To think this baby should be on some solids by now

[tuttuttut]

A friend of mine has a 9.5 month old ds who is exclusively breastfed. He has not had anything else pass his lips yet. She is a brilliant mother (she is attachment parenting - probably not relevent though)

Please tell me if i'm wrong and i'll stop worrying but i really thought at this age babies need solids due to there iron levels depleting. Also i thought solids help with speech development because of the chewing?

Everytime i see her i casually ask if he's had any solids yet and she says "i don't think he's ready". He has no sn by the way.

I have suggested BLW as i thought this would suit them but still no. Is this not as 'bad' as mother's thinking their baby is ready at 4 months really?

the WHO guidelines are ten months i think

i always thought that they needed solids at 6 months for the extra iron and to help their jaw msucles develop to aid talking? i could be wrong though

Is the baby still reaching developmental milestones? How's his speech? (my ds is nearly 10 months and is making plenty of baby chatter for example)

erm no the guidelines are 6 months.

And yes chewing is important for speach.

If the baby is healthy then I don't see why it's any of your business. Your friend is also going to start avoiding you if you ask her about it everytime you see her.

Btw at 10mths you can't always tell whether a child has SN.

well 26 weeks actually.

Yes it's important, because there is a 'window' for learning to chew and swallow apparently.

I was a bit lazy weaning my dc2 and the hv told me in no uncertain terms to get right on with it.

It all worked out ok in the end. But for ages I practically had to liquidise his tooast.

I do agree that it's none of your business.

However if you were posting on here that your friend had weaned at 16 weeks (as was the norm until only about 5 years ago) then there would be plenty on here crying that it was your business and that your friend was harming her child yada yada yada.

Coppertop i have a baby a couple of months older so it's just in general chat i bring it up. The reason i mentioned SN is just because there are none she knows of, therefor not a reason she may be delaying etc.

I think opinions have changed recently. When my dcs were babies the advice was to begin weaning at 4 months and that solids should be introduced no later than six months because of the iron levels thing. The current advice is not to wean before six months. I'm not sure if there is now an age by which it is desirable to have begun weaning though.

If she says her baby isn't ready, then maybe he isn't ready?

littleboyblue i know what you're saying but is that not the same as a mother saying her 4 month old IS ready??

yep wannabe is right - WHO recommends exclusive breast feeding til 6 months followed by complementary foods and breastfeeding til 2 years.

Are you being unreasonable to think it? I dunno, but the facts are:

WHO recommendations are 26 weeks +

Mixed opinions on this one - babies are all different, different needs etc etc - and have heard of children that simply aren't interested in solids until they are, then there's no holding back.

However, a friend of ours adopted a 2yo recently, parents of this child never gave the child solids - just jar after jar of baby food, and it does indeed seem as though the toddler has missed the chance of learning to eat properly - hard hard work and not too much progress.

Does she see her HV? Maybe you could say you'd heard of babies having iron/vitamin supplements when they weren't eating very well...?

WannaBe I agree I read a thread on here recently which became very heated. Left me feeling that I should feel guilty for causing my dcs all manner of future health problems when all I did was follow the then current advice for weaning.

...and leave it with her....

It's hard to mind one's own business where babies are concerned, isn't it?

I think the OP's friend is confusing exclusively drinking breastmilk and eating some food with exclusively having ONLY breastmilk full stop.

She can carry on breastfeeding for years if that's what she wants.

But, two years ago my HEALTH visitor told me off for not 'bothering' to give my son food. He hadn't seemed ready to me either. He was only eating yoghurt. He didn't seem to want foods with texture and substance and I wasn't pushing the matter. But I should have been trying. She said there was a window for learning to chew and swallow real food. I needed to act fast was the message I got loud and clear.

It was VERY hard to introduce food when I did have to get down to it. He seemed to gag on the tiniest little piece of food. Even a petit pois seemed to be far too enormous for him. (This was when he was 9 months old I'd estimate, hard to rememebr exactly, but I know other babies his age were sitting up in their highchairs eating a selection of fruits and cheese etc!!).

I don't know HOW you get your friend to introduce food though. Perhaps she interprets your comments as being anti breastfeeding. Let her know that it's not that at all. I didn't feel my son was ready either. What did I know?!

It is all fine now though.

Hm, I assume she hasn't offered her little one any food at all then...I mean, other then breastmilk? If that is so....hm...how can she tell he isn't ready!
Indeed your BLW suggestion was a good one. I mean, that way she would know if the little one is ready or not....if he refuses fingerfood, then not much you can do there....but if she isn't offering at all then that is kinda neglective behaviour, imo.
Whilst the whole Iron thing is a bit of dodgy ground, I do think that it's not fair to withold solids at that age.
However, is there any chance the child might be prone to food allergies? If so, that could be the reason for her wanting to hold off weaning till 12m. I believe there is a school of thought that advises this.
On the whole speech developement thing...I think weaning for speechdevelopement is more important in bottlefed Babies, because they will not train their muscles the same way a breastfed Baby will, if that makes sense...
however, I might be talking out of my backside on that one...been a few years since I really looked into all this.

Tuttuttut, I'm gonna get pounced for this, but yes, it is the same as a mother saying her 4 month old is ready.
I weaned at 5 months because I felt ds was ready.

She doesn't see the hv. She had no scans/tests etc while pregnant. She's a very 'natural' parent. I am just concerned she's cause ds damage with good intentions. She has not offered any solids whatsoever so not sure how she can tell if "he's ready".

i do find it interesting that late weaning causes much less uproar than early weaning.

tuttuttut...hm, if she hasn't offered anyhting, then that is, imo, NOT a good idea....!
Have you asked her how she knows that he isn't ready? Does she know what Babyled weaning is?

An extract from my human nutrition book

'The age at which [weaning] occurs and the foods used vary between cultures and communities, and may be as early as 2 months or as late as 12 months. Neither of these extremes is nutritionally ideal. The optimal age of weaning is between 4 and 6 months'

It is difficult to follow advice though when you have a child that finds the weaning process difficult. For example ds1 was fine with lumpy food, but ds 2 would bring everything back up, and I mean projectile. It's very stressful.

well - I started trying to wean DS3 at 6 months....but he hardly touched anything. Infact only really started eating at 11 1/2 months old - BLW weaning so no purees - and looking at him now you wouldn't know that just 2 months ago 2/3 little nibbles of food a day was all that passed his mouth.

Are you completely sure that she hasn't offered anything??

She does know what BLW is because i've directed her to sites about it and she knows i did it. I don't know what to say to be honest - i don't want to come across as interfering although i am worried.