To think weening should be done ASAP

[Ryoko]

I plan to start Weening him when he is 4 months old if he will except baby rice or porridge at that age.

IMO weening as soon as they are able is natures way, thats what all other animals do it sounds unlikely to me that our ape-ish ancestors sat there giving milk alone for over 6 months so I feel that weening at 4 months is probably better for kids.

And yes they changed because we understand more. Some babies of course will have a gut that is ready a little before 6 months and the 4-6 months guideline probably acknowledged this. The thing is you can't see inside your baby and there's no benefit to early weaning at all so it's best to wait until 6 months. Plus there was the issue of people approaching 4 months and thinking 'well, nearly there' and weaning. It encouraged early weaning I suppose. 4 months is 17 weeks and this is still the absolute earliest recommended age and only under medical supervision. An average baby needs only milk for the first 6 months.

I know increased risk of allergies was one reason.

Did someone say 2003? I thought I heard something? No?

ryoko so was your OP deliberately dumbed down? All of a sudden you seem much more articulate.
Was this an experiment?

i would like to answer your OP seriously as well, Ryoko.

the most "natural" way to wean a child is the baby-led weaning way - that means you feed the child with your breast milk until the time when s/he is able to pick up food and eat it themselves.
the theory, done by the book, means that baby rice and porridge would never need to be eaten.

our ape-like ancestors would have done that - kept encouraging the child-ape to try food until they were ready to eat it. most animals have their own development ages, humans is after 6 months. it does seem odd to replace a liquid with another liquid-like substance. that's not developing the baby's instincts to chew, it's just encouraging slurping and swallowing. which they can already do.

and everything that slushy said, because i don't want to repeat her.

I've googled it, it was 2003 apparantly.

bloody hell, that moved fast! it took all my time to type that!

NP you can hear me!
i said YOU CAN HEAR ME!

The advice in 1999 and 2001 was between 4 and 6 months.

Stealth I'm not ignoring you. You answered the question AGES ago.

We aren't actually apes though are we? And if you want to use our pre-historic forebearers as a guide to living, why are you using a computer instead of carving into a wall? Are you wearing a dress made of animal skins? Do you only cook over an open fire, or do you prefer your mammoth meat raw?

Or maybe you think we've moved on a bit?

Oh ShirleyKnot it must have been you

Anyway - OP

In response to your first point - you can't have it both ways - you say you don't want to BF (on earlier threads) and then say that you want to be all "monkey see, monkey do"

W'EVS - think you're on the wind up.

Although WHO was recommending 6 months from 2001...

Well op still waiting, I answered your question about why I wouldn't wean at 4months can you answer mine please and tell me why you want to wean before 6months?

Because she's an ape Slushy06.

"Everywhere else in nature they start eating solids as soon as they are able so thats the way we must be built too"

Everywhere else in nature (mammals) they breastfeed, not bottle feed. Where was your inner ape then?

She can't be a ape she is very anti bf and I don't believe I have ever seen a ape with a bottle .

www.kathydettwyler.org/detwean.html

"The minimum predicted age for a natural age of weaning in humans is 2.5 years, with a maximum of 7.0 years"

"It has been common for pediatricians to claim that most mammals wean their offspring when they have tripled their birth weight, suggesting a weaning age of 1 year in humans. Again though, this is affected by body weight, with larger mammals nursing their offspring until they have quadrupled their birth weight. In humans, quadrupling of birth weight occurs between 2.5 and 3.5 years, usually."

Why not just fing her down infront of a bag of chips OP. She'll get the hang of it eventually....

Well, what do apes do? Breast feed their young until their young can grab their own food and eat it.

So apes do blw.

interesting bit on primate weening that I think says the total opposite of what you are putting forward.

actually you are wrong. in ancient times babies were breastfed until 2 years and introduced to solids once they had teeth since there were no food processors to make everything very fine - of course they could mash things but hard to feed 4 month old mashed carrots.

a number of years ago i visited some bedoiun in the desert, and they were very happy to see me breastfeeding by DD (I wanted to check it was ok before I whipped my breast out!) - they have been living in the same tradition way for thousands of years and their babies are exclusively breastfed until around 9-12 months - then they give them small amounts of solids, like cubes of soft carrots, etc - i guess not so different to baby lead weaning. natures way is EBF and late weaning.

Lions for example wean at 6-7 months. Adulthood is reached at 3 years, so drawing a comparison with humans where adulthood is say 15 years, that would be like weaning at age 3.5 years.

Primates wean when they reach 1/3 of adult weight, roughly quadrupling birth weight so for humans that would be around 3 years (quadrupling birth weight) or 6 years (1/3 adult weight).

You are just wrong,

here is link by anthropologist who knows what they are talking about:

I know you have started this to wind everyone up...

Can I just throw a spanner in the works for the sake of it..........latest research has shown that weaning at 4 months does not increase risk of allergies or any other complications. For this reason some other european countries have revised their recommended age back to 4 months (france and germany included iirc but feel free to correct me if I've remembered that wrong).

This research was conducted by the paediatric dietetic association - they have basically concluded that there is no reason to wait until 6 months. I don't know how to do links, but the information is there if you google.

StealthPolar Bear "ryoko so was your OP deliberately dumbed down? All of a sudden you seem much more articulate.
Was this an experiment?"

No I just didn't use any words that needed apostrophes, I am useless with things like that.

and Ween is what it sounds like how am I to know it has an "A" in it, Wee-n.

I heard 4 months.

is this for real?