Cow and Gate- no wonder...

[againandagain]

....people are still weaning early and seem to think that its a choice to wait untill 6 months as opposed to actual guidelines. I just copied and pasted this from the COW AND GATE website!

Telltale weaning signs

After a full milk feed your baby cries or demands more

Your baby finds it harder to wait until the next feed, and becomes irritable or chews their hands

Where they've previously slept through the night, they now wake up for a feed.

Daytime sleep becomes more erratic too - not
settling down or waking up early from naps

Your baby looks fascinated when you eat, and perhaps tries to reach for food you're holding

sorry that should say what is unsafe about WEANING at 16 weeks anyway?

Busymummy- I agree. You wouldnt disagree with advice from gp, medics and hv (okay, so maybe some hv ). You listned to advice given and did the best for your children at that time. However, now the advice is to wait until 6 months. By waiting we are doing the same as you did 12, 10 and 6 years ago. Weaning at 4 months now, with the research that we have, is comparable to weaning at 8 weeks when your first dc was born. You wouldnt and did not do it as it would of been against medical advice. Hope you understand what im getting at !

AliGrylls - I wasn't suggesting that babies undergo invasive procedures, but the only way to check for gut sealing is via an endoscopy, I believe. What symptoms do you think you would have seen by feeding baby rice - the effects of unsealed gut issues aren't seen for years, not immediately. IMO its dangerous to suggest that you can test for gut sealing by feeding baby rice.

again and again, yes I do now see what you are getting at especially when you say its like weaning your first dc at 8 weeks. Still believe they are guidelines and each mum will do what they think is best after taking advice.

And I would never ever trust the advice from a baby food manufacturer from when to wean - I prefer to get my medical advice from doctors!

busymummy3 - I guess its about doing your best for your child in full knowledge of why the guidelines are in place - I didn't manage to breastfeed for as long as I would have wanted, so hope I'm balancing things out by at least trying to give DD the best chance by not weaning early. That, and as Ive said, the fact that I'm lazy!

I am one of four siblings (I'm the eldest and my youngest sibling is 15 years younger than me). Since we were so spread out my mum found that the advice she was given for each of us was totally different. In fact by the time she had my youngest brother, it had gone full circle and she was being told to do what she had done with the first child!

I experienced the same thing- whilst pregnant with my first child I was told not to eat peanuts etc because it may cause allergies. I smiled and nodded along and carried on eating whatever I wanted. It seemed like absolute nonsense to me! Surely the baby developing in my womb needed exposure with the safety of my body acting as a filter to help it develop its own responses?!

I got pregnant with my second child when the first was just 6months old. Already the advice was totally different. I was told to make sure I ate peanuts whilst pregnant because otherwise the baby would not develop its own tolerance to them

My point is that these 'guidelines' really must be taken with a 'pinch of salt' I think. Yes the research may tell us something, but we must use our common sense as well. I have read the info on the netmums website an earlier poster mentioned, and it really just did not sit with me..... am I really to accept that something happens to my baby's body of which there will be NO sign that makes it ready for food? That just makes no sense to me. I see the body as a whole, it works synergistically. How a cavewoman know when to give her baby food if there were no signs?

Things like the changes in the smell of a baby's saliva are those signs I think

rosiejoy - I have a notoriously rubbish sense of smell (have frequently made tea with off milk , so maybe another reason why I relied on this particular guideline more than some!

The 'don't eat peanuts' advice was never based on any research or evidence, it was just inspired by the safety first principle. And it was never supposed to apply to everyone, anyway, only families with either food or nut allergies IIRC (can't remember if it was nut alone or all food groups).

Now we do have some evidence that actually avoiding peanuts means the first exposure is more likely to trigger allergies. So it's worth knowing that and then making whatever decision you choose to make about your own life.

Would you rather health professionals didn't bother telling us what the weight of scientific evidence is?

What edam said...much more succint than I am!

If the gut is not closed properly it stimulates the release of mucosal antibodies, so I guess the thinking is that it increases the risk of allergy in later life. However, if there is no history of allergy in the family why would this happen.

From what I understand about gastrointestinal allergies, you would know if the gut has not closed because the baby would not absorb the nutrients (the antibody being IgA which is the same antibody hyper-stimulated in coeliac disease). This would most likely cause diarrhoea.

There are factors which are supposed to facilitate gut closure early, one of them being breastfeeding, which indicates breastfed babies MAY be ready earlier.

I think the language which you use is very emotive and the word "dangerous" is an implied criticism that I have not thought about it or researched it carefully which is actually completely wrong.

Again, can someone please link me to the original research? About weaning at 4 - 6 months because of enzymes that are apparently undetectable without intrusive means, and this gut closure thing?

Anyone?

(Sorry if I've missed it somewhere, I have read the whole thread!)

againandagain, five, jaggy etc do you follow the WHO guidelines to the letter on everything? See below.

The World Health Organization recommends that infants start breastfeeding within one hour of life, are exclusively breastfed for six months, with timely initiation of adequate, safe and properly fed complementary foods while continuing breastfeeding for up to two years of age or beyond.

I assume therefore that you will all be breastfeeding your baby to 2 years of age or beyond and will never ever in any circumstance give it formula milk?

Sorry - forgot to add - and if not what makes the guidelines you are choosing to ignore any less important than the weaning guideline?

Turtles - no I don't follow all the guidelines (have already stated that for medical reasons I was unable to breastfeed for as long as the guidelines suggest), but this one I do - its an easy one to follow. Plus having witnessed first hand the debilitating nature of Chrone's disease (spelling?), I wouldn't take this particular risk (a bigger worry to me than allergies) Like I said, deep down, I'm a lazy bugger....

Hi Turtlesmum
I don't follow any guidelines to the letter, as all babies & people are individuals with individual needs, and guidelines are just that.
I haven't breastfed my babies either, personal reasons from childhood but suffice to say I tried it once and felt it was hindering my bonding process. Now the guidelines say breast is best, I accept that nutritionaly it is, but emotionaly it would have caused bonding problems between myself and my babies. I'm very close to all my children (even thought the teens do give grief from time to time) and had very strong bonds with them all as babies.
My point is that guidelines are there to guide you, not to be used to beat others with because are following them to the letter and feel superior.

five - they aren't intended to beat anyone with, but neither should anyone pretend they aren't there for a good reason. Its just that I don't kid myself that there weren't risks involved in, for example, not exclusively breastfeeding - there are risks in it, and it would be foolish of me to pretend that it was the choice that I would have made if everything had been perfect.

And I don't feel superior at all for sticking to it - as I said, for me it was about trying in some very muddled way to "make it up" to my DD for being unable to breastfeed for long. And for the million other things that I will probably do wrong in her life! Let's face it, none of us is perfect, and you just do the best you can, accepting that sometimes its just not possible to do everything by the book, so to speak.

Five - agree with you - everyone is individual and guidelines are just guidelines. They are there for a reason but they are guides not rules.

I do get annoyed when people get on their high horse about the guideline they specifically believe in while ignoring other, equally important guidelines for various (perfectly valid) reasons. People have valid reasons for weaning before 6 months and it's not for anyone else to judge them for it or to say it's wrong.

Just like mums who chose not to breastfeed exclusively for six months or to continue breastfeeding for two years. They are also ignoring the guidelines.

TheBossofMe It's not always an easy one to folow, it depends on the baby.
A 97th percentile baby who is taking 7oz of hungry formula every 2 hours through day and night probably does need something else. At the time my HV spent almost a whole day with me, coming and going to see others, but said DS1 was needing something more.
DD1 was a completely different ketle of fish and was perfectly happy on just milk till over 6m, and that was 15 years ago, and I was positively frowned on for waiting so long, but I did what i thought best for my individual baby.
Use your instinct, take notice of the guidelines, but use them as a guide, above all trust your own judgement as your baby's mum.

five - when I say easy, I mean its easier to make up another bottle (at one stage, I was preparing 3 per feed!), compared to making some food for baby (DD notorious for flinging food around at weaning, no teeth until 16 months thus limiting what she could eat, we eat lots of very spicy food so couldn't just give her what we ate, thus requiring vast quantities of specially cooked food). Well, I thought it was easier!

Ok, but how on earth did your DC manage 3 bottles per feed, was it not coming out of her nose? I wouldn't have thought her stomach would cope with all that liquid. HV said my DS was struggling to cope with any more liquid but not feeling full for long enough.

I found weaning foods easy, but because I would cook in bulk and freeze into ice cube trays. Would only try 1 new thing at a time for a few days to make sure of no bad reactions. I'd often do 3-4 new flavours and pop little cubes into storage pots so I could get out 1 at a time.

five - trust me, she was the most amazing milk guzzler in the world! Her stomach used to slosh around, but she kept it all down and thrived on it. The only problems we had with vomiting etc only happened after weaning.

We did BLW so no need for purees, but bottles still easier IMO. Cooking for an unappreciative audience is always a drag!

No vomiting here after weaning, they all seemed to love carrot and butternut squash puree in particular. Luckily mine all seemed to be appreciative of most foods. (Except DD1 who hated and still does bananas.)

Do we have a totally envious emoticon?? I can't tell you how much puke I had to wipe up whilst weaning - eventually figured out that anything too acidic (including tomatoes!) triggered it off, at which point it stopped. Now she eats almost anything, but somewhat oddly given her previously HUGE appetite, only in small amounts.

She still won't eat my curries though, but given my asbestos mouth and over-use of chillies, I can probably forgive that one!

The profits of baby food companies are hugely affected by weaning advice - basically if they didn't undermine current guidelines that are backed up by research they'd lose a lot of money.