9 Month Milestone
9 MONTHS and mobile!
VITAMIN D REMINDER
The CDC recommends that all infants who drink LESS than 32 oz (1 L) of formula daily receive 400 IU of vitamin D. Especially at northern latitudes, and especially for dark-skinned infants who have higher levels of melanin to block UV light absorption, vitamin D supplements help ensure a healthy immune system, bones, and teeth. See our post on vitamins for more information.
BOTTLE FEEDING REMINDERS
Always hold your baby while bottle feeding
Don’t prop the bottle, lay your baby down to sleep with the bottle, or put anything other than formula or human milk in the bottle.
Maintain eye contact with your baby while they are feeding. For a baby, eating isn’t just about getting fed—it’s about bonding, too.
Babies have meals and snacks just like we do, and they won’t always take the same amount each time.
Hold the bottle in a “gravity-neutral” position so your baby can eat at their own pace, take breaks, and take as much or as little as they need. Check out our bottle feeding blog post and downloadable bottle feeding guidelines for more information.
CHANGES WITH BREAST AND BOTTLE FEEDING
As babies gain more feeding skills, many parents start noticing that baby takes less formula or human milk from a bottle, or asks to nurse less often. This is normal! It’s a natural transition for your baby to get more and more nutrition from food and less and less from formula or human milk.
By the time your baby is about a year old, they will likely be drinking about 20-24 oz of milk (formula or human milk) per day. If you’re exclusively breastfeeding, of course you won’t be able to measure this. Either way, you can trust your baby’s intuitive self-regulation skills.
PROGRESSING WITH SOLIDS
Most babies at this stage are eating 3-5 meals/snacks per day, mostly table foods (the food the rest of the family eats). You are probably still modifying the texture of some foods for your baby. When you are spoon feeding, let your baby grab the spoon, practice self-feeding, and play with it.
Be sure to offer finger foods with a variety of textures and allow your baby to practice self-feeding with them (examples: a piece of banana, cooked vegetable, noodle, bread/toast and soft fruit). Be prepared for messes – it’s a normal part of the learning process (as is gagging, which is not choking!).
Let your baby decide how much to eat at each meal or snack, and avoid catering to preferences...we need multiple exposures to a food before deciding if we like it!
You can offer water, formula, or expressed human milk in an open or straw cup at meal times to continue giving your baby practice with cup drinking.
Read more about feeding your baby solid foods here.
DISCLAIMER: We know when you surf the web for information, you can get conflicting results, and it’s not easy to know whether you are finding evidence-based, high quality recommendations. That’s part of our job here at Kodiak KINDNESS; we are here to support your informed decisions about infant feeding through your baby’s first year. We’ve done some background work, and to the best of our knowledge, this post reflects current best practices. However, the information contained in this post and any links contained herein is for your informational use only; it is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Furthermore, Kodiak KINDNESS is not responsible for the accuracy of any information contained in this post or links contained herein; it is for you to review at your own risk and discuss, as needed, with your health care professional in order to make a plan that suits your individual circumstances.