To not want to wean?

[roiya]

My little one is 23 weeks old. I have been researching up on weaning lots and I find myself reading so much conflicting information!

I have really enjoyed breastfeeding her and I want to keep doing it. I know that I will have to for many months to come, to an extent, as she won't eat much in the near future.

I suppose my question is... has anyone had experiences of exclusively breastfeeding past 6 months? Does she need any other nutrients? I'm so confused if it's the right thing for her health and development!

Your baby might not be ready to start on solids yet. Mine both started grabbing food out of my hands/plates when they were ready.

I used to have a job which meant reading every dang paper that was published about this. It was 6 years ago that I left, so things may have changed.

Ideally weaning starts around the 6 month mark, your baby should show signs when they're ready to start trying solids a little before or after this. As PPs have said, from 6 months your baby has different nutritional needs, as well as developmental.

Mastication is great for jaw and tongue development, and new experiences of food encourage behaviours like problem solving. Memory is stimulated by new experiences, as well as adaption. All lovely healthy things.

Ditto being told 'food before one is just for fun'. I was really worried about my DD not wanting to eat but in reality they aren't suddenly going to be eating three good meals a day at 6m. That age is a good time to start introducing them to solid foods (did BLW here) but of course you can continue to bf.

Weaning is a very slow process for most babies, the likelihood is that even when you start it may be many many months (like 6 months or more) before solid food becomes the main or sole part of your baby's diet.

There's no reason you have to start at exactly 6 months, some babies are ready a few weeks earlier some aren't ready for quite some time after 6 months. Your baby isn't going to be eating bowls full of pasta from the word go, for weeks and weeks you may only get a few teaspoons of veg purée into them per day so is unlikely to make much difference to the amount of breastfeeding you do initially.

Particularly if you do baby led weaning you can treat it as another activity for your baby to do during the day (because covering themselves in yoghurt is apparently very very fun) rather than weaning them.

As others have said introducing solid food is by no means the end of your breastfeeding journey.

DC3 was NG tube for the first year due to complications including unsafe swallow , we had to train DC to relearn how to use tongue and mouth muscles, from 6 months with massage and eventually thickened liquids then puréed fruit and veg etc.
SALT team were very keen to expose DC to a whole range of textures between 12-18months because there is a cut off where if they aren't exposed to certain textures/foods then they reject them or struggle with them.

So yes it is important to start weaning around 6 months, not purely because of nutrition and iron supplies, although that is reason enough imo.

You can still continue to BF whilst offering your child solids. Introducing solids doesn't mean actually reducing milk consumption for some time.

Advice is solids should be introduced by six months because they need the extra nutrients. There are also skills learned through chewing and biting that help them develop their speech.

I weaned early. Both of my boys were pinching food from my plate and chewing on it by 5 months. Based purely on my own experiences, I think waiting until 6 months to introduce solids is too long. But they still had plenty of milk until 9 months when they naturally reduced their milk intake themselves.

I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick from these blogs and are confused about what weaning and exclusively breastfeeding means.

In America weaning can mean stopping breastfeeding and moving on to bottles i.e. nightweening = no more overnight boob. In the UK it means introducing solids, which you need to do from 6 months alongside breastmilk. Babies need more nutrients, it helps develop muscles and delaying is associated with a number of health problems. I’ve also heard EBF used by mums once baby’s are having solids to mean that they don’t have formula and only drink breast milk.

Please talk to your health visitor/doctor and get some proper advice.

The current advice is to exclusively feed your child breast milk and/or formula until 6 months. Exclusively means no solid food, purees, water etc, just breast milk and/or formula. At 6 months you should wean your child onto solid food. This does not mean that you need to wean your child off breast milk. Breast milk and/or formula should still be the main source of food until your child is one, but it should be given in addition to solid food. After 1 solid food will be your child's main source of food, but you still don't need to stop breastfeeding. Weaning onto solids and weaning off breast milk are not connected to each other. I suspect your friends who talked about continuing bf after 6 months do not mean "exclusively bf" but "bf alongside solid food". Please definitely give your child solid food from 6 months. Continue to bf as long as you and your child want (I'm still bf at 18 months).

I think you’re misinterpreting the term ‘exclusively breastfed’ OP
It doesn’t mean just breast milk and nothing else (although it sounds as though it should mean that) it just means they’re never given formula
Even whilst you are weaning (it’s a very long process) milk should still be the main source of nutrition so you’ll still be breastfeeding aswell

concise is right!

In contrast to those saying their DC didn't eat much to start with, I was surprised to find that mine really did. I was fully expecting a few months of messing around with food and not really eating much but - after a couple of weeks of that - my DS suddenly seemed to get the hang of eating and now (at only just 7mo) is very firmly on three meals per day. Of course I still BF him as well and plan to carry on until at least 12mo, but I suppose my point is that you might be surprised to find that your DC takes to solids quickly. I certainly didn't expect that in my DS (and used to get quite annoyed and indignant with kindly family members urging me that he was "hungry" on just BM...)

Up to 9 months it makes no difference developmentally. After 9 months it can start to create food issue. But in terms of growth it's more dependent on weight and stage.

No, they were talking about delayed weaning.

I remember a newspaper article local to me when SS got involved because a child was still being exclusively breastfed at an age when they should have been having some food. Breastmilk does not provide everything a baby needs beyond a certain stage.

I think most babies will at one point in time ask you for your food. I bf until 6 months, mixed fed until 8 and then full swapped to Formular. At 5.5 months we started baby-led-weaning but DD had virtually no interest in anything apart from the odd licks or gumming fruit or toast with butter.

At 9 months she started eating from my plate in a way that I had to cook at least 1/2 portion for her and she would eat with fingers or cake fork. Apart from 2 weeks where she was recovering from tongue tie surgery we never spoon fed her anything we don’t eat with a spoon.

Offer when you eat, get her to try as much as possible and relax.

I grew up in a developing country where women without access to enough food did this, I can't see any other reason. It is a terrible idea as children need iron from food after 6 months. The children that had less/no food in infancy were markedly smaller by school age.

Yes I thought maybe the OP was getting confused with 'weaning off the breast' (which some people refer to like with 'night weaning' - ie no longer breastfeeding at night!) and weaning onto solids. Two totally different things!

Breastfeed for as long as you both want OP. But you need to introduce solid food from around 6 months. Could be purees or food they gum/chew themselves.

Were these blogs actually talking about delayed introduction of solid food? If they were American and used the term ‘weaning’ then it’s very possible they were taking about stopping breastfeeding. I was speaking to a Mom friend last week who said she was doing natural weaning and would let her 2 year old self wean. Her child eats three meals a day, she was talking about stopping breastfeeding.

If these blogs were genuinely taking about not introducing solid food until your baby is 1 then that’s incredibly harmful and dangerous advice. I suggest you step away from the internet and get some advice from a medical professional like your health visitor or a doctor.

@Jackiebrambles Understood!

Did you read this on the deep web?

I have never read anything that said delaying giving food was a good idea. Have you any links?

I added solids to mine last month at approx 26 weeks. She is still ebf (ie no formula) and feeds same amount as before (approx 5 times a day) but I offer her solids 3 times a day and if I’m eating an apple or banana I offer her a bit as well. I would not have waited any longer as I understood, as others have said, that iron and zinc are needed, it’s good for speech and coordination and no evidence increases likelihood of allergies and indeed delaying intro may do so etc. I didn’t see any advice to wait further. I generally avoid reading loads of stuff though and just look at NHS and WHO recommendations rather than books by assorted dietitians and other authors. I also found that she was so interested in our food and reaching out for it. She was doing same at 23 weeks but I held off a little. So as well as health and development reasons, it’s interesting for her. I can’t think of any reason therefore to hold off. Oh except it’s a bit of a pain the arse in that you need to offer food, have it chucked about and dismissed and then clean up them and all the mess. But yeah that’s not a good reason otherwise I’d also opt out of changing nappies! Blw is good in that you just offer variations of what you’re eating and as a result you eat better I have found, although purées are good in that you can batch cook v easily and freeze well. Can combine both which is what I’ve tried to do though purees/mashes not that warmly received.

I bf one of mine to 12 months-one to 36 minths. But they had solid food as well from 26 weeks.

Incidentally, it is a very long time indeed since weaning at 3 months was recommended. It's been not before 4 months and as close to 6 as possible for at least 25 years.

Don't delay solids, it isn't good for your child's health.

Babies need solid food from 6 months.

You posted in AIBU
Yes you are being very unreasonable to suggest that you deny your baby food from a source other than breastfeeding.

After a horrible weaning experience with DD, badgered by the health visitor to wean at 14 weeks, then berated by a different health visitor for weaning too early. I waited until my subsequent DC showed clear signs of being ready to wean. For DS1 this was just over 7 months DS2 a couple of weeks under 6 months and for DS3 8.5 months.