You keep feeding them formula until they are a year old. The eating solids before a year old is just to introduce them to learning how to eat with a spoon so it's not a requirement that they eat solids, it's more a learning experience. I fed my babies with the stage 2 baby foods until they had enough teeth to eat more chunky foods. I never did buy the stage 3 or graduates foods. At a year old they just started eating what we were eating, I bought a cheap food chopper which was around 6.00 at wal-mart and chopped up their meats with that and other chunkier foods but most of the food they just ate with us and had their milk or juice in between in their sippy cups as they were off the bottle at 12 months.
At 8 months your baby may not be ready for lumpy foods.
Their eating schedule pretty much went like this until they were off of formula.
1st feeding...6 ounce bottle when they woke up in the morning
2nd feeding...4 ounce cup of formula and infant cereal mixed with 1/2 jar of fruit and added a little water to mix it.
3rd feeding (usually lunch time)... 1/2 jar of veggies, 1/2 jar of fruit. 4 ounce cup of formula.
4th feeding... 6 ounce bottle
5th feeding...(dinner time) 1/2 jar of baby food (usually a chicken noodle mixture or something like that) 1/2 jar of veggies, 1/2 jar of fruit. 4 ounce cup of formula. I always used a 3 section plate for feeding them their food. I didn't feed them out of the jar because I knew they weren't eating the whole jar.
last feeding before they went to bed... 6 ounce bottle
They slept through the night between 6-8 weeks and started feeding them this schedule at 5-6 months until they started eating most of our food with us. Introduced cereal at 4 months, and the cup around 4 months at meal time. Sometimes they would get juice in a sippy cup between meals.
At a year old I would give them juice in a sippy cup sometimes instead of milk for their lunch and dinner meal. When they weren't drinking formula anymore, you just increase their food servings at meal times and give them milk in between meals if they act hungry or thirsty. I also added in a snack time or 2 after they were a year old. Cheerios or other cereals or crackers work well for snacktime.
My kids got off the bottle real easy, maybe by having them use the sippy cup early helped so they didn't always associate formula as having to be in a bottle everytime. They only fussed the first night then were done with it and accepted the cup just fine. My 3rd child kept throwing his bottle out of his crib at about 10 months and several of them cracked from him throwing them so he went to the cup before 12 months because at that point I wasn't going to buy anymore bottles and he was fine with the sippy cup.
If your child has a pacifier, you want to wean them from that first. The longer they have that the harder it will be. Newborns have a need to suck on a pacifier or their fingers a lot but as they grow older that isn't so much a need anymore and just becomes a habit. My 1st only had his for 3 months because he had a one of a kind pacifier and it rotted and wasn't able to find another one like it so he wouldn't take any other types so was off of his at 3 months. 2nd child had colic for 5 1/2 months but weaned her by 9 months-- she fussed a few nights but was fine after that. 3rd one was weaned from the pacifier at 5 months. He didn't seem to desire to have it so we just quit giving it to him. He didn't fuss at all about losing it.