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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think this baby should be on some solids by now

181 replies

tuttuttut · 07/07/2008 09:50

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?

OP posts:
RegenerAitch · 08/07/2008 21:06

fill yer boots, girl

FrannyandZooey · 08/07/2008 21:08

there's BITS in this smoothie

TennantbellesMum · 08/07/2008 21:12

6 months is actually relatively quite early. Looking in our own history and around the world, not just talking about starving worlds either! I've spoken to mothers from countries that wean well into the first year.

The iron thing is a formula marketing myth. There is less iron in BM but that's because it's all available to the child, unlike FF. Introducing food can affect the rate of iron absorption though and not as much getting to the child because of a drop in BM intake.

Let her get on with it, sounds like she knows her stuff.

4madboys · 08/07/2008 21:12

i didnt offer ds2 and ds3 solids till they were over 9mths, i have a history of allergies in my family and wanted to be careful, plus they didnt seem interested.

when we did start we did BLW and neither of them ate really until they were over one, it took ds2 till he was about 18mths before he was on three meals a day, he just preferred bfeeding, but they both learnt to talk fine and now at 6yrs and 3yrs they both eat fine

lenny101 · 08/07/2008 21:12

Not if it's 'for kids' Frank

nkf · 08/07/2008 21:14

She might be making a point. Attachment parents can be a bit, well, keen to make points.

nkf · 08/07/2008 21:17

Aren't they sitting at the table and looking around and quite curious about family meals at nine months? I've slightly forgotten the weaning stage but they like to shove things in the mouths don't they?

lenny101 · 08/07/2008 21:17

You think nkf? You think she could be making a point and ignoring what's best for her baby? I can't imagine the child is starving, not thriving, not meeting milestones otherwise it'd be in the OP. OP?

welliemum · 08/07/2008 21:17

What aitch said.

Also: mine loved tasting food (started at 6 months) but only started eating properly at around 8-9 months. Before that, if they were truly hungry, they asked for milk.

I believe in retrospect that I could easily have weaned them at 8 months. And they wouldn't have missed out on different tastes either - they were bf and were getting the taste of garam masala and all sorts from the day they were born.

It's important to be accurate when you're talking about evidence based guidelines.

WHO (and many other experts) have concluded that breastmilk is complete nutrition to at least 6 months, ie they don't need food before then. No more, no less. It's terribly important not to read your own personal theories into that statement.

To date there's no evidence at all for an upper limit of when you have to start food. Probably it's different for each child but it could be anything. Nobody knows.

Oh, and the window of opportunity thing is rubbish. In some places, many children aren't weaned until they're two YEARS old, and somehow they manage to eat and speak.

So as far as I can see, there isn't a shred of evidence that what this woman is doing is harmful. In fact, it's quite possible that she's the one who's right, and that all of the rest of us weaned too soon.

I hope not, obviously, and I think BLW is a very sound way of deciding on weaning age so I'm comfortable with what we did, but there's no way I'd jump in with both feet and call her an idiot because if new evidence comes out I might well be the one looking like an idiot.

tuttuttut · 08/07/2008 21:17

Thank you for all the information. I won't worry anymore! I hadn't researched it as you can tell, i had only the information from hvs when weaning my ds etc which wasn't much but gave me the impression that they HAD to have more than breastmilk after 6 months. Thanks again.

OP posts:
reethi96 · 08/07/2008 21:19

Ds would have gone into the kitchen and made his own if I hadn't introduced solids by then.

RegenerAitch · 08/07/2008 21:31

lol, well attachment parents do let their kids play with knives. [saw it on tv icon]

tuttuttut · 08/07/2008 21:35

Oh and obviously i don't know what he weighs but he certaintly looks healthy and not underweight. My ds didn't really eat much until recently either but i thought the 'playing' with the food and 'learning' to eat kind of came before they'd get the hang of actually eating. Therefore i considered my ds' blw learning to eat so by at 12 months he'd actually be eating?! Hope that makes sense. Oh and i know that goes against what i said about iron, that bit i've just read in baby books.

OP posts:
ReallyTired · 08/07/2008 21:39

I think it sounds like as if your friend is fairly knowledgable. Provided food is available to her baby the baby will eventually take the food.

My son totally refused solid food at 16 weeks and worried me silly. I had the had the hv telling all kinds of stupid stuff like my baby would end up with brain damaged caused by aneamia.

Eventually he took to food at about 30 weeks. He was ready.

Some children walk at 8 months and others walk at 18 months. Some children are toilet trained at 18 months and others are nearer 4 years old. Child development varies considerally and I sceptical that all babies are ready to be weaned at 6 months.

TennantbellesMum · 08/07/2008 22:08

welliemum did you have a bland diet when you were pregnant?

I used to laugh how Tink would be frantically drinking the waters the day after I'd eaten curry! I love late scans, the detail is amazing and when you have someone good doing the scan that lets you watch, it's amazing! She still loves curry

MmeBovary · 08/07/2008 22:23

Sorry - will probably sound stupid - but what is attachment parenting? I thought I read all the books.....

MmeBovary · 08/07/2008 22:28

I went back to work at 5 months and certainly started on some baby rice by then. When dd was 6 months we went on holiday for the first time and every restaurant we went to gave her a bread stick (italy) and she loved it - kept her happy long enough for us to eat at least one course....

MmeBovary · 08/07/2008 22:28

I went back to work at 5 months and certainly started on some baby rice by then. When dd was 6 months we went on holiday for the first time and every restaurant we went to gave her a bread stick (italy) and she loved it - kept her happy long enough for us to eat at least one course....

welliemum · 10/07/2008 04:22

TBM, absolutely no bland diet while pregnant! For some reason I couldn't even look at cheese when pregnant with dd1, but was happy to eat vindaloo with steam coming out of my ears.

They both love curry and dd2 climbs up the pantry shelves to lick the Tabasco bottle, so they've been well indoctrinated.

FairyMum · 10/07/2008 06:32

DS3 did not eat any solids before 14 months. He refused. He was and is absolutely fine. Some babies really are not ready and there is nothing you can do.Maybe your friend is like I was and just don't want to try to explain a difficult situation to someone who is not likely to understand? People can be very funny about weaning.

TinkerBellesMum · 10/07/2008 09:27

I always wanted curry when I was pregnant with Tink, not sure it was craving, just always fancied curry. What you eat flavours the water so babies are tasting your food from the moment they can stick their tongue out. If you breastfeed then they carry on getting tastes of what you eat. That's why the whole bland foods thing is madness, even if a baby was FF, they're still designed to enjoy flavours. I think that may be why a baby will seem to enjoy purees when they're ridiculous ages (8 weeks and younger like my brothers kids ) it's the flavour rather than the food. I think I've gone on a ramble.

TheMuppetMuggle · 10/07/2008 09:39

My friend has a DS age 3 and because the only and only time she tried to give him food he choked (not literally), she didn't like it and he's not been given it since, he lives on 6 bottles of whole milk a day.

RubyRioja · 10/07/2008 09:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

edam · 10/07/2008 09:52

As people have said, the weaning window and the iron thing are both myths. Iron in b/m is perfectly designed to be absorbed by the baby - iron in formula isn't so they need to put more iron in to try to make sure the baby has enough. Somehow formula manufacturers have managed to reverse the truth and convince everyone the problem is with b/m, rather than formula milk - a good con that has clearly worked well for them.

TheMuppetMuggle · 10/07/2008 10:08

my friend won't budge and now her DS won't go near food, just asks for a bottle when hungry