rich teas biscuits for a 4 month old???

[toughmerde]

Me and MIL were a bit bitchy with one another yesterday and dp is now furious with me. Ds is 4.5 months old and I started giving him small amounts of solids (avocado) last week. MIL has always been a bit funny with me, but even so, I was shocked that she has consistently tried to undermine my breastfeeding my son by trying to shove extra thick formula down him and bottles of water, despite me politely, but firmly, requesting otherwise. Ds has a cousin once removed who's 2 months older that him, was bottle fed, started solids at 3 months and now eats bought jars and pureed adult food exclusively. She is very small, overweight and, to be quite honest, a bit floppy. Oh, and her poo is hard and grey. My son, on the other hand, is big, strong, curious, and sociable. The little girl is perfectly sweet and I would hope that she and my son become friends, but MIL constantly compares me and my son unfavorably to this girl and her mum, who is a nurse so, in MIL's eyes, knows better than me. I have quite a bit of built up resentment towards MIL, but that's for another post. I do generally feel that my parenting skills are being openly questioned and not respected though. I am not fastidiously pro-breastfeeding/organic purees, but I do think that owe it to my son to give him a healthy start to life.

So anyway, back to yesterday: MIL tried to give my son rich teas biscuits mashed in water, and I said I'd rather she didn't. This is the first time I've really put my foot down. She immediately quipped back with "oh, well nurse cousin feeds them to HER daughter". I got impatient and said that "I didn't care, MY son wasn't eating crap full of sugar and flour after only a week on solids". She implied that I was being very la-dee-da. Dp was furious with me and said that if I wanted help from his family, I shouldn't question her methods (they usually take him for a few hours a week, and I'm working freelance full-time from home and juggling baby care, cannot afford nanny). Later, in the car on the way home, he said that I had insulted his mother by questioning her parenting skills and that she had managed to raise him and his much younger brother perfectly fine. I pointed out that his brother is morbidly obese and has been since being a baby, so perhaps her nutritional knowledge is limited.

Now it's xmas eve we are not speaking. We're meant to have dinner round theirs later and I'm not sure how to go about things naturally, xmas is about family and forgiving and all that, but I'm pretty miffed. I went to a great effort to make MIL a meaningful xmas gift, hoping that I'll be accepted a bit more, but I feel like staying home and getting drunk and eating the whole fucking pack of rich tea biscuits :( If there's nothing good on the tv, can you help by giving me a stern talking to, to make me feel less petty and bitter before I sulk my way through ds's first xmas? Was IBU to stop her feeding him biscuits? Would it really be that bad? I'm completely doubting myself and wish dp was on my side more.

The main different between a rusk and rich tea biscuit is that they contain less salt:

link

But they (the heinz ones) do say suitable from 4 months.

tell your MIL that a child under 1 shouldn't be given any salt, that's why you won't allow him any grown up food

I would be really pissed off but, "said that if I wanted help from his family, I shouldn't question her methods (they usually take him for a few hours a week" how can you even know what he is being fed?

Personally i would make other childcare arrangements as clearly she can't be trusted. She is totally in the wrong to feed him this kind of stuff and to ignore your requests.

happyAvocado - but that's not true - up to 1g/salt a day is absolutely fine and no salt whatsoever actually would be unhealthy, too.

OP.... I don't understand the mushed-up Rich Tea biscuit either - nor the avocado that you serve your son, actually. In itself it's a small thing but I think that you're prepared to go head-to-head with your MIL and there will be no winners.

You don't know what's truly best for your child - NOBODY does. We just have the best information, at the time, and we make those decisions for our children. As long as we're not neglectful and act in the best interests then hopefully that's good enough.

The bit of your post that others have highlighted sounds horribly sneery. If you're having a rant about it here, that's fine - if you talked to your MIL or anybody else like that, well you deserve what you get back.

I don't agree that if a relative looks after your child that you abdicate responsibility or choices, but there are ways and ways of dealing with it. A clever person will quickly work out the 'hmm maybes' to the 'definitely not' and can 'negotiate' with a smile and no bad feeling.

It's up to you, OP - you're not wrong to feel the way you do but I think you could have handled it better and I can see why your DH is cross with you. I wouldn't expect my husband to be 'on my side' if I'm rude or wrong. You can recover this if you want to, just remember that your husband will also decide on taking your son to your MIL and he has that right as much as you do, so in your own interests, try to offer an olive branch and maybe explain to your MIL that you're not aways sure of your own parenting choices (even if you are) - and that guidance from trusted sources is important to you. Ask MIL for advice on stuff that just doesn't matter to you either way - she'll be pleased that you asked.

I hope it goes well today, OP, Merry Christmas.

OK, the advice is - less than 1g (0.4g sodium) a day from 0-12 months (that is from all available sources, not just salt added during cooking),
1 teaspoon - 6 g, so 1/6 of a gram

now we are talking 12 months, so if the baby is 4 months old how much would you allow??

NHS says:
www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/824.aspx?CategoryID=51&SubCategoryID=163

"When you start introducing solid foods, remember not to add salt to the foods that you give to your baby because their kidneys cannot cope with it. You should also avoid giving your baby ready-made foods that are not made specifically for babies, such as breakfast cereals, because they can also be high in salt."

this is enough to explain my point of view - the shortcut was - no salt.

I found it simple to stick to this rule, as sodium is in every kind of food we consume.

How would you go on about calculating how much sodium was in a teaspoon of rice, slice of avocado or half a carrot?

NHS says:
www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/824.aspx?CategoryID=51&SubCategoryID=163

happyAvocado - you find it simple to rigorously stick to no grown up food for a baby, I find it simply neurotic - and the thing is that if you always stick to it, the occasional biscuit from granny is even less likely to do harm than if you didn't.

It's not as if she's mashed up salt pretzels for him. Both my children have been weaned on "grown up" food from the start (I don't use much salt for cooking anyway), which any midwife, HV or GP I mentioned it to was absolutely happy with. If there's more salt on one day, you just look at cutting it out a bit more over the next few days

well... yes in that case biscuit in my case would not have mattered, but if you give grown up food to a baby - it does

of course, you can feed them cows milk from day one, grown up food as a weaning food etc, most won't show side effects, but some would have health problems, that is why rules are as they are, you and me as mothers have power to chose what's right for us and our kids

Purlease - giving "grown up food", or "food" as I like to call it to babies rather than sticking to stuff which has been branded as babyfood, is not akin to feeding cows milk from birth.

I gave cows milk as an example - not that long ago there were no formulas and babies whos mum's couldn't bf them were using cows milk

If the OP doesnt want to give her child mashed up rich teas no one else should give them to him either.

Regardless of his age at weaning, how nice the OP is, what the colour of the other baby's poo is (boggling a bit at that one), how often MIL cars for the baby or anything else.

Some people might think it is precious, some might be 'horrified' at the thought of a baby eating a biccie.

Comes down to what the parents want to feed their kids.

My ILs were forever trying to give my DD bicuits, cod liver oil, carnation milk (instead of breast milk), fried chicken - you bloody name it. Drove me insane and made things really hard.

It got better when I became more confident and less twitchy about it. When I was able to refuse without getting annoyed or defensive they seemed to accept it better.

Took about 10 years and 3 of the five dcs thought

Weird thing - it seems worse somehow that the MIL mashed up the biscuit in water. If she had handed him a biscuit to chomp it would have been almost ok. I wonder why?...

YANBU. your doc said fruit and veg, not biscuits.

your baby, your choice. just because it's free childcare doesn't mean you have to put up with other people doing things you don't agree with. if you only want to feed your baby home grown organic vegan food then who cares what your mil thinks, it's not her baby.

don't compare your baby to the cousin's baby, or your dh as a baby or any other babies while you're at it, and tell your mil to stop too. babies are individuals and the beauty of being individuals means they are different. they have different needs and do things differently. having said that i have been amazed at how similar my baby is to our friend's babies but if they're not then there's no point comparing them.

communicate with your husband. don't accuse/blame eachother, don't take sides (although his priority should be his wife and child now), discuss things and come to an agreement.