Katie Ferraro (0s):

We actually don't feed babies early on for hunger purposes. And sometimes when you're working on your schedule early on, you'll bring the baby to the table and be freaking out cause they're hungry. Well, the food is not going to satiate their hunger needs or take care of that because they don't know how to eat yet. Hey, there Im Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian college nutrition, professor and mom of seven specializing in Baby bed 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.

Katie Ferraro (41s):

Hey guys, welcome back today. We're talking about scheduling your baby's meals. Now this particular episode is for six to seven month old babies. I'm going to do eight to nine next and then 10 and 11 month old babies after that. So if you have a baby who's six or seven months of age, this is an episode for you all about some ideas regarding the sample baby led weaning schedules. Now I'm going to share a few of my thoughts about how you might consider shaping your baby's day with regards to food, as you're just starting out at six to seven months, but I'm going to be bringing in a number of moms who will also be sharing their particular schedules at this age as well. Now I put the word out for all parents and caregivers, but it's only moms who participated in this one, but I think you're really going to enjoy hearing from them because I don't know about you, but I love to hear other people's schedules.

Katie Ferraro (1m 26s):

Like not for comparison sake, but just for inspiration. Like, oh, I never thought about that. Or maybe that's what I could do. So when it comes to scheduling, I want you to know that there's no wrong way to schedule your baby's meals. And that's because there's no hard and fast rules about what you have to or should be doing. So again, all of these suggestions I'm providing just for your ideas, things you might consider, but you don't have to do it right again, no hard and fast rules. About how many times a baby should eat. Any time you hear baby Led Weaning guidance. It says you should do this. I have kind of red flags always come up because a lot of this is dependent upon your baby, your family schedule, what you are comfortable with. Some parents are like, yeah, I get it. But can you just tell me what you do?

Katie Ferraro (2m 6s):

My general rule of thumb is when your baby is six to seven months of age, try to feed the baby one to two times a day. It's a good place to start. You're transitioning into this new phase of the baby's life. Any disruption in the schedule is a little bumpy and Rocky there for awhile. So I like to do one to two times a day. Some of the moms you're gonna hear from today are doing a little bit more than that. And that's fine. By eight to nine months, we like to bump that up to two to three times a day. And then at 10 and 11 months of age, we want to see baby getting ready to be eating three meals a day. If that's what the rest of the family does, because ultimately with baby led weaning like our end goal here is that we want baby to be sitting at the table, eating modified versions of the same foods that the rest of the family does by the time they're one-year-old. But as you guys know your baby, doesn't wake up on their first birthday and magically knowing how to eat a hundred different foods, right?

Katie Ferraro (2m 49s):

The weaning period is the practice period. And six and seven months is the very beginning of the practice period. So six to seven months, I generally start with one to two times a day. I get two questions when I ask them why one to two times a day, because there's some families I work with that are like, oh, I'm doing solid foods. Like every two or three days, that's not going to cut it. Okay. Practice makes progress. The more practice your baby has, the more proficient they will become at self-feeding because for those of you who are in the thick of it right now, you know, the first few weeks, sometimes even months of baby Led Weaning, there's very little actual eating going on and you should be prepared for that. You don't need to stress about how much they're eating before they're even able to eat. So remember that the weaning period is the practice period, but the more you practice, the better your baby will get.

Katie Ferraro (3m 34s):

So we don't want to be skipping days, you know, a day or two here and there cause you're traveling or the baby sick, not the end of the world. But if you look back on your week and you're like, oh, we only did like three meals the whole week. That might not be enough for a baby. Who's six to seven months to be hitting their feeding milestones down the road. Now on the other side, people always say, well, what if I want to do more than that? If you do cool, like if that works for you fine, but it's a lot of pressure to change from a fully liquid diet, right? Your baby's only had breast milk or formula in their mouth for the first six months of their life. And now you're introducing this new stuff and the stools are changing a little and the nap schedule might be adjusting. So don't stress yourself out about it. Try to do one a day. And if you can do two great, if you're up for three, that's fine. So just remember this is kind of a slow burn, right?

Katie Ferraro (4m 14s):

The first few weeks, even months of baby led, weaning can be slow, but we still want to practice. So how might you shape your day? I'm going to be sharing a few moms who called in with some ideas about what their current schedule looks like for their six to seven month old babies. So with no further ado, let's bring on some of the moms who are sharing their babies six and seven month old schedules, their sample baby led weaning schedule ideas for you. And first up is Emily.

Emily (4m 42s):

Hi Katie and team. My daughter Lennon is a week shy of seven months and doing baby Led Weaning interested to hear what you think about this schedule. But right now we are doing essentially two baby line meaning meals a day. What works for us is doing morning. And then evening and evening is 10 where we tend to get the most creative and super dirty, right before bath time, she does go to daycare and has bottles make her, her daycare providers also feeding her here Ray, during the day she feels most comfortable. And honestly, I feel most comfortable with her doing that right now. Just kind of where we are with food. A little bit of my like anxiety about it, the interested to hear.

Emily (5m 23s):

If you think that that's a good schedule or not

Katie Ferraro (5m 25s):

Emily, I love your ideas. I think for a seven month old love that you waited until your baby was six months adjusted age two times a day. Sounds great. I personally also feel that babies, at least in my own family and, and in the families that I work with a lot of times morning is the time they'll have the best meal, but that might not be for every baby. As far as timing goes. Just so you guys know what time you do the meal. Doesn't really matter. Whatever works for your family with one caveat there, when we're introducing new allergenic foods. I prefer not to do it later at night because in the event that there's an reaction you don't want to have like the baby sleeping in the whole family sleeping. And just so you know, if there is going to be an allergic reaction to a food, it will occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion of the food.

Katie Ferraro (6m 9s):

So it might just be easier for allergenic food day to do it a little bit earlier. I also love that Emily is trying to incorporate baby led weaning at daycare, but she's honest that she's not super comfortable with that yet. And I also always recommend that you get comfortable with doing baby led weaning with your baby with a few foods. And I would suspect Emily that in just a few days or even weeks Lennon will have enough foods under her belt that you'll feel comfortable asking for a meeting with daycare, sitting them down and saying, Hey, this is how I want Lennon to be able to eat and feed herself when she's at daycare and doing purees is perfectly fine. If that's all the daycare is comfortable with. But one thing you can always request is that nobody put this boon in the baby's mouth except the baby.

Katie Ferraro (6m 53s):

And again, that may require you sitting down with them, showing how you put the food into the bowl, put the period food onto the spoon and then let the baby self feed. If you guys are interested in learning more about daycare, I've got a fabulous episode. It's episode number 42, and it's called daycare. How to be an advocate for baby Led Weaning. And I've got a great handout on the show notes page. That's all about the language to use, to talk to your daycare provider. If you're trying to have these conversations, you can find that episode@blwpodcast.com forward slash 42. So doing a great job, Emily, keep up the good work with Lennon. We'll stay in touch to see how you guys are doing next up. We're going to hear from Darien mom of a baby.

Katie Ferraro (7m 34s):

Who's six months old.

Darien (7m 36s):

My baby is six months old and we've been doing baby Led Weaning. I try my best to do at least one meal a day. And it's usually lunch because that seems to be about the easiest. Whenever I'm eating sheets with me. And I always feed her first, I breastfeed. So we do breastfeeding first before any meal, just because I know she's going to get more of that compared to the food. If it's a good day, I try to do two times a day. Whenever my husband try to get her to eat dinner with us, usually it's her lunch meals, definitely bigger than our dinner meal, just because I get more one-on-one time with her during lunch, but she is doing great. She's really loving the lamb. That's been the new craze of the week, but I really appreciate your baby Led Weaning courses you give because they really have helped us out tremendously.

Katie Ferraro (8m 21s):

All right, Darian with a six month old, love a couple things about your schedule. First of all, acknowledging that like you've maybe play around with it in lunch. It seems to be doing well for you. That's great. It definitely will change. And some days, Hey, lunch might be good one day and not good the next day. And that's totally fine. You can definitely expect that babies will wax and wane with regard to their interest in food in different times of the day. So sometimes if a meal doesn't go, well, put that meal right back in the fridge, go for a nap, go for a play, come back later and try it. And sometimes it's amazing that they'll go for the food they didn't go for before, but you're breastfeeding. And so we're talking a little bit about hunger here. You made a really important point that your baby is getting most of their nutrition from breast milk or formula at six months, which they certainly are and will continue to for a while.

Katie Ferraro (9m 1s):

We actually don't feed babies early on for hunger purposes. And sometimes when you're working on your schedule early on, you'll bring the baby to the table and be freaking out cause they're hungry. Well, the food is not going to satiate their hunger needs or take care of that because they don't know how to eat yet. So you might want to give them a little breastfeeding snack, a little bit of breast milk, calm them down, chill them out. Then they're not so starving. Put them in the high chair. And that baby is more likely to eat. They're not distracted by being hungry. So don't feel obligated to be offering food in response to hunger very early on at six and seven months of age, even some eight and nine month old babies are going to need a little bit more time until they're really able to respond to hunger. So you're smart to still be leaning on breast milk or formula as the primary source of nutrition.

Katie Ferraro (9m 43s):

And you're using all of those meal experiences as your baby's opportunity to learn how to eat. So thank you Darien, for sharing your schedule with us next up. I want to introduce you guys to Mari.

Mari (9m 53s):

Katie might be priests. Now seven months old. We started baby LED WEANING around six months. Plus one week it goes like that and it's been going great. We usually did like two times a day, but now it seems really unfair. Or when we sit at the table and he can't eat, you know, like we eat three times a day together as a family. Thank you for all the stuff you do, really appreciate it. I didn't do it with my first son and he's not eating it all. So I hope my second baby, we'll teach him how to do it. So thank you very much. Now we are at the three times schedule

Katie Ferraro (10m 34s):

Mari, this is awesome. Seven Months Old. Congratulations. Getting your baby up to two times a day. That's wonderful. Well, I don't love that. You said you felt like you're being unfair because you're not being unfair, but I get it like after a couple of days, your baby sees food and they see you guys eating and they get excited and they want to be a part of that. So there's no reason why you can't bump your baby up to three times a day. If it's something that works for your family, some families feel stressed by that either. Maybe they don't eat three times a day or they're not home for three meals a day, or they don't have the energy to do it three times a day. And that, or maybe they eat after the baby eats. That's a big one, right? Like if babies go to bed at six, o'clock like, I'm sorry. I don't love eating dinner at five, but sometimes you do. You sit down, you might have a snack with your baby, but I love that you're adjusting the baby's schedule to work with your family schedule.

Katie Ferraro (11m 17s):

And I think three times a day, tops is fine. Just as a reminder, babies do not need snacks. I saw something new that killed me. It was actually a printed guide from a state agency here in California that fed to feed a nine month old baby formulas a day and two snacks. And I was like, are you freaking kidding me? Who has time to do steely six times a day? I mean, you might. You're a full-blown adult. Does your baby with their teeny tiny stomach need for food meals plus two food snacks a day at nine months. Absolutely not. I like to think of the snacks that your baby is getting. That's the milk that they're getting between meals. Babies don't need snacks. And if this is news to you, I've got a great snacks episode. A lot of parents love this one because they're like, I didn't know it was okay to skip snacks.

Katie Ferraro (11m 59s):

Absolutely. If you don't want to have a toddler, who's always asking for snacks. Don't start by making a baby who is always used to getting snacks. So if you go to episode number 35, it's called snacks. Why early eaters don't need snacks. That's at BLWpodcast.com/35. Lots more snacks info in there for you. But I love Mari that you're sticking to the food and congrats on getting almost up to three times a day with your seven month old baby.

Jeanette (12m 22s):

My son is seven months old. He has started eating solids as of last week because he came a month early. He eats twice a day. Generally I try to feed them an hour after he's had his milk and it's worked out really well. I usually feed him in the morning. Time has solids and it during lunch time

Katie Ferraro (12m 46s):

Alright, Jeanette Cobell is thank you so much for sharing a couple of things. There are seven Months Old. Did you guys hear how she said she just started? And that's because her baby was born prematurely. So great job there. Jeanette, we always want to wait until the baby is at least six months adjusted age. If you're not sure about what adjusted age means. Head back to episode 119, it's called Premature babies: how to estimate and adjust age for starting solid foods. Now with Jeanette's schedule, I love that she mentioned she tries to feed him solid food about an hour after he's had milk. And this is a little bit different. If you're bottle feeding, we generally want to wait a little bit longer after the bottle versus if you're breastfeeding, breastfeeding babies, their snack, and sometimes to chill them out, you can put them right in the highchair.

Katie Ferraro (13m 29s):

They have volume that they eat is so little that we're generally not concerned. Why is it different with bottle fed? Babies will a seven month old baby who's taking a bottle, might take four or five or six ounces at once. They're getting really good at getting the bottle, right? And if their belly is full of all of that formula and you sit them down and you're practicing with a new food, you guys know there's gagging that occurs when we're starting baby led, weaning and gagging while it's a good thing and a totally natural and necessary part of learning how to eat. If baby gags too intensely, it could elicit a vomiting response. Now you guys can expect vomiting a little bit with baby Led Weaning, okay, but if baby's vomiting at every meal or every day, that's certainly not typical.

Katie Ferraro (14m 9s):

And so we like to build in about an hour pad from the end of the milk feed until the beginning of the food feed, especially for those babies, with the very sensitive gag reflex. Now not all babies need this. Certainly some can have a bottle pretty close to mealtime, especially as they get better at eating. But if you're worried about vomiting or there has been vomiting, try to put that pad in about an hour after the bottle feed ends to start the solid foods. So Jeanette, thank you so much for sharing and great job with your baby. Doing baby led weaning there at the six month adjusted mark. All right, well there you have it. A little bit of information kind of sprinkled around this episode about some different ideas for how you might schedule baby LED WEANING for your six to seven month old baby.

Katie Ferraro (14m 51s):

I want to say thank you to Emily Darien, Mari, and Jeanette. Your guys' input is invaluable. If you noticed there are four totally different ways that they're feeding their baby. And guess what? They're all right. They're all fine. Good job for trying to do it. At least one to two times a day when your baby is six to seven months of age, hang with it. Don't give up. This is the most crucial point. The first eight weeks throughout the six and seven month, mark can be brutal. You're like, why am I doing this? They're hardly even eating anything. Some of it's dropping on the floor. You're feeling frustrated. You're nervous. Oh my gosh, they're not getting enough. Iron chil, your baby needs time to learn how to eat. That's the whole point of baby Led Weaning. If you hang with it for the first eight weeks, I promise you the great majority of babies.

Katie Ferraro (15m 33s):

Some are between weeks eight and 12. It really all kind of clicks for them with regard to self-feeding. And that a lot of parents they'll write back to me, be like, okay, you were right. Like they, right. And I'm complaining and freaking out when they're six and seven months of age, I'm like call me when they're eight months. I promise if you've been doing this for eight weeks or longer, it will all click and you'll be so glad that you stuck with it. So don't forget. Practice makes progress, keep up the great work, feeding your babies. And thanks so much for listening to this episode, I'm going to link to all of the other episodes that I talked about too inside of today's episode on the show notes, which you can find blwpodcast.com/185, good luck to all the parents and caregivers of six and seven month old babies out there.

Katie Ferraro (16m 13s):

I hope you find the schedule that works for your family, but final note, don't get too attached to it because as you know, once you get good with a schedule, it's time to change to another schedule. So hang in there, you got this, your baby will learn how to feed themselves. Bye now.