to consider weaning my DS at 17/18 weeks?

[auburnlizzy78]

I will discuss this with my GP and HV of course, but have a feeling they are going to give me the party line of "the DOH/WHO guidelines say exclusive BF for the first six months" and there will be very little discussion of our actual situation. So I wanted to ask what you would all do/did do if you had a similarly big and hungry baby. Trying not to be accused of drip feeding so these are hopefully all the relevant facts:

• DS (first child) will be 14 weeks old this weekend
• He was 8lb 13oz at birth, at 42 weeks gestation.
• At 13 weeks he was 16lb 3oz and has stayed faithfully to his 91st centile line for weight since birth. Think he will double his birthweight (i.e. reach 17lb 10) by 17/18 weeks. I understand that this is one of the indicators for readiness to wean.
• He is 98th centile for length. Overall, size pretty appropriate considering DH is 6ft 3.)
• He slept 12 hours per night without waking since he was nine weeks old. But in the last week he has started waking up again and properly yelling in the early hours, necking 150ml/5oz and going straight back to sleep. So I don't think it's teething pain, nappy, or any other reason.
• I think he is starting to teethe but not causing any major discomfort yet.
• He is fed about 1 litre/30-32oz expressed breast milk every day, plus a 200ml carton of formula. In the last week he has needed two cartons a day. He sloshes when you hold him.

• Plenty of wees and an epic poo a day.
• No health issues. He's a bright, alert, feisty, very wriggly baby!
• Can sit up supported and hold his head up. Pretty much was doing that from 8 weeks old (GP was quite shocked at the 6-8week review)
• He has become fascinated by us eating.
• He is quite capable of taking 120/150ml- 4-5oz every hour in the evenings, growth spurt or not.
• No allergies in the family on either side.

Thanks for reading. Instinct tells me and DH that milk alone is no longer enough. We would only give a bit of baby rice for now with a couple of feeds each day, to see how it goes, rather than weaning fully, for now.

What would you do if you were in our shoes?

Early stage pureed food and baby rice are like those diet drinks- they fill the tummy but have very few calories. If he feels hungry his body needs the calories. The rice will stop him feeling as hungry meaning he's dropping extra milk feeds when his body is trying to grow and needs the nutrition.

it really does not matter you know. Once you're past this stage you'll wonder why you ever thought it did.

Beautifully put, everything :o

I think you should trust your instincts. When I had my 4 the advice was to start solids at 16 weeks - DS1 was ready at 12 weeks (roughly same growth as your DC, he was breast feeding for 3/4 hour every 2 hours, 24 hours a day - plenty of milk too, I used to flood the bed!), DS2 also BF, ready at 11 weeks (weighed 9lb 13oz at birth, never lost any at all). DS 3 wasn't ready until 15 weeks and DS4 until 17 weeks (induced at 35 weeks for medical reasons (his, not mine). They are all (with the exclusion of No 4 whose medical issues are not feeding related!) very tall, healthy boys, not overweight or allergic.

As someone else said, the advice changes but babies are babies. The advice has to cover babies at each end of the growth charts too and therefore cannot really be "one size fits all".

Size of baby isn't any really indicator of when to wean - it may be an indicator that they need more milk than smaller babies, not that they need any other form on nutrition. dd was 10lb 11oz at birth, and stuck to the 99.6th centile like glue until she was about 10 mo, iirc - she's about 91st now. And she slept like a lamb until after she was weaned at 6 months. Then her nights went to pot for a long time, despite her eating like a horse and having a very settled stomach.

The problem with many "indicators" is that we're all mostly just guessing why babies might change their habits - they're developing so fast it's hard to know what change is making them grousy or unsettled.

I wouldn't go to the wall for 26 weeks, but I also wouldn't see weaning as a cure-all for any developmental changes going on. And weaning if a faff - just something else to have to remember, so for laziness' sake as much as anything else I'd be inclined to wait until they are the age where you don't have to worry so much about things like gluten, where you don't have to puree everything, and where they can feed themselves to whatever extent you want them to.

yanbu - for my first two children the advice was 4 months.... everyone seems to get so militant about the 6 month thing. Babies are all different and as long as common sense is used (personally i think gluten and dairy under that age is not good) then it will be fine.

Strongly agree with buzzlightbeer.

yy to 16/17 week growth spurt - I do think it's worth waiting a couple of weeks after that to see if things settle down.

Yanbu

You know your child better than anyone else!! If you feel he is ready, then all you can do is try.
When my dd8 was a baby the advice was 4 months, she is a great eater and is not fussy at all.
I have friends with 1/2 Yr olds that aren't even having lumps in their food that were weaned at 6 months. Dont know if that as anything to do with it.

Fwiw cow and gate baby rice clearly states 'from 4 months'

My son was a similar size at birth and he too went slept well at the 9/10 week mark for that to disappeart again.

I stuck with the breastmilk though and even on this his sleep went through phases of being great and then awful and then great and then....you get the idea. As I worked a bit I also pumped and somedays I only gave him expressed milk as an experiment. He would at times, before weaning, take up to about 50 ozs of milk. At his last feed of the day he was typically drain a magnum (11oz) bottle and then have about 1-4 ozs from a little bottle. When I started weaning him (at about 6.5 months) it made no difference to his sleep at all.

I'm not saying that this is the case for your son - just that for mine he was fine on breasmilk alone until at least six months (he didn't take solids every day until he was 7 mths). If you son fails to be satisfied by the amount of milk he can take (and as I said mine could take up to 15 ozs in one go when he was a bit older than yours) then I would think you are right in him needing solids.

breast milk holds more calories and nutrients than any other 'real' food,is likely to make it harder to sleep because he'll be working harder to digest (this means he will also be burning more calories)
my bf ds is 19 weeks,huge,sits watches us eat,etc...but i still wont wean him until i can blw like i did with dd,as its sooo much less hassle.

so in the end your baby doesn't need food,and it probably wont help him sleep through,also might be bad for his gut...but if you want to,and you think he's ready,and your ready for the mess then go for it.

When I had mine, advice was generally to wean anytime from around 3 months. However, as both mine were a good size at birth ( 8b 50z @ 39 mks and 10lb 5oz @ 40 wks) my HV suggested supplementing their milk with a little baby rice, since they were clearly hungry and yet their little tummies literally could not hold any more milk. I made baby rice up with milk, so the issue of how many calories was not an issue, since they were getting the milk and the baby rice. In any case, it was about my babies feeling hungry and me being able to satisfy their hunger without causing them discomfort from an overfull tummy. They are now in their late teens/early twenties and don;'t appear to have suffered any long term harmful effects.
You are your DS's mum and you know him best. If you feel he is ready for it, I really don't see the harm.

My son cried relentlessly at around 17 to 20 weeks and I spoke to my HV about it who said, why not try weaning him. I did and we had days, if not weeks of peace. He seemed very settled, had no adverse reactions and LOVED his food.
Start on the plain stuff - rice and porridge, with a little fruit and veg for taste, and work up from there. If he's a big lad, then he may need more to fill him up.
Go with your instincts. If there are no food allergies in the family and you definitely wait until 17 weeks, I don't see why not.
Hope this helps

Seriously - it's NOT about size. It really isn't. And I don't care what people choose to do with their individual children, but it's not fair on the parents of big babies to make them feel under pressure to wean early - as my HV did - despite the fact that dd was settled, and growing beautifully. Bigger babies have bigger stomachs, oddly enough, and although they may need more calories, they can take in more milk.

Yes, they may develop at different rates so look at your own child carefully, but can we stop propagating this myth about big babies necessitating earlier weaning?

I weaned DS1 at 17 weeks - I actually thought he was 20 weeks

I had a lot of presure from my DM & MIL (you lot were all weaned at 3 months & you lived to tell the tale, type thing) Although saying that, my Brother has a medical condition that has caused his neck bones to fuse together, the condition is caused by stomach lining cells getting into his blood stream. He was given baby rice in his bottle from 4 weeks as he was a "hungry" baby He has also always suffered with lots of tummy upsets, diarrhoea etc and quite a lot of foods upset his stomach.

DS1 was also a similar weight and height to yours.

DS2 was actually much bigger - 10 pound at birth and fully BF till he was 8 months (I bf ds1 for 4 months, mix fed, then dropped the BF at 6 months)

I offered DS2 baby rice once a week from about 51/2 months but he was just not interested. I then didnt bother for a while until he started taking food off of our plates.

I found it much easier weaning ds2 as I could just give him whatever the rest of us were having without having to puree everything. I suppose I sort of did BLW with him with some food stuff mashed up as well.

DS2 eats ANYTHING! DS1 is very fussy and has a very limited range of foods that he will eat. I can't say however if it is from the way I weaned them or not, but I do wonder if it was?

I absolutely agree with those who say go with your instinct. It's all very well sang read this or read that, what about maternal instinct? You know you baby, you know if he is not getting his hunger satisfied or not!

When I had my DD1 the advice was 3 months, I weaned at 9. With DD2 that advice was 16 weeks, I weaned at 13. With DS the advice was 6 months, I weaned at 15 weeks.

3 children, each individual and different, all weaned when they were ready, not when some ever changing book said they would be ready.

Now aged 13, 8, and 4. All healthy, none remotely overweight, none sickly and no allergies.

No regrets!

Mine are older but DD1 had her first baby rice at 12 weeks on advise of HV, she wanted us to start earlier but we refused.DS was about 7/8 months as he had alot of feeding problems.DD2 was about 12 weeks like her sister.

Don't feel bound by guidelines, they are just that, guidelines and designed for babies around the world including areas where people can not afford solids. I started my DS at 3 months and my dd at 4.5 months because that was when they were ready.

At this stage it is more that he is ready and expressing an interest as opposed to filling him up - it won't! This is different to babies weaned at about 6 months where they eat more sooner in the process(if that makes sense). I speak as a mother of a boy who used to down 11 oz bottles in one go from 4 months on. On that note, if you have not already, you might want to switch to hungry baby formula for his formula feeds.

First meals are just a few tiny spoons of babyrice, mixed with milk to start off with and then with some pear or apple puree mixed in. Make these at home (I had an awesome all in one steamer and blender which I still use to make apple sauce.) Yoghurt is a great staple from a few months after weaning starts.

As he accepts this you can make the tastes a little more complex (in a month or so), at 6 months you can really get the complexity up and give bread crusts to chew (helps with teething). By 9 months he will be eating your meals blended up a little, the texture will get coarser and coarser until you need do nothing but cut it up. I let them eat curries etc from very young but toned it down with yoghurt.

I now have children who eat anything and eschew the children's menu in any restaurant - they are more likely to go for the venison or smoked salmon!

9 weeks that is, not months

yanbu if you feel its the best then thats your choice to make, and 17/18 weeks is said to be okay as the lowest minimum. although 6 months is recommended plenty do start at 17. if you were suggesting earlier i would say yabu, but after 17 if you really feel he needs it then not too bad?
i weaned my 1st @ 17 weeks (he is 2 so not that old that the guidelines were 17 weeks at the time iyswim, it was still on 6 months) i felt he needed it, and he took to it straight away. he was a very hungry child, and i think it was good for him really.
my 2nd i didnt wean til 6 months and even then he didnt take to it til 7 months he just wasnt keen. both of them are big babies, very tall etc so i dont think it goes just on the size but as a mum you recognise that they need it or not

"Fwiw cow and gate baby rice clearly states 'from 4 months'"

do you mean you trust Cow & gate (who have stuff to flog) more than you trust the WHO and the NHS?? Is this a giant conspiracy theory, because I am by that