To avoid asking for advice of mumsnet because all you get in response is a flaming??

[angelicapickles]

A poster asked for weaning advice, and rather than answering her question she mostly got replies telling her not to wean.

Someone asks a question about formula feeding, they get jumped on about why they're no breastfeeding.

A c-section - why not vbac or a natural birth!

These days when I have a question, I keep it to myself!

BeribbonnedGibbon - earlier I posted in response to your comment that weaning at 4 months goes against guidelines and most people agree it is detrimental to a baby's health.

You haven't answered my points about this - that a recent study stated that early weaning may not be bad for the baby, provided that the baby is ready, and that the guidelines should advise weaning at between 4 and 6 months.

Like another poster here, I had my dses in the days when weaning was advised at 4 months, and that's what I did with all three - and they are now tall, healthy, strapping lads with no evidence of allergies or food intolerances - as are the vast majority of the other children born around that time - anecdotal evidence, I know, but it does, for me, disprove the notion that weaning at 4 months IS detrimental to a child's health.

Re: weaning. My understanding is that some babies are ready at 16 weeks as their stomach is developed enough. Some aren't and benefit from waiting until 24 weeks (6 months). So the advice is a blanket 6 months as not sure it's possible to determine what babies are developed enough.

Staying - that recent study was badly misreported. It was an opinion piece, saying very little more than more research was required, and had reviewed very few studies. The media made a real hash of reporting it.

And anecdotal evidence isn't ever really large-scale enough to give proof at a population level - most people of my generation were born to mothers who didn't take folic acid, and the vast majority are fine. Small comfort though, for those who aren't, or for those mothers who lost babies.

"Re: weaning. My understanding is that some babies are ready at 16 weeks as their stomach is developed enough. Some aren't and benefit from waiting until 24 weeks (6 months). So the advice is a blanket 6 months as not sure it's possible to determine what babies are developed enough."

NO it is accepted that all babies stomachs and kidneys are ready by 17 weeks.

LQ, I weaned DS1 early for the same reason.
And DS2 as well - they are both strapping healthy lads now.

Habbibu - I take your point about anecdotal evidence - but I do think that it is strong enough to combat a blanket statement that weaning at 4 months is detrimental to babies' health. If that were true, then there would be an awful lot of sickly teenagers from my dses generation, and there aren't.

ponys over the cash\

But that's not really the blanket statement that's being disputed, is it? It's not "is", it's "may be", and guidelines have to be made so as to give advice that doesn't harm the majority, but may also help the minority. The folic acid analogy is easier - I could start a thread saying "how many of you and your mothers took folic acid before conception and in first 12 weeks of pg" and you'd get loads of posts saying no, we didn't, and dcs are fine/strapping/have skulls and spines/healthier than SIL's, etc, and none of them would really be relevant, because at a population level folic acid does save lives and reduce instances of severe disability. It's easy, cheap and has almost no side effects so it's easy to make a blanket policy.

Weaning is much more nebulous, but all the posts about weaning at 8/12/16 weeks on MN put together make no impact on population level effects where some babies may be badly affected by weaning at the wrong time.

I'm not a die-hard 6 monther, tbh - I do think there was a Cochrane review which broadly supported the 4-6mo ish window (but don't quote me on that, as I can't find it atm) -- it's just that threads which end up full of "well, I weaned at this age and it's fine " are just kind of pointless.

if you ask a public forum you have to accept that people will give their own opinions and advice. that's the brilliance of it - you get a much wider scope of thought that what you had even considered yourself, then you decide what you take on and what you ignore or indeed scorn

thats called human interaction, it allows you to grow and change

But LeQ, again, for every huge baby who was "starving" on milk, you can find anecdotal evidence (like my 2) of huge babies who grew like topsy on milk until 6 mo just fine. It's meaningless.

LQ, My hv encouraged me to wean DS1 who although was small was forever hungry and liquids were not filling him up. At first she didn't believe me so she spent a few hours with me and when she left agreed with what I was saying.

amazing how things change isnt it.

It depends on the baby i think some are hungrier than others.

I think people shouldn't be so rude, though. There's room for more than one opinion in the world. God help the dc of the posters who think there's only one - theirs.

But where are people being so rude? I just don't see that it's so widespread.

Maybe that's the point. It seems OK to some people?

No, I don't think I have a terribly high tolerance for rudeness, but I do think people take the comments from one or two posters and assume that's the tone of the whole thread, when, if you look at it carefully, the majority of posters are polite, reasoned and measured.

It's a bit like the way people complain about bad customer service, but don't compliment good service anything like as often.

ok

why do people not get this?

when you post on MN it is like walking into a busy city entre with a megaphone and shouting out a question.

there are thousands of people on MN at any given point.

thousands of people means thousands of opinions. some similar, some very different.

dont post if you cannot accept that opinions will be given and they wont always be what you want to hear.

ok just read the thread that dueling linked to.

erm that poster specifically asked people to tell her what to do and they, er...did!! what's the problem?