Baby H is an incredibly great eater. This kid loves food and literally lunges at the spoon for each bite. She also gets sad and starts crying if she starts to feel like the bowl might be getting empty. Don’t come between my baby and her next meal! Otherwise, you have to see the sad-n0-more-beets face:
But navigating mealtimes isn’t the easiest when you’re in the in between stage: starting to eat more “real” food but still needing a healthy amount of milk/formula. How many meals a day? How many servings? I know it’s different with every baby, but since your baby can’t communicate with words as to what they want and if they want more, it can be challenging. And on top of quantities, it’s a lot of work to figure out what foods to feed and ensuring there’s some variety. I should also preface things by saying that we don’t do Baby Led Weaning (BLW). We’ve gone the “traditional” route of purees and then slowly introducing chunkier purees and finger foods.
At Baby H’s 9 month checkup a week ago, we were disheartened to hear that she dropped from 50th percentile for weight to 15th percentile. She’s always been long and lean, but our pediatrician was worried to see such a drastic dip in her weight gain. I know that the percentiles are just national averages and after I processed things, it didn’t worry me as much where she fell on the chart as much as ensuring she was gaining. At 16 lbs, 10 ounces our girl had only gained 1 pound since her 6 month appointment (however, when I was a baby I only weighed 16 lbs, 3 ounces at my 9 month appointment!).
Up until the 9 month appointment, we were doing about 2 meals a day except for a brief period around 7 months where we were feeding her more. We scaled back because she was getting easily constipated (even when we were feeding her things to help in the department, such as prunes and peas). After seeing her weight gain so minimal at this last appiontment, we decided to up her to 3 meals a day. I know that this is different for every baby, and some at this point wouldn’t be ready for that much food. However, Baby H has always loved food and we had been wondering for awhile if we should be feeding her more. She loves to eat but we wanted to balance the love for food with the ability to poop!
I’m happy to say that Baby H is eating until happily full with 3 meals a day, but she definitely let’s us know when she is full. And she hasn’t been struggling with constipation at all so I think we’ve found the right balance of food for her system. With the added food she is still getting enough milk/formula (we do a combo) as she was before solids.
Here’s an average day of Baby H meals:
Breakfast:
1 jar of prune puree
1 serving of Baby Oatmeal
Snack:
1 yogurt
Lunch:
3 1-ounce cubes of vegetable and fruit purees
1-2 different finger foods (“o” cereal, puffs, banana pieces, etc)
Sippy cup of water (she only drinks some of, a lot ends up on her shirt!)
Dinner:
2 1-ounce cubes of vegetable and fruit purees
1 1-ounce cube of a grain (ex. lentils and rice)
1-2 different finger foods (“o” cereal, puffs, tofu, etc)
Sippy cup of water (she only drinks some of, a lot ends up on her shirt!)
Milk/Formula
Nursing session morning and evening
3 6-ounce bottles of formula or milk (usually combination)
In additional to figuring out the quanity of foods, I’ve been working on a lot of “meal planning” to make sure we’re giving her a variety of food and introducing more and more foods. I also make all of her food (with the exception of the prune puree) so I have to really plan in advance to make sure I can get organic ingredients, especially for anything that can’t be frozen.
Baby H enjoys the following foods right now (all purees/chunky purees unless noted):
- Carrots
- Peas
- Green Beans
- Sweet Potato (puree and chunks for finger food)
- Butternut Squash (puree and chunks for finger food)
- Beets
- Applesauce (puree and chunks for finger food)
- Pearsauce
- Peaches
- Yellow lentils and brown rice (not pureed, sort of mashed)
- Quinoa (not pureed)
- Tofu (chunks)
- Soft cheese (finger food)
- Yogurt
- Prunes
- Spinach
- Avocado (finger food)
- Blueberries
- Toast pieces (finger food)
- Oatmeal
- Organic “O” cereal
- Puffs
In the next few weeks, I’m going to introduce:
- Broccoli (finger food)
- Cottage cheese
- Hummus
- Asparagus
- Organic turkey or chicken
I feel like we’re finally in a happy place where Baby H is happily eating (and pooping!) away and we’re happily giving her a good, healthy variety of foods to try. And, did I mention she loves having her big girl sippy cup?
Have you struggled to meal plan for a new eater?
Start Puree Solids – How To part 6 of 7
1. Getting Started with Solids, Purees, and Baby-led Weaning by Mrs. Bee2. Operation Solids by Mrs. Yoyo
3. feeding an 8 month old by Mrs. Jump Rope
4. My Modified Baby-Led Weaning Approach by Mrs. Pen
5. Introducing Baby to Herbs and Spices by Sarah Crowder
6. Figuring Out Food at 9 Months by Mrs. Hopscotch
7. "Bad" BLW: Feeding with a Loaded Spoon by Mrs. Sketchbook
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22276 posts
LO will be at this stage soon, love the list of foods! We will be trying some of these.
grapefruit / 4717 posts
Her face in the first pic is priceless!
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
Oh my gosh her sad beet face is so precious.
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
I am so glad you posted this. We are doing mostly purees right now for our 7.5 month old. She LOVES to eat, like yours. I do have trouble trying to figure out what to feed her, though. I kind of feel bad sending the same thing to daycare every singe day but, she doesn’t’ seem to mind.
I send smashed apples to daycare for lunch and she gets a mishmash at dinner- a veggie and protein puree, a toast strip or two smothered in fruit puree and maybe some fruit and yogurt. We also have started offering her shredded cheese so she has something to pick up and she LOVES that.
When did she learn to use the sippy cup? Right now we offer her an open cup of water (half ends up on her shirt) or a sippy but she doesn’t seem to know what to do with the sippy cup!
kiwi / 640 posts
that picture is priceless! She is such a sweetheart!
I’m having similar issues with my 6 month old trying to figure out the right mix of formula & food. It’s a work in progress! Our pediatrician just told us to increase his meals to 3x/day which we are slowly doing, I just want to make sure he’s still getting enough calories and nutrients from the formula too.
grapefruit / 4671 posts
I’m envious of all your great eaters. My 7.5 month old will only accept a few spoons of food from me, mostly she would ratehr nurse. She also doesn’t care about finger foods hahaha. She is however obsessed with guzzling water from both her sippy cup and a beaker.
blogger / apricot / 366 posts
@mediagirl: I know, it’s hard to make sure you’re getting a good variety and changing things up. We have a baby/toddler food cookbook that gives great ideas and recipes, but I still struggle with the what/when and keeping up with things. We started doing some cheese cubes (but shredded is a great idea) and tofu is a fantastic finger food as well. Easy to cube, no prep, but soft enough that it’s easy for them to eat.
We’ve had the sippy cup for awhile but we’ve been offer it somewhat for the past 3 weeks (so, at 8.5 months). She loves grabbing the handles and playing with it. Since it’s a sippy that she has to suck on to get water out (vs. the straw-type sippys), she is learning how to tip her head back to drink from it. We will help hold it for her and tip it back (helps if I’m standing up so she naturally is looking up) and eventually she figured out to suck on it to get water out. Now she will (sometimes) actually hold it up and get good drinks out of it herself, other times we will still hold it for her. It’s a work in progress but she’s definitely figuring it out. We also use room temp water so that she isn’t startled by cold water (my stupid mistake the first time).
blogger / apricot / 366 posts
@buffalove: We haven’t changed her formula/milk quantities. She still gets the same 3 6-ounce bottles and nurses morning/evening with me. The food is just an extra for her!
@plantains: I’m sure it will come in time! I think that age is just the opportunity to explore different tastes and textures but every baby is different with how much he/she wants to eat (which is why it can be so hard to figure out how much to feed them and what to feed them!).
grapefruit / 4671 posts
@Mrs. Hopscotch: You are right, I’m sure she will eventually eat. I do struggle with mealtimes too t hough and now that I am a WOHM trying to get her meals to align with ours is impossible. When we go to a restaurant though, she loves to eat the rice of my plate so there is hope yet.
blogger / nectarine / 2010 posts
We definitely had trouble finding a plan that worked for us, but I followed the advice of extended breastfeeding research and did one meal a day until almost 11m. At 9m Little M dropped from the 20th to the 2nd percentile, but he just didn’t eat much when I offered him food in the afternoon and he was waking at night for milk. I took that to mean that the food I was feeding him wasn’t sustaining him like my milk did. It was right around 11.5m when we introduced a second afternoon meal and he went back to his happy, snoozy nights. Now at 13m we do two meals, a smaller snack mid-day and several BF sessions. He eats a ton of food during his meals.
grapefruit / 4120 posts
She looks like a sad vampire in that photo
PS you sound like you’re really in the ball with meal plannig! In impressed!
cherry / 205 posts
Thanks for this post because it prompted me to check on my daughters progress. I have been wondering the same thing for couple of months. My daughter just turned 8 months and she’s only gained half pound since 6 month checkup. She’s EBF so I think her lack of weight gain is a sign that I too need to give her more solids and that my milk supply is decreasing. And after looking at what you feed your LO, I know we’re definitely not feeding her nearly enough food
blogger / apricot / 366 posts
@sloaneandpuffy: Ha! Seriously, the girl loves her beets. And thank you
I’m constantly trying to keep up with adding in different options for her. It’s not easy but so much fun when she tries something new.
@X0X0X0: It also depends on your daughter, but I’m sure she’ll let you know if she wants more food or if she’s still hungry
Baby H seriously cries and gets so very sad at the end of the meal. She likes her food! It has really helped us now, too, having a wide variety of options for her at meal time (vs. 2 cubes of food and done). Offering some different finger foods into the mix makes it more fun and helps us change it up a bit.
guest
Hello Mrs. Hopscotch! Thank you so much for sharing
My little guy was born on April 1st, so we’re very much in the same boat as you right now. I wanted to suggest a resource that I have found to be REALLY helpful. It’s a book called Super Nutrition for Babies. I found it on Amazon for like $10 and it’s been SO HELPFUL. I’ll post a link at the end if you decide to look in to it. The really interesting thing for me was how much this book stresses the importance of organic meats and healthy oils for kiddos around 9-10 mths. After reading this book, we’ve introduced a lot more organic, pureed meats and we not add coconut or olive oil to all of Anthony’s fruit and veggie purees. The book explains it better, but fats are really important for vitamin absorption (I had no idea!). The extra calories and meat and oils are great to keep them growing as well. I hope this helps and your little girl is BEAUTIFUL so don’t stress Mama 
guest
Oh and here is the link to the book!!
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Nutrition-Babies-Optimal-Health/dp/1592335039
blogger / apricot / 366 posts
@Katie B.: Thank you so much for the resource