To introduce baby to peanuts before starting solids proper?

[Wholeboxoftissues]

My baby is 4.5 months, I want to do BLW and not start solids till 6 months. But I've seen that there's research that the earlier you introduce peanuts, the less chance of allergies, ideally at 4 months. Yesterday I was eating peanut butter on toast while playing with him, and there was a teeny smidge of peanut butter on my thumb, so I thought I'll wipe this on his lip. So I did and he really liked it and I've now introduced peanut. But I really don't want to start solids properly yet. Is this a reasonable thing to do semi regularly until we start solids, to give him regular exposure? Or is it weird?

My kids have all eaten peanuts, pistachios, and other nuts and other common allergens at 6mo. Nobody has had a reaction so far.

Just don't give a load of peanut butter because it's so viscous. Before you know it they'll be eating PB&J sandwiches 😆

What other ways?

Was this 15+ years ago?
When I was pregnant in 2010 it had definitely changed to do eat nuts, but a friend who had a toddler had been told to avoid. I guess this was around the time but allergies were really increasing.

I used to give my newborns little baby massages after their baths with a tiny bit of peanut oil.

You're not meant to expose through the skin before exposing through the stomach. It raises the chance of an allergic reaction if their first contact is through the skin x

Sorry but when did this all start with giving babies small amounts of aligens. Is it only if you have family members that are allergic to things as it wasn't something you did at all when mine were babies. None of my 4 ever had any allergies do they still have to do this when they have children of their own.

Its because they did some studies and discovered it reduces the risk of allergies. All babies are at risk of developing allergies, its just more of a risk if you have family members with allergies or eczema. With allergies being more and more common these days most parents want to do whatever they can to reduce the risk.

NICE guidelines suggest early introduction to allergens from 4 months if there's a family history. I did this with my youngest and so far so good.
NHS is very slow to keep up.

When my DCs were babies, weaning was OK at 4 months if a baby could sit up without needing support from a parent, and doctors said no foods that were notorious allergens until 12 months.

Advice changes constantly. The current advice on allergens is the exact opposite of advice from a few decades ago.

Yes to this.

With allergies being more and more common these days
Has anyone ever found out why it is more common nowadays. When we were growing up no one I or my husband knew had any allergies.

Yes I know that now! Anyway, she’s 20 now and no allergies.

Now that you've introduced it you need to keep it in! It's not enough to introduce and then it's ok. This is vital. Introduction and then removal can contribute to allergies developing

I suspect a combination of cleaner lives so the immune system has less to fight against so it finds new enemies and years of the weaning later and avoiding allergens advice. Plus I'm sure many more factors.

Meh, didn't that much time thinking about it. Peanut butter on toast was my go to breakfast when the kids were babies, particularly when breastfeeding, so I always considered they were exposed to it that way. Pretty sure some must have entered their mouth at some point between newborn and 6M when we started weaning.

An Australian study found early introduction is only helpful if it's regularly fed.

For our daughter (high risk due to our son having many allergies) we started at 4.5 months and gave it every day or two mixed with yoghurt

But why are u only worried about peanut? What about tree nut, sesame, egg etc. ?

We introduced all 8 major allergens from 4.5 months, although seafood may have been a wee bit later (6 months?)
We then made sure we had them on rotation and gave them regularly

I agree this is probably the reason.

I’m glad advice has changed on the introducing of allergens at an earlier date. To me the correlation was just so obvious - less people with allergies in the old days when they weaned their babies at 4 months, whereas loads of kids have allergies these days when they’re told not to wean until at least 6 months and some people don’t do it till a year. Madness.

When mine were babies it was 3 months.

I'm a scientist and work on allergy- introducing peanut sooner rather than later is recommended now. It should just be tiny amounts though from 4 months.
Then at 6 months gradually give more stuff like nut butters and a variety of fruit

Well my mum was told (in the old days) by her GP to give my brother carnation evaporated milk in a bottle as he was still hungry after breastfeeding. Imagine that nowadays 😆

A combination of factors probably - we live in cleaner homes and have very clean water supplies so less parasites for our immune systems to fight, more people with allergies survive infancy & childhood now, and maybe the period of time that people avoided giving babies allergens. Maybe the way food is produced now too and the amount of ultra processed food we consume.

I'm not sure in the 70s and before there was even really national guidance - it the 80s it became 4 months and in the 90s 4-6 months and then 6 months in the early 2000s.

You really need to take advice from from a paediatrician rather than asking a stranger off the internet, especially if you have a family history of allergens!!

I was just intrigued as to what possible other ways there are to introduce allergens apart from consuming them, because I am pretty sure consuming them is the only safe way to introduce them.

My son was born late 2000s and weaned at 4 months maybe as I already had 3 kids didn't know about the new guidence