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AIBU?

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Original poster

to ''tell on'' my friend for not looking after her 6week old son's health ?

129 replies

YummyMummy17 · 01/08/2009 17:39

Hey all....

My friend has a 6week old son this is her first and I am 5days over due with my first....
So we've been close through out our pregnancy's, discussing everything...

But she has started feeding her 6WEEK OLD SON baby food already
I am worried for his health but she wouldn't listen to me when I was ''telling her off'' she just says ''well he's a hungry baby !''

Baby's are not ment to be fed food until at least 6months !
we had the same midwife as one another....
I am seeing her on Monday, do you think i should tell our midwife about what she is doing?
I am really worried about his health......

Help please !

xx

OP posts:
acebaby · 02/08/2009 19:21

I actually disagree with the majority of the posters here.

Obviously this baby shouldn't be getting solid food at 6 weeks. But, beyond offering information and advice the HV probably won't do anything because this is not an abuse/neglect issue. It sounds like your friend has had advice, but, for her own reasons has chosen to ignore it. In my opinion, she is entitled to disregard the advice and then to be left alone. Similarly, people should not be forced to vaccinate their babies, breastfeed, put them on their back to sleep etc etc even though all these things are arguably in the best interests of their child.

Okay, pompous lecture over (been on the receiving end of too much hv 'advice' over the years I'm afraid) !

Reading between the lines of your post, I would be concerned about how your friend is coping. For 'hungry baby who can't bring up his wind' you could read 'baby that screams all day and and all night, and never sleeps unless held'. It is hard to describe just how helpless, frantic and miserable you can get after 6 weeks of looking after a baby of this type . It may be that she is weaning out of desperation, perhaps because she has heard that introducing solids helps sleep? Perhaps rather than a lecture, you could offer a sympathetic ear and cup of tea? Just a thought...

LuluMaman · 02/08/2009 19:36

i thikn you have a really good point there, acebaby

biggirlsdontcry · 02/08/2009 19:44

i have a friend who started her ds on solids at 6wks she mashed stews up for him he's now 10yrs & he has a lazy bowel problem where they have to give him laxatives every 3wks to help him , he has just turned 10 & has to wear teenagers clothes to fit him as he is very overweight . they also used to feed him jaffa cakes at 6wks .

LynetteScavo · 02/08/2009 19:47

JaffaCakes at 6 weeks? I thought I was a bad mother letting DS1 have a bourbon at 6 months.

(Actually, come to think of it I was being a bad mother...)

duchesse · 02/08/2009 19:50

I believe that there was a 2 year phase in the early 70s when weaning at 6 weeks was recommended by health professionals.

Until they noticed that the rate of hospital admission for D&V and gastric problems (and obviously more deaths) went right up.

Also, if you think how many people in their 30s and 40s have gut problems, it might reveal long term issues even if you make it through the baby stage alive being fed solids. Even Truby King didn't recommend weaning onto solids until 6 months, and he was quite prescriptive about a lot of things.

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 19:50

what i don't understand about this story is why she is being so selective about the advice she's taking. the hv has told her not to increase feeds, is that right? but she's also not to give solids? well what is the poor woman supposed to do?

if it were me, i'd be inclined to start rubbishing the HV, she's clearly not very good. and then point to the rows and rows of hungry baby formula and suggest she use those (after trying to give him more normal stuff). it's not fair of the HV to be giving her no help, it's worse than useless.

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 19:53

the midwives, btw, gave me farex in my bottle when i was a fortnight old. my mum was in hospital having had a haemorrhage (i have NO idea how to spell that word) and they couldn't be arsed dealing with my greedy ways.
i have ibs. yuck.

duchesse · 02/08/2009 19:57

Aitch- I was weaned probably around 6 weeks (probably on Farex). I was being given fish and egg by eight weeks.

I now have nasty gut problems if I eat wheat or eggs, and lesser problems with dairy. Have a really nasty reaction to tea, which I don't think I was given as a newborn.

I'm fine as long as I'm VERY careful what I eat. Cake is seriously out!

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 19:58
biggirlsdontcry · 02/08/2009 20:09

yep lynettescavo , jaffas at 6wks (yuck) her mother encouraged her to start feeding him ,

mmm bourbons (runs off to stick kettle on )

LuluMaman · 02/08/2009 20:10

i was born mid 70s and was weaned at 5 months, my bro was born in the early 80s and was weaned at 6 months

my mum said it was much easier to keep us all on milk and weaning was faff she wanted to put off!

however me and my bro have crohn's and my sister has ulcerative colitis

i dread to think how much worse our bowel issues would have been if were weaned earlier

LynetteScavo · 02/08/2009 20:21

I have the book "Nanny Knows Best" by Nanny Smith,which I bought almost 20 years ago when weaning at 4 months was advised. She was taught when she was trining to be a nursery nurse 1938 to start weaning at 9 months....but she says she alsways started giving solids at 6 months.

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 20:28

isn't that interesting? it's completely culturally-led. welliemum once posted a link to a piece of research done in india where doctors were trying to persuade women to wean earlier than 18months.

ellagrace · 02/08/2009 20:28

just want to add we don't know what the health visitor said really or why she said it or in what context. also that people will describe all sorts of things as being 'a hungry baby'. could be as acebaby said a baby that is demanding of wanting to be held all the time or a mum with unrealistic expectations of how much a baby might cry, wake up in the night, want comfort and closeness, not just lie there sleeping 24 hours a day and see feeding it more as a fix rather than addressing other needs. the hv might have had a conversation that didn't suit the mother saying actually i don't think the baby is hungry it may be that you need to hold the baby, spend time with the baby, not leave the baby in rocker continuously for example or it might have been a conversation about night waking with the mother attributing waking as being hunger and the hv pointing out that the baby is sleeping all day for example.

i don't know that i'd assume that someone who feels cool about feeding a six week old solids is someone whose report of a conversation with a hv can be entirely relied upon to be honest.

as for the it's not dangerous it's up to her i'm afraid i don't agree. people have referred to much older case but it was pretty recently that a couple were being investigated criminally after their young baby died from having small amounts of weetabix added to it's bottles to make feeds go further. weetabix is not 'high' in salt, absolutely fine at 6 months but for some babies of that age it can kill them. babies are all different and any problems with kidneys etc are unknown when they are so young so yes i think you have to tell the health visitor because if something happened to that baby how would you feel? how would your friend feel?

in reality if you're feeling like this around her now you are going to feel a million times more when your baby comes and you are the guardian of this precious little bundle of life so the gap between you is going to widen anyway because you'll find it really hard to cope with her haphazardness and still 'like' her so? and in any case it all comes second to the even very slim chance that this baby could be hurt doesn't it? hv may choose to do nothing but you'll have done something at least.

ellagrace · 02/08/2009 20:31

18 months would be way too late eh? wouldn't have enough iron for good brain development - 6 month point needs the iron up up up hence why WHO recommend that point.

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 20:35

well yes, it's too late. according to what we know now, that is. all may change.

point is, when the docs tell those mothers to wean their kids, they'll respond with 'but he's not ready/he's a hungry baby, needs more milk/all my friends wait/my mother weaned me at this age etc etc'. it's cultural, the weaning standard.

K999 · 02/08/2009 20:37

Lulu...is there a direct link to being weaned earlier than 6 months and crohns etc? Just wondering as I was weaned at 12 weeks, as was my sister and we have never had any health issues.

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 20:42

a direct causal link that if you're weaned earlier than 6 months you MUST develop crohns? no.

foreverchanges · 02/08/2009 20:49

if i were you i would tell midwife

baby could choke to death on vomit from solid food at 6 weeks

you would feel worse if something happened and you hadnt said a word

Gillyan · 02/08/2009 21:37

My SIL was told to feed baby rice at 6 wks. Her son was almost 11lbs at birth and she was exclusively BF him, she took him to the docs as he was constantly screaming and wouldn't settle and whatver info she told doc, the doc recommended he be fed as he was just such a big baby!

Not sure I agree, can't u get that formula that is made for hungrier babies or something?

I have heard about 6 wks weaning from my nanna's generation but my other SIL was weaning at 12 wks too! Her daughter isa yr younger than mine, 3 in Nov and is a stone heavier than mine.

Other SIL who had big baby boy, he is 5 now and very slim but a total fussy eater, takes 90mins for him to eat his tea????

Anyhow, surely this 6wk old baby could choke?

It must be hard as a friend knwoing what to do but I think if it were me I would try to het a HV to speak with her at least.

Good luck

ellagrace · 02/08/2009 21:41

attitudes to weaning are cultural yes but the facts we know now are not cultural but scientific.

facts and attitudes are massively different.

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 21:42

sure, but medicine moves on, etc, those facts change too. but yes, at the moment 6mos good 18mos bad.

ellagrace · 02/08/2009 21:56

i'd be willing to take a bet that 18 months will always be too late and 6 weeks will always be too early.

yes we once believed the world was flat and now we know it's round but science and particularly medicine has come along way in recent decades.

AitchTwoOh · 02/08/2009 21:59

i'm not sure what your point is, tbh. we're not disagreeing.

cheezcurl · 02/08/2009 22:10

Weaning often means different things to different people. 'Weaning' as in - to stop breast/formula feeding or as in - introducing solid food? Perfectly fine to still be feeding at 18months as long as other foods are being introduced as well. Reading 'the politics of breastfeeding' I came across mention of a study which calculated that, comparing humans to other mammals, we should be breast-feeding for 7 years . Don't think I could be having with any of that!!