Health Visitor - is this bad advice?

[doadeer]

DS is nearly 8 months. We have a good routine with his meal and nap times, he eats 3 full meals, typically it's:
6am - breastfeed in bed, back to sleep
7.30am wakes
8am Breakfast (porridge and fruit)
9.45 breastfeed
10am nap
12 lunch (veg, toast, fruit or something like that)
1.45 breastfeed
2pm nap
5pm dinner (proper dinner like chicken casserole then yoghurt)
7pm breastfeed

He will usually wake 1-2 times in night.

Today, health visitor said I shouldn't be giving any milk in the day, it should be 3 meals and two snacks so instead of any milk it should be a piece or cucumber or toast. And only breastfed morning and evening. What's the nutrition in a bit of cucumber compared to milk?

It feels very young to drop milk --- can anyone advise?

I meant to say also confused as some weaning articles say any food before one is for fun! So those babies must be getting lots of milk!

Yes it is wrong - overly prescriptive and could risk mastitis for you and too little milk for baby.
The nhs website would confirm this too

Load of bollocks.

Your routine sounds perfect to me and similar to what I was doing with DS at that age. You'll find baby gradually drops feeds/has shorter feeds as they get more interested in food. Just keep offering food and you'll be fine!

It's weird. They are desperate to get everyone to breastfeed then once they hit six months they're desperate to wean them. Babies do need solid food at 6 months but as long as they eating well with their solids I'd do 2 or 3 breastfeeds in the day. You could probably drop one of the feeds, or the baby will do this naturally, but I wouldn't be too regimented about it.

Can't remember when we dropped down to morning and evenings only but it definitely wasn't under 1!

What business is it of the health visitor's? They're not the boss of anything and some of them are wildly outdated in their advice. The WHO says it can provide half or more nutritive needs for the second six months of life.

"Food before one is just for fun" is quite unhelpful though. It's not uncommon for breastfed babies to self-wean before 1 but this saying makes it sounds unhealthy for them to be totally on solids.

Milk should still be their main source of nutrition until 1 (according to WHO and NHS) so what she has told you is rubbish and against current guidelines. I think your routine looks good, i’d carry on as you are but report her for giving advice that is against the guidelines she is supposed to be following.

What you do sounds great. With my DS I would switch the meal contents around so the dinner was more snacky and lunch was the main meal, but that's based on what he's been willing to eat and for some reason he's always wanted a main hot meal at lunch time not in the evening. I will aim to get DD into this routine when she is weaning. You're doing great.

Pope
I said the exact same thing to my mum! Militant push on breastfeeding then pressure to stop! Makes no sense

DD refused all solids till almost 12 months old and it wasn't till 9-10 months that any health professional even looked twice. Your HV seems to have a very strange ideas. This is from the NHS website:

^Feeding your baby: from 10 to 12 months
Your baby should now be having 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch and tea), in addition to their usual milk feeds.^
Around this age, your baby may have about 3 milk feeds a day (for instance, after breakfast, after lunch and before bed).

Link: www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/solid-foods-weaning/

My weaning book (by a Registered Public Health Nutritionist, Dr Rana Conway) disagrees with your health visitor. Calcium is so important for growth at this age.

I would give morning and evening feeds, and also milk with morning snack and afternoon snack as well.

Shes talking complete bollocks. They're supposed to have a minimum of 20oz of milk up to 1 year so it would be quite difficult to do that if you stop giving milk feeds. Mine went down to 2 feeds around 11 months and they were formula fed

Actually yes that's exactly what I did with my dc, feed on waking then before sleeps.

Thanks everyone you've really reassured me. It didn't sound right to me!

The health visitor is wrong. My DD is nearly 2 and still has breast milk whenever she likes in the day as well as 3 meals and snacks and there are loads of toddlers and babies out there doing the same. Strange advice!

That "Weaning Made easy" book is great.

He's breastfed follow his lead! He's hardly a milk monster... the night waking is probably partly habit and it would be good to move to feeding him in your daytime hours but his milk consumption isn't the issue.

2 of mine self weaned at 12 months they just preferred proper food but entirely led by them, the other two were complete milk monsters but were are actually 90th centile for height and weight so could be down to that.

Thanks for the NHS link! How bizarre she gave that advice

It is correct to make sure your baby isn’t filling up on milk to the detriment of taking in other nutrients, but as long as you are not feeding milk at main meal times (obviously having milk as part of porridge/cereal is fine, just not as a drink in addition), your baby will be fine.

From the linked page:

Feeding your baby: from 7 to 9 months

Your baby will gradually move towards eating 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch and tea), in addition to their usual milk feeds, which may be around 4 a day (for example, on waking, after lunch, after tea and before bed).

As your baby eats more solid foods, they may want less milk at each feed or even drop a milk feed altogether.

If you're breastfeeding, your baby will adapt their feeds according to how much food they're having

What on earth is she thinking? That’s totally wrong. Even though he seems to be eating well for his age he should still be getting milk. And as you’re breastfeeding, that’s the milk he will be getting. Do you have any idea why she gave that advice? And, yes, there’s not much nutrition in cucumber!

Grrrr I feel so irritated they are peddling poor advice to first time mum's! Thanks Mumsnet for your wisdom!

Well as there are formulas ranging from babyhood to toddlerhood I’d say still having milk is okay?? My twins were FF as they were prem so my milk didn’t come in, they now have one bottle of milk each before naps and one before bedtime and they’re almost two (size wise more like 1.5 years old but that’s related to their prematurity and low birth weight). When they were 1 until they hit 19 months ish they had three bottles a day plus meals/snacks but as DD struggled to adapt to solids it was as much as supplement as anything else.

If it helps I often disagreed with my HV and she was often up in arms about my feeding decisions for my twins, but since I stopped following her overly strict routines my twins have flourished and have grown really well. When we got a new HV I told her exactly how I feed them and said that I’m not looking for feeding advice, if I want any I’ll ask. She saw that in the time a HV hadn’t been hassling us every week (it was weekly when twins were very small because of the prem/low weight issue) they had gone from barely scraping the bottom centile to being on the 9th which for them, is a massive achievement :D

I can’t comment for when it’s right to wean on breastfeeding as I never got the chance to do this, but I wouldn’t say it’s overly odd.

Cecil
My concern was about how little water he drinks which is making his poo hard I think. She said drop the milk feeds to make him drink more.... But again I'm dubious as water isn't nutritious so I don't think I should stop milk for this reason