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?

As above, we weaned at 17 weeks and one day as that was the advice from health visitor in 2008.

Started on rice/milk/banana, then introduced yoghurt and peanut butter at 6 months.

Then onto more solid food. BLW wasn't a thing when mine were little so it was annabel karmel fish pie most days!

All of my four never had peanut butter when young in the 2000s or after it just wasn't something I would have in the house as I didn't eat it. It was never mentioned by any health professionals.

It was definitely 6 months by then! And had been 4-6 for more than a decade before.

BLW wasn't a thing when mine were little
If you are BLW now what happens if your baby is a hungry baby before 6 months. The only reason you started weaning at 3 months years ago was if your baby was hungry and the milk wasn't filling them up so started on baby rice or banana isn't that BLW.

I deliberately introduced small tastes of all kinds of foods from 4mo, including the Big Allergens - shellfish, peanuts, egg. For the shellfish, nuts and egg, I did a few skin exposures first, then gave them a taste. For the other things, I just went ahead and fed small amounts. Neither of my kids have any allergies. There is no definite way to prevent allergies, but there is now a strong body of evidence supporting the idea that early exposure significantly reduces the risk. Why not do this for your child?

A couple of breastfeeding sites/gurus I am familiar with (Kellymom et al) spent years on end ranting on and on about how incredibly evil and dangerous it is to give your child the tiniest amount of food before the clock strikes 12 on their six month birthday. I'm happy I ignored them and looked at the actual scientific data.

I'd recommend giving your child little tastes of everything, honestly, not just peanuts; the evidence about early exposure seems to apply to all sorts of things. It's not just about nuts, and dangerous allergies can develop for many other foods.

I'd also be very skeptical about hardcore BLW, by the way. We did plenty of finger foods but also mashed/spoonfed other things when it clearly made more sense. There is no evidence that babies benefit from parents sitting on their hands and refusing to help them to get food in their mouths, and there is nothing particularly natural/traditional about it either; even in traditional preindustrial cultures, mothers and other caregivers mash and pre-chew foods and finger-feed or feed babies mouth to mouth. We've always helped babies out with eating in the early stages.

A family member was part of a study on allergens which concluded that early introduction is beneficial. I think it was the EAT study at KCL. He had them from 3.5 months (so very early!) and so we did with our kids but a bit later, 5 months in small amounts, as part of BLW. Oh and we didn't do gluten until 6 months as that seemed to be the outlier in the study. Ours have no allergies to any of the major allergens.

The study looked at peanut, sesame, fish, dairy, gluten and egg.

Before 6ish months, each baby is different, the gut is highly "porus" and unless it is breast milk or formula you can inteoduce allergens and the gut is leaky so allergies are more likely to develop and stomach issues. There is a very valid reason why 6mths is the standard unless you have spoken to dietitian wnd paediatrican and there is a legitimate reason to start sooner.

Peanut butter has salt and sugar added so a massive no no for baby food. Salt and sugar should not be introduced at all for as long as possible usually around but better after 12months.
Unless you made home made peanut butter with no salt or sugar.

My 2DC dont have allergies and they were given solids and allergens at 6months. So doesn't make a difference

The study followed enough children such that they could draw conclusions in comparison to expectations from the general population. Anecdata is irrelevant.

You can easily buy peanut butter that has no added sugar or salt. Biona, pip and nut to
name a couple of brands. But honestly, reducing the risk of life threatening allergy v a little bit of salt and sugar is a ridiculous comparison. One could save your child's life, the other will do absolutely nothing, the amount of salt or sugar in the tiny bit of peanut butter is so miniscule

My kids both have nut allergies. Consultant said we should have introduced nuts at 4 months.

Best tell scientists they can stop wasting their time with long term studies then, they should just ask a random mum what happened with her 2 kids.

That is just incorrect, research clearly shows the opposite, that introduction before 6 months reduces likelihood of allergies.

It's quite easy to buy peanut butter without sugar and salt added but you don't need to give peanut butter anyway, I introduced nuts as finely ground nuts mixed with natural yoghurt.

All my 4 were weaned at 4 months too, early to mid 2000s. I just followed what generations had done before me 🤷🏼‍♀️ I knew they were ready when they looked longingly at my food and tried grabbing it.

We also have the peanut butter without the salt/sugar (Aldi and Lidl do a lovely large tub) but as Sunseeker said a bit of salt/sugar is hardly going to hurt vs potentially getting a deadly allergy.

Jesus why are us parents so anxious about food allergies. It's like a self fulfilling prophevt

There's a Zoe podcast with the leading researcher on peanut allergies who talks extensively about the research that he did on exposure in infants
I'd say listen to this and that will give you some pointers on where to do further research
zoe.com/learn/why-1-in-10-children-have-a-food-allergy

Lol

So no sugar? You mean sugars in fruits or added sugar

@MixedBananas So no fruit, or veg like carrots, cauliflower, swede etc which contain sugar until a year? Okaaaaay.

This is what is advised by health professionals in some other countries when it comes to peanut butter, actually.

When my first daughter was a few days old, I was sat in the middle of an hours long breastfeeding session eating peanut butter on toast.

I took a bite, looked down at her and almost flew into a new mum panic. "What if she's allergic?!"

Led me down the path to finding out you're worth introducing allergens early. Obviously at tiny age like that it'd be through milk but once weaning we also made sure to introduce them.

There aren't any severe allergies either side of our families so I can imagine if there were it would be quite a different and more worrying process but worked well for us.