. This is when it all finally clicks. Now it might not happen right the day your baby turns eight months, but sometime, usually somewhere between eight to 12 weeks after starting solid foods. So if you start a baby led weaning when the baby was six months of age around the eight month mark, that's eight weeks in somewhere between eight to 12 weeks is when it all kind of clicks. And that's when parents are like, oh, you're totally right now, my baby gets it, but it can seem brutally long, those first eight weeks when your baby's not actually eating very much. And that might progress a little bit in to the eight and nine month mark, but sometime in the eight to nine month mark, again, if you've been at this for eight to 12 weeks, it's going to all click and you're going to be like, so super glad that you did baby LED WEANING as far as how often to feed a baby.
Katie Ferraro (4m 40s):
Who's eight to nine months of age, no hard and fast rules there. Either. My general rule of thumb is at six to seven months of age. We want baby trying to do solid foods. One to two times a day at the eight to nine month mark. It's nice to see families bump that up to two to three times a day, if they can handle it. And generally in the eight to nine month, mark is when we also start talking about dropping a milk feed, which we're going to cover in this episode as well. One of the moms that we're going to hear from it's definitely time for her to drop a milk feed. And then when your baby turns 10 months of age, it's nice to, baby's eating around three times a day. So the eight to nine month mark there, it's kind of right in the middle. You still might not feel like, you know what you're doing.
Katie Ferraro (5m 21s):
You still might be kind of figuring it out and your baby doing the same thing too, but hang in there because things are about to get a lot easier. One more thing that I wanted to add about eight to nine month old babies is that we're not offering food because they're hungry or they're not eating in response to hunger yet that doesn't happen till a little bit later. Occasionally you'll get an eight or nine month old baby. Who's looking like a 10 or 11 month old with regards to how they eat. And that's fine, but please don't feel like you need to go starving your baby out or really tweaking this schedule so that you can get them when they're super hungry, because they're still learning how to eat. Remember this whole weaning period is a continuum. We don't want to pressure ourselves about how much the baby is eating.
Katie Ferraro (6m 5s):
If you are feeling bad because your baby's not eating enough iron or not trying enough different foods, there's still time to change. I have a hundred FIRST FOODS LIST with a hundred different foods on it. That's especially perfect for this messy middle eight to nine month old range. When you feel like you're running out of ideas, it's time to go back to the a hundred FIRST FOODS LIST and start checking off five new foods a week to keep your baby's momentum moving forward. So if you haven't had a chance to grab my hundred FIRST FOODS LIST, I give it away to everyone on my baby LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS workshop. It's a free online workshop I teach every week. You can sign up for this week's workshop times at babyLEDWEANING.co Again, everyone gets a hundred FIRST FOODS LIST, but I also do a Q and a there too.
Katie Ferraro (6m 50s):
And a lot of times we'll hear from parents who were like, Hey, I got a little bit of a late start. My baby's eight to nine months of age, but maybe not doing all those things that he or she would have if I started at six to seven months. And we'll kind of walk you through inside of that workshop, what to do, if you feel like you're a little bit late to the baby led weaning game. Trust me, you're not, there's definitely still time to catch up, but you need to have a plan. And the five step feeding framework that I teach inside of the workshop that helps your baby eat a hundred foods will set you back on track. So your baby can meet those feeding milestones. And you can recognize all the benefits of doing baby LED WEANING. So with no further ado, let's go ahead and dive in. Let's hear from a few different moms about their current baby LED WEANING schedule for babies who are eight to nine months old.
Katie Ferraro (7m 38s):
The first mom we're going to hear from her name is Christina, and she has an eight and a half month old baby.
Christina (7m 44s):
We feed my eight and a half month old, twice a day before she turned eight months. We were really just doing once a day, sometimes twice, but ever since she hit the eight month mark, I've really been trying to introduce her to a meal or food at least twice a day. And it's been working out great.
Katie Ferraro (8m 0s):
All right, Christina, I love that you made the conscientious effort to bump up the frequency of feedings when your baby hit phase two of baby LED WEANING. So phase one, a baby LED WEANING is the first eight weeks. So generally when baby is six to seven months of age, but in phase two, that's the second eight weeks. That's kind of when it all clicks for baby, as I mentioned earlier, but inside of phase two, somewhere in there, your baby is likely going to benefit from you dropping a milk feed. Parents always rolled their eyes because they hate adjusting the schedule. And I get it. Once you get baby's schedule down, it's always time to change it. But this one is really going to behoove you and kind of push you into phase three, which is the third set of eight weeks.
Katie Ferraro (8m 43s):
So once your baby is beyond 10 months of age, that third phase is so much easier. If you drop a milk feed in phase two. So if you haven't adjusted the milk schedule and you've been doing baby LED for eight weeks or longer, you might Christina think about dropping a milk feed. And if you're not sure how to do that, go back and listen to episode number 55, it's called how to drop a milk feed. We just did a big audit of all of the podcast episodes. And one of the top 10 most downloaded episodes is episode 55, about how to drop a milk feed, something worth listening to as you're moving in to phase two of baby LED WEANING.
Katie Ferraro (9m 24s):
So let's hear from our next mom, her name is Kankamaji her baby is going to be turning eight months in just a week and interested to hear what their current feeding schedule is.
Kankamaji (9m 34s):
Hi Katie. So my baby is going to be turning eight months old and a little less than a week. And so our schedule is always changing, but usually when he wakes up either for the day or after a nap, I will immediately offer him an opportunity to go to the bathroom and his little potty and then change him and then nurse him. And then I give him a little time to digest like 30 minutes or an hour. And then we offer him a meal. And so we usually try to do it three times a day. Most of the time, it's only two times a day, every once in a while. It's only once, but try to do two or three times a day.
Kankamaji (10m 15s):
Sometimes he's too tired or too hungry to eat. So we're trying to work out the kinks, but overall it's going really well.
Katie Ferraro (10m 23s):
Alright Kamkamaji I love that. It doesn't seem to be stressing you out that some days are better than others. Some days you have more time to do foods a little more frequently. Some days you don't do it as often. Try not to skip days if you can. But oftentimes we get questions about when your baby is sick and should you pump the brakes on baby led weaning. If your baby's not feeling well, you guys know your baby's best. If you need to take a break, sometimes mom needs to take a break because the baby's sick. Are you going to be doing any irreparable damage? If your baby doesn't eat for a day or two? Of course not. But sometimes I hear from parents who are like I'm skipping days at a time. And my baby's eight months of age. That's definitely not enough practice for your baby to become proficient at self feeding. And I don't know if you guys caught it in there, but Kakuma Angie mentioned that she puts her baby on his little potty.
Katie Ferraro (11m 8s):
So it sounds like she is also a fan and a follower of elimination communication. If you guys are not familiar with the E C method, I really encourage you to go back to listen to my interview with Andrea Olson from go diaper free episode 164, it's called elimination communication. Can your baby go diaper free? Andrea is the founder of the go diaper, free online community. And she is a hoot. Although there's a lot of crossover to be actually honest. A lot of people think babies feeding themselves as weird. I think babies go to the bathroom by themselves is a little bit weirder, but I love Andrea. She's got a great outtake on this. If you guys are interested in learning more about it, it's really quite the movement as I see it picking up steam.
Katie Ferraro (11m 51s):
So Kamkamaji thanks for sharing. Good job for not stressing about that fluctuating schedule. I like that you're being consistent and doing solid foods every day. And I think you're probably really close to that point where it's all going to click for your baby as well. You're just coming up on eight months, the second eight weeks phase two of baby led weaning. So you've got some exciting times ahead of you. And next up, we're going to hear from Geneva. If you guys follow my Instagram page at baby led wean team, you probably know that Geneva is a mom of baby Skyler, who we did their baby led weaning on a boat. We did the first 10 days of baby led weaning with baby Skyler on a boat where their family lives here in San Diego. Geneva actually works with our team as a virtual assistant, but I'm so fortunate because she's here in person.
Katie Ferraro (12m 34s):
So I get to see her and baby Skyler. And if you follow that whole series on Instagram, Skylar had a bit of a Rocky start to baby led weaning. Like there was literally an, I thought it was the most boring content of all time because the baby hardly ate anything for the first 10 days. But you guys loved it. So many parents were like, thank you for just showing what happens in real life. That there's not very much eating actually going on. So we checked in with Skylar when she was six and a half months of age, because that's when we started doing baby LED WEANING. But I want you guys to hear from her now. She just turned nine months of age. So this is her mom, Geneva Skylar,
Genieva (13m 11s):
Currently nine months. So we've been baby LED WEANING for about two and a half months. Now she eats three meals a day, breakfast, lunch dinner, pretty much whenever I eat, she's eating too. And I make some variation of what I'm making plus adding in any new foods that we want her to try along the way. And honestly it makes it so much easier this way. We've been traveling the last week and it's just her and I, and I was a little bit nervous to have her by myself, but honestly, baby led weaning is so easy with it because she just eats whatever I eat. There's no making special food or even on the plane. She just ate part of my meal as well. And it's just so much easier to travel this way and not have all these things you have to bring or go buy at the store when you get here.
Genieva (13m 55s):
So it's been awesome and I can't believe how much she loves food. Now, two and a half months into this, where at the start she could care less.
Katie Ferraro (14m 5s):
I was dying. They just went to New York and then her pictures were so cute. And her friend was reposting all these pictures of her baby eating. And I was like stalking her friend, but congratulations, Geneva love how low stress. And like you're a low key mom to begin with. But like I know that starting baby Led Weaning made you a little bit anxious. And I just love that. It seems to kind of have meshed with your lifestyle and the baby being able to eat your food on the plane and just to take her out in New York. It was so cool to see you guys out and about. So I also wanted to point out Geneva's last statement there that at the beginning of baby Led Weaning, baby Skylar could not care less about eating and they stuck with it. And now they're just about two and a half months into baby led weaning kind of beginning that phase two and things are going very smoothly.
Katie Ferraro (14m 52s):
So I love that whenever Skylar eats, you're able to eat to Geneva. And for those of you who might be thinking about traveling with your baby while you're doing baby LED WEANING, be sure to go back and listen to episode number 71, it's called travel and restaurants taking your BLW show on the road. And there's lots of great tips in there. If you'll be traveling with your baby LED WEANING baby, anytime soon. So thanks for the update Geneva. It's awesome to hear from you. All right, next up is Tanvi things aren't going as smoothly for her and that's perfectly fine. Don't ever compare your baby to someone else's baby. One thing I get all the time from my content in my workshops, or when I'm doing videos and Instagram people like how would that baby?
Katie Ferraro (15m 33s):
You post a picture of a baby eating pork. How old is that baby? And I don't ever answer those questions directly because I know that that mom is trying to compare her baby to that baby. It depends how long the baby has been learning, how to eat that oftentimes drives how capable they are itself feeding. So just because you see a six and a half month old eating lamb doesn't necessarily mean that your baby is ready. If your baby was born premature, your baby's not sitting up yet on their own. Your baby can't eat lamb yet. So compare and despair stay away from it. I want to share another mom, tanvi who has a baby. That's just a little bit less old than Skylar yet. Definitely. Hasn't had it click for them yet. Hi,
Tanvi (16m 13s):
Maybe it is eight months. It's this old, however, history doesn't show that much interest in food. I have tried giving a variety of food, but it takes hardly one or two bites or sometimes none. I still feed them around five to six times a day. Now I offer them solids a one to one and a half hour after the feed, but I don't see that much progress to be very honest. I don't know if I'm wieaningwrong or this is just naturally.
Katie Ferraro (16m 43s):
Thank you. Okay. Tanvi Thank you so much for sharing your current story and for being honest and vulnerable, because a lot of parents like everything's great with baby led weaning, and I love it so much, but there's a lot of parents who go through some ups and downs before they get there. Stick with this tanvi I think you're in a particularly challenging phase of baby LED WEANING. Your baby just turned eight months of age. And if he's still not interested in food, that's very, very typical. Just even having a few bites for other parents would be a huge win. I know you might see other babies, who's your baby's age. And you're like, they eat so much more than my baby. Don't stress. One thing I'm a little concerned about is feeding the baby five to six times a day.
Katie Ferraro (17m 23s):
And you said, I offer him solids around. So I'm not sure if you're doing solids five to six times a day, or if you're doing milk feeds, be it bottle-feed or breastfeeding five to six times a day. If it's food, unless your family eats solid food, five to six times a day, you might be setting yourself up for a lot of extra work that you just don't need. And that might cause you to burn out. So generally, if your family doesn't eat more than three times a day, your baby does not need to eat solid foods more than three times a day, but perhaps you meant you're still breastfeeding or bottle feeding five to six times a day. And I do have to offer that that is a little bit more frequently than most eight month old babies would be eating. And you might explore maybe not even dropping a milk feed yet, cause your baby kind of hasn't really all clicked for him yet, but you might consider consolidating that into less frequent feedings with perhaps slightly less overall volume.
Katie Ferraro (18m 16s):
It might be who view if you're feeling frustrated about his feeding to play around a little bit with his milk schedule. Now having said that, let's say you're eight weeks into baby led weaning. And I'm just assuming that you started at six months. So that's an assumption. I could be wrong if you've been doing this for eight weeks and you're like, there's nothing happening. I would advise you. It's kind of like a yellow flag, like stay alert to the fact that within the next four weeks we would expect to see your baby really pick up with regards to the pace and interest level in food. Especially if you're coming a little bit down on the milk. If you get to 12 weeks of having done, baby led weaning and absolutely nothing is happening.
Katie Ferraro (18m 58s):
That's when I would suggest that you may be considered asking your pediatrician or your primary care practitioner for a referral to feeding therapy. And a lot of parents that kind of the blood goes out of their face. And they're like, oh my gosh, what do you mean? My baby needs therapy? I did a whole episode episode, 152. It's called, how do I know if my baby needs feeding therapy? And I interviewed my good friend and colleague Dawn Winkelman. She's a speech language pathologist and a feeding therapist, fellow baby led weaning expert. And we really dove deep on the different areas that might require help and assistance from a feeding therapist. And I don't want to say, I just diagnose your baby with anything and you need feeding therapy. That's certainly not the case, but just be aware that if after 12 weeks of doing baby led weaning religiously, there's absolutely no interest in or interaction with the food.
Katie Ferraro (19m 44s):
That's not typical. And perhaps your baby would benefit from feeding therapy. So again, that's episode 152, all right. In a wander around this episode, out with a final mom, Kim from Scotland, she's going to run down like her schedule. This mom is on it. Like, this is my kind of mom. I didn't have to be real to you though. I didn't have a schedule when I only had one baby, I was like, what's the schedule? And then I had quadruplets. And then I was like, how did I live without a schedule? And then I had twins after that. And I was so grateful to have had a schedule because those babies at the end, if you've got a bunch of toddlers running around, it's sometimes gets a little bit messy, but we were able to stick with our schedule for feeding for them. I think it's probably the only part of our life that was organized. So as soon as I heard kids' schedule, I was like, I love her schedule.
Katie Ferraro (20m 26s):
This is for her baby. She didn't say how old her baby was, but this whole episode is about eight to nine months of age. So this is a great schedule. If you didn't do it, I know it might not work for everyone, but here's how Kim is doing. Baby LED WEANING in Scotland,
Kim (20m 41s):
Scotland, and three times a day doing solid foods. So we start off with a 70 and milk solids ATM and then 10 and milk, 1145 or 12:00 PM, lunch solids, then three o'clock milk and five o'clock solids, and then 6:00 PM milk bedtime melts the fourth milk feed of the day. And then for the night. And she sleeps seven until seven. So it was quite good. And then she has not nine till nine 30 and one till three in the afternoon.
Katie Ferraro (21m 9s):
Oh, Kim, I love it. You are on it. Thank you so much to all the moms who called in and left us their opinions, their current schedules. I just wanna remind you guys, there's no wrong way to do this. I love hearing from other moms about what's working for you and what's not working because I feel like we all can learn from each other. And if you feel like you still have a little bit to learn about baby LED WEANING, I'm going to link to all of the other episodes that I talked about in this episode, in the show notes, which you can find at blwpodcast.com slash 187. And don't forget, I teach that free online baby LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS workshop, especially for those of you who have eight to nine month old babies, but you're just starting solids or you're just transitioning from purees.
Katie Ferraro (21m 51s):
Or maybe you found out about baby LED WEANING after the ideal starting age of six months of age, you're not too late to succeed with. Self-feeding come check out the free workshop it's called baby LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS. And it's all about how to get your baby to eat a hundred foods before turning one, without you having to spoonfeed purees or buy pouches. Everyone in the workshop gets a copy of my hundred FIRST FOODS LIST. So you can get into a groove with your baby. Come to this week's workshop times you can sign up at baby LED, WEANING dot com. Again, that's baby LEDWEANING.co and maybe I'll see you guys on one of this week's workshops. I do a big Q and a at the end of them too. So it's really nice to hear about your burning baby led weaning questions in the event that I haven't been able to answer it through one of my trainings with the podcast episodes that you guys are listening to here.
Katie Ferraro (22m 39s):
So thanks again to everyone who participated. I really appreciate it. Kim, Tenvi, Geneva, Kankamanji, i and Christina. Good luck feeding those babies and I'll see you next time. Bye now.
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