1st posting in here,my hv is trying to presurise me to wean dd at 20 weeks reckons shes going to miss the window

[kittenbaby]

there is clearly no need to wean dd as she is gaining well, developing well and even sleeping great
also she cannot sit up yet either

this nightmare of a hv[ who has also given me hell over me bf,i wont bore you with all the details but she seemed intent on wrecking it for us]
has now moved onto trying to make me wean dd now i have told her ive no intention of doing so and im going to bf her till 6months
which she also thinks is only advice for the 3rd world blah blah

she is now telling me that if i dont wean her NOW im going to miss the window and create allsorts of problems for myself and dd
and that ill be slowing down her develpoment

please tell me you experiences to those that waited till 6 months how did you get on when it was time for food

[JeremyVile]

Why are you still seeing this mad woman?
Is there any particular reason?

[Wisteria]

Tell her to bollox and don't go and see her anymore - you've answered your own question..... your dd is fine by the sounds of it and you will know when she's ready because she'll start being hungrier and waking more in the night.

Mine were weaned fairly early as I felt they were ready but there's no 'window' as far as I know!

[TellusMater]

Window?

I left weaning DD until we'd come back from holiday, and then I forgot that I had meant to start IYSWIM, so she was over 7 months when we started, and it was so easy. Really.

Window - pah!

[talktothebees]

OMG! DD is also 20 weeks. There's a window? That you can miss? How long is this window? What if it happens during the night when we're all asleep? DD will have to subsist on nothing but milk FOREVER!!!!!

Has she given you reasons why she thinks the window is open now? They's have to pretty good for you to place greater faith in her single opinion than the combined wisdom of the DoH, the WHO and the person who knows your bay best in the world i.e. you.

[yaddayule]

PUSH the HV out of the window

Sorted

at talk to the bees- good post!

[naturopath]

If it makes you feel any better, my paed told us to wean at 4 months - I started at 4 1/2 months - he loved food for about a week, now won't touch it and gags every time I try to give him solids (which have absolutely no lumps and are just as smooth and sloppy as his first meals). Maybe he's just not ready. You have not missed a window - there are PLENTY of people weaning at 6 months.

[Peachy]

Oh Good God

years ago, in antiquity (ie when I had ds1 and ds2 LOL), we were all told to wean at 4 months, any later would affect chewing etc. Indeed, many people like me were advised to wean earlier- I could start to list DS1's intolerances, but gluten and dairy free for the rest of his life would sum it up neatly.

Then they brought in the WHO advice and for quite a while it was just advice- and there was all the 'oh it doesn't aply to us, its a universal recommendation' etc etc, and its for epoepl who can't sterilise rpo[erly.

But for ages now its been solid guidelines. And she should know that. And if she doesn't, consider shifting HV or well- ignoring her.

[Lulumama]

no such thing as a window of opportunity, your HV is sooooooo wrong

if you don;t trust her advice re BF, then why should you start now?

my DD was weaned at 6 monhts, she was a crap eater, still is, but she was crap at taking her bottle too.... so not the best example !

but you can do no harm by delaying until at least 6 months, whereas earlier weaning might be troublesome

[hunkermunker]

KB, please shoot your HV to put her out of our misery.

She's mental. Talking crap. Giving potentially dangerous, not-backed-up-by-research advice.

I waited till the DSs were 6mo - DS2 was slightly older.

They (largely) went straight onto finger food and they are FINE. They didn't eat much at all till they were about 8 or 9mo though - they were bfed and I didn't mind how much they ate as long as they were happy.

Can you ask her what research she can point to that backs up her claims?

Can you also ask if the local authority has a breastfeeding policy and can you have a copy of it?

[Habbibu]

Kitten, ask her straight out why she's going against NHS, never mind WHO, guidance. For the record, my 99.8th centile daughter was exclusively breastfed to 6 months, then did BLW and maintained her centile until recently (she's now 13 months) when her growth is starting to plateau a bit, as she's very active.

[Jacanne]

A couple of Mums I know didn't introduce solids until 7 or 8 months because of allergies - their children are healthy, eating pre-schoolers now. I think the "window of opportunity" is an Old Health Visitors Tale (perhaps we shoulh have a thread to see how many of these we can think of)

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

I would be tempted to complain about her

But definitely ignore her

I exlusively bf until 6 months (well about a week before that when she grabbed food from her brother I think)

I did the blw thing

Everybody has been really impressed with her eating. She chews her food. And there has been so much less gagging than when I weaned her older brothers the way that we were advised back then (at 3 months for DS1 and 4 months for DS2)

[crokky]

BF til 6 months is the NHS guideline - NHS caters for UK only - it is nothing to do with the 3rd world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I waited the full 6 months, plus another extra week (because I had no kitchen at the time lol!). At that age, weaning was easy. Much fewer foods are restricted once they reach 6 months. What a stupid HV!

[colditz]

Given that food is not a sterile substance in a natural environment...

...and given that you are supposed to keep things sterile until they are 6 months old...

..isn't she contradicting herself?

[terramum]

Make a complaint about her - all HV's were issued with guidelines about when babies should start solids & they emphatically refute the idea of a window of opportunity so she is not following the guidelines she should be working in which means she is either incompetent/out of date or so arrogant she think she knows better than evidence-based research.

The guidelines she should have read are here:
www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_4096999.pdf
& state:

"Will waiting until six months affect a baby?s ability to chew?
No. This misconception appears to have arisen from an old scientific/research paper presenting case studies of children who remained on a liquid diet for 6-10 months, most of whom had developmental delays or disabilities. A hypothesis was suggested that ?if children are not given solid foods to chew at a time when they are first able to chew, troublesome feeding problems may occur?. This has since been quoted and inappropriately extended to younger babies with normal development."

NB - where it says liquid diet in the quote above it's even more useful to know that the babies in this study were mostly tube fed & so had never used their jaw muscles to feed at all.

[Columbia]

window schmindow.

[mrsmalumbas]

Miss the window, what supreme bollocks. So if you wait a bit before giving her "food" then she will forever lose the ability to chew and swallow? Bollocky bollocky bollocks. Your first sentence says it all, you instinctively know what your DD needs. She sounds a nightmare. I am so glad I had my babies overseas and never had to endure this kind of silly HV nonsense.

[AussieSim]

With DS1 I tried to introduce solids at 4.5mth - big messy frustrating disaster. With DS2 waited till 6mths - smooth as silk. I will wait again until 6mths with DC3, but I have seen mums struggle at 6mths and have a friend who was getting close to 12mths with her DS till he was eating solids properly. They are all different I guess. I BF'd to a schedule rather than on demand though and I think that makes a big difference. Baby has got to be ready and hungry.

[starfish2]

I also had a fairly destructuve hv. As soon as I realised she was not there to help and support me I stopped seeing her. Useless woman, useless advice, waste of everybody's time and patience. Stop seeing her. You'll get far better advice from here. If you really need help you can talk to your GP about specialised services (eating/sleeping clinics), and tell you GP that your hv was destructive and misinformed.
BTW, mine was exclusively breastfed for 6 months.

[kittenbaby]

thanks for all your replies

i know shes a nightmare, crap spouting twat

the only reason i see her [very occasionally now though] is because when i want to get dd weighed which i also only do occasionally now as well, if i went to another clinic id have to get alift or taxi
as im still recovering from a major repair operation after the birth of dd
so tbh its easier to get dd weighed at my local clinic then i can walk down there

i do not trust this womans advice or respect her at all,i know, i know whats best for my dd and there is no indication whatsoever that she needs food and i also believe if i wait till 6 months if anything its gonna be easier rather than harder

she just pisses me off so much always making out just because i want to bf dd till 6 months im in someway harming her and slowing down her develpoment

hunker -do you think i should go through the formal complaints process?as ive already spoken to gp about her but shes not changed a bit hasnt had any effect on her at all, the only concern i have about that is that i had to make a complaint about the way i was treated when giving birth to dd,do you think they'll just think oh this ones a right trouble maker or would the 2 incidences be treated as seperate, as that is what they are as hv clearly has nothing to do with what happened to me at the birth?

[kittenbaby]

terramum thanks for the link off to read it now

[puffylovett]

they should be treated as separate incidences kittenbaby, i should think.

your HV is a nightmare, i should tell her to her face how destructive she has been (if you had the guts - i wouldn't !)

I bf exclusively till 24 weeks, then started BLWing - earlier than 26 cos i bowed to family pressure.

However, he's now 8 months and he only started REALLY eating anything at about 7.5 - and even that's been up and down due to teething / colds etc.

However, he has remained at 91st centile the whole way and is active, loads of wet nappies and stillhappily bfing. Plus, i can hand him a whole plum and he'll eat the majority of it himself. My friend who weaned hers onto purees can hardly get her LO to touch finger food at 10 mths, he doesn't like the textures & now spits out lumps & insists on purees still.

Tell her bollox and go with your instincts.

[Dontlookatmeimshy]

Ignore the mad woman!

I didn't start weaning ds till he was nearly 7 months, he wouldn't take any food before then and I wasn't prepared to force it till he was ready. I didn't start on lumpy stuff till well past 8 months at which point the hv gave me the old "oh if you don't introduce lumps in the 6-8 month window you'll have a fussy eater blah blah blah."

Well obviously ds (now 2)wasn't listening to her as he will eat practically anything put in front of him.