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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Am I being oversensitive : Weaning

53 replies

Mammie81 · 14/04/2011 23:56

MIL and partners family are all making comments because I havent weaned yet. My baby is only 4 months old and he cant hold his head steady for extended periods, so Im waiting. WHO still says 6 months AFAIK.

Comments include :
That baby needs some bread/I bet he wants a pasty/I think hes still hungry (after hes had his milk and is sleeping?!)/Ella's Kitchen make great things for kids his age/You CAN start from now you know
To baby - Would you like a chicken leg/I bet you are starving/Is mummy not feeding you

The baby is low percentile, so yes hes small but I fail to see how carrots are going to fatten him up more than calorie laden breastmilk designed for babies.

Am I being oversensitive? Is this just what families say to babies as baby talk?

OP posts:

worraliberty · 16/04/2011 23:04

'your' baby...not 'you' baby

That just sounds like I'm coming on to you...sorry

ShowOfHands · 16/04/2011 23:15

DuelingFanjo is right. Weaning guidelines don't change all the time. They've been 6 months for 8 years now and were 4-6 months for 20 years before this.

The guidelines are actually very explicit that you shoudl look out for the signs a baby is ready. Signs are sitting up, loss of tongue thrust reflex, able to pick up and put things in their mouth. They are also clear that watching you eat, mimicking, waking in the night, weight etc are NOT signs. They also use language like 'around 6 months' and 'about 26 weeks' because that is roughly when children are biologically ready. They do not say you MUST wait. They say around this time and look out for the signs. I think they're quite clear that you should watch your child. It also says don't push it, enjoy it, no pressure.

But people will always say things and pass comment about the ways in which you parent. And largely it does come from defensiveness over their own decisions. We all like to think we've done the best possible thing for our children. I'm sure I'll be the same in 20 years time when knowledge has moved on and I haven't.

backwardpossom · 16/04/2011 23:21

DS was on the small side (still is - at almost 21 months, a t-shirt he was wearing today was 6-9 months...) and we got these comments too. Personally, I'm glad we waited until 6 months. He was really ready for it then. YANBU, OP.

vmcd28 · 16/04/2011 23:34

Just out of interest, how do the experts know that a baby is only ready when they can hold their head up and put things in their mouth? Why does that make them more "ready" than a baby who can't?

ShowOfHands · 16/04/2011 23:40

I think it's because the maturation of the gut in readiness for solids seems to coincide with the reaching of those developmental milestones. Which makes sense in terms of safety/evolution. If a baby is able to pick up food and put it in their mouths at the same time as their gut is mature enough to accept it, then it makes perfect evolutionary sense. Ditto the tongue thrust reflex. They lose this at around the same time, makes sense that they have a reflex that pushes out food until such a point as the gut is ready. I think they know when the gut matures from studying it but they also have observed that these signs are largely present in the average child at around the same time.

TransatlanticCityGirl · 16/04/2011 23:47

I'm completely with you on this one - I believe 4 months is generally speaking too early. WHO recommends 6 months, and there's some research that shows cognitive (brain) development is better when you wait to around 6 months too.

I do think you need to be less sensitive, and just stand up for yourself / be more confident in your parenting skills, rather than let it eat you up.

michelle2011 · 16/04/2011 23:50

breastmilk for first 6 months is still the official advice, or formula fed. some people believe if a baby is fed solids then s/he will sleep all night, this isnt a proven fact for all babies.

i got the same thing all the time, oh are they on baby rice yet ... at 4 months ... sorry but its a croc of s@#t! doesnt surprise me baby jars say from 4 months THEY WANT TO SELL THEM. a babies stomach isnt ready for food so early IMO.

as a mummy do what you want - i never took advice from my inlaws on that because i thought they talked utter nonsense (on other stuff they were ok but not that). you are the one who knows what your baby needs go with your gut instinct

vmcd28 · 17/04/2011 09:50

Showofhands, thanks - that makes sense.
Does anyone have any links to the study that was all over the news around 6 months ago that suggested (if I remember correctly) there was actually more chance of allergy if you waited til 6 months?

DuelingFanjo · 17/04/2011 10:07

here's a link to a very interesting blog about the media hype surrounding the study.

this is a link to the full article printed in the BMJ.

vmcd28 · 17/04/2011 21:19

Thanks v much!
I'll have a proper read of them tomorrow when ds1 is (thankfully) back at school x

mueslimuncher · 17/04/2011 21:28

Try to ignore the pressure from others, I had it too. There is no way a load of veg/fruit is more calorific than breastmilk. I started BLW a week before my son was 6 months, but he didn't actually ingest anything but tiny amounts for ages. I probably could have left it longer, I mean what's the rush? I know people whose children survived on nowt but breastmilk for nearly a year!

peppapighastakenovermylife · 17/04/2011 21:49

vmcd - on a tangent, you have to be a little careful with some of the studies that show later weaning is associated with allergies. In a few of the papers, the parents who are waiting until 6 months or longer have strong allergies themselves - carrying a genetic risk of allergy through to their baby. Breastfeeding will not over ride a genetic risk...therefore this group might breastfeed longer because of the links between reduced allergies and breastfeeding but overall still appear to have higher levels of allergy than the formula group. Does that make sense?

Original poster

Mammie81 · 17/04/2011 22:00

Had it again tonight. Would you like a chicken leg, when will you start the baby rice.

Im not giving him a 'filler' so he ends up stuffed and not taking his milk. He already sleeps through the night most nights. Ive told them that its not nutritionally better but they are sure it has all the nutrients he needs. [hmmm] Its just smooth rice!

Apparently we are also giving him too many oz of milk/not enough oz of milk. Im the one with my baby all day every day, I'll know when hes ready.

Grrrr! Its really getting to me actually! Id never pressure someone else like this. At least DP is on my side

OP posts:

NinkyNonker · 17/04/2011 22:08

DD hated baby rice. When she reached 6 months we excitedly gave her some with EBM...the look on her face was priceless. Not surprised, horrible bland stuff.

We are baby led weaning, and at 8 months she is a great little eater. She ate half a Cornish Pasty for lunch the other day in a little pub on holiday, there were a few shocked onlookers!

Original poster

Mammie81 · 17/04/2011 22:17

I think they assume because he is small I dont feed him enough. But then, they are always telling me that I dont eat enough either (Im a size 16, I clearly eat more than enough!!!)

OP posts:

NinkyNonker · 17/04/2011 22:20

Oh I had the opposite, DD was only 7lbs born but quickly turned into a chubba. I wasn't going to be able to satisfy her apparently. The fact that I had 'got' her that way was obviously neither here nor there...

NoseyMoo · 17/04/2011 22:21

Let your baby tell you when it's time to start weaning. He'l start to become interested in what you're eating and he'l prob grumble for food when he can smell your cooking. Well at least that's when I knew that my DD was ready.

SolarPanel · 17/04/2011 22:21

YANBU. Have you said "The health advice is to wait until 6 months so that's what we're doing"? Repeat as necessary, don't get drawn into discussion as you don't have to explain your reasons to anyone. Then change the subject.

Original poster

Mammie81 · 17/04/2011 22:26

They believe the advice to be 4 months and will not listen to anything else. We've said it a million times. Packaging and The Sun et al have lead them to believe its 4 months and they trust that more than me and DP...

OP posts:

backwardpossom · 17/04/2011 22:27

Just don't speak to them for the next 2 months then

Original poster

Mammie81 · 17/04/2011 22:35

If only!

We get this every sunday. And its not just that they ask. They'll attempt to offer the baby food, question me and DP seperately to see if our answers match, speak over each other in order to get more and more info on what we are doing, repeat themselves until we answer, tell anecdotal stories about children they know who never learned to chew...

Its relentless. But I'm a very stubborn girl.

OP posts:

niccibabe · 17/04/2011 22:52

Stay stubborn OP!! There have been articles recently about arsenic in baby rice - try them with that! :)

I had much the same from my mum when I didn't wean DC until 26 weeks. When I did, she said "Thank God that poor baby is finally getting some nutrition!" My DC was 91st centile for height, but below 25th centile for weight, so DC does look skinny, especially compared with a rather substantial younger cousin.

BagofHolly · 17/04/2011 23:03

My eldest is 2, was exclusively BF and we did BLW, from about 7 months. "Food is fun until they're 1" as the Gill Rapley mantra goes. I now have twins who both have reflux. Our Consultant Paediatrician has advised that one of the twins, whose reflux is more severe, should be weaned at 13 weeks. I nearly fell off my chair when he said this. I grilled him about weaning, guidelines etc and he was emphatic - ALL babies should be weaned between 4-6 months as later than this has an association with allergies.
My twins are 15 weeks now and we haven't weaned yet - I simply couldn't get my head around it and despite the misery of the reflux, they're thriving overall without food. We're seeing the Cons again on Thursday this week when I'm going to discuss it further. I think he was talking about a bit of baby rice, not a pie dinner, but it's such a departure from my previous thinking.

triskaidekaphile · 17/04/2011 23:09

My baby finally started utterly and totally thriving weight-wise when food was introduced alongside breastmilk. I'm a big fan of breastfeeding alongside introducing solids at the earlier end of 4-6 months if there are weight gain issues, personally. Jack Newman recommends introducing solids earlyish rather than supplementing with formula in these circumstances, iirc. I also think the breastfeeding makes the baby more likely to cope with potential allergens and the food (esp lots of lovely pureed steak!) possibly makes a breastfed baby less likely to be anaemic- bbc article here. If your baby is low centile because he was born on a low centile and has stayed on his curve that's totally different though. Mine was definitely struggling to gain enough weight- though luckily v healthy in all other ways- so it was lovely to see her wolfing down food and start to gain a bit more weight while we continued to enjoy breastfeeding. She's still breastfeeding and eating loads of different foods at 20 months.:) Worth thinking about in certain circumstances, then, but definitely not your mother-in-law's decision! She needs to butt out.

LovePotatoes · 17/04/2011 23:20

Hello OP, stick to your guns and try to bite your tongue. I live with my in-laws and have heard similar comments about weaning my DD. My MIL, if in the room, will always watch like a hawk when im feeding DD. It is hard to hear those comments as the last thing a mother wants to do is deprive her child!!! All the best with this :)

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