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.

"not be waiting until they are x amount old before mum (or dad) allows them access to edible things."

PMSL - of COURSE that's what we're all doing wrong. STARVING them. No WONDER they're all desperate to be weaned at 4 months. Milk not being edible 'n' all.

I started giving my DS mush at 4 months due to HV crappy advice (read strong persuasion). Bloody nightmare. He ate virtually none of it, it was a complete waste of time and energy and a whole load of stress. I BF until he was 15 months although he was mostly on solids by 6 months. What was the point?

Every baby is different and many will be fine to go onto solids at 4 months but I see no benefits to the parents or baby, and there's clear potential health risks of weaning early.

DS2 is due in 3-4 weeks. This time I'm going to do BLW - seems much simpler.

Hmm but the point is that when preparing mushy baby food was so much harder than today, why would you bother? Why not just carry on with the obvious easily-available food supply until the babe was able to stick his little hand out and grab a piece of fruit or cooked roots or whatever. I can't see Mrs Homo Erectus settling down to a morning of mashing roots to spoon feed it into her offspring.

Really recommend you read up on baby led weaning if you are actually interested. We have been a bit led by baby food manufacturers over the years and there is a view that weaning babies earlier has contributed to the massive increase in allergies and food sensitivities, cause of babies being introduced to foods before their guts were ready. I'm no expert so I would hate for someone to read this who has a child with allergies to think I'm suggesting they are responsible. My DS really wasn't interested in food until he was gone 6 months, starting later does mean less faffing about introducing one thing at a time and more he just garbs something out your hand and starts eating it.

My HV nearly had a fit of herself when she found out that at 5 months, DD was not yet on solids. When she insisted on visiting us a month later and she still wasn't on solids as i was planning to BLW she got incredibly het up and upset 'Your going to miss the window, and she won't want to eat anything then - the window, the window's so important... THE WINDOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW'

It was a genuine roffle moment

There are no potential health risks of weaning at 4 months!! The massive increase in food allergies has happened relatively recently......babies have been fed solid food earlier than 6 months for decades. And instances of food allergies continue to rise despite the 6 months recommendation. Seriously, there is no proof that weaning at 4 months causes an increase in allergies.

Having just read the last few posts, it really does seem like the main reason for BLW at 6 months is because you can't be arsed to feed your children........sure it's not the case but it's making me giggle anyway

diamondsandtiaras I object to your assumption. There is a big difference between being arsed to feed your child and being arsed with purees etc.
I can't be arsed with Annabel Karmel and her endless puree money making spin offs - trays, spoons, pots, recipe books, blenders, supermarket meals for fussy eaters.
I can be arsed to steam some brocolli florets and carrot sticks however

Not read the whole thread so if this has been said before sorry.

Are you mad?
You want to wean when the baby is ready, eh that would be when he/she can physically put the food in it's mouth. Not at 4 months old which is when a bunch of drs (eary 1900's) realised formula milk was shit so told you to feed them purees.

Generations before that would of waited till baby was able to hold food and chew on it without choking.
I really can't see mums from hundreds of years ago pureeing foods for 4 month babies when they had so many other chores to do.

But then again I may be wrong

Why anyone is in such a bloody hurry to wean is beyond me. Weaning sucks most of the time, whether fannying around with purees or scraping the BLW stuff off the floor/high chair/wall/baby, and the pondering what to give them day in, day out.
It's thankless, hard graft. I'm only beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel now when she's almost a year old. She wasn't really ready until 9 months in my opinion. You'd have to be a sodding masochist to want to start at 4 months.

So when can a baby hold a piece of cooked broccoli and chew on it?

DS2 grabbed broccoli off my plate when he was 4 months, but I didn't let him have it, even though he was desperate for it. My parents thought I was cruel. With hindsight, I think he might have been ready to eat it.

I'm so sorry I've read the whole thread and in the time that it has taken me...I could have weaned a gorilla.

My only point is that I've heard/read that it only matters if you are bfing. So if you are bfing you should stick to the 6mth guideline, but if you are not, it doesn't matter.

OP, we do know when our ancestors weaned their children. We know this without having to use hyenas or whatever as an analogy; evidence of the age of weaning is preserved in the teeth after death in stable isotopes. People did not wean children at 4 months except for in dire situations like Victorian London.

shirleyknot - I absolutely snorted out loud at your post on P1 and then had to explain to DH why!

Ryoko - the whole point, as doubtless you have been told by many posters by now, is that you start to wean when the baby is ready. If that happens to be at 4m, so be it - but if your baby is unable to sit up, grasp at food etc., or doesn't have any interest in solid food, then it's probably best to wait until he is ready, as Nature will be tellin him when he's ready.

We are concentrating on the early weaning irritability connection, but no one seems to have picked up on the early weaning connection to childhood obesity.

Breast milk contains all a child needs, and the balance is altered to satisfy your child, if they are hungry a creamier texture, if they are thirsty a watery consistency.This mean babies only get what they need.

Why would you complicate this and feed them something alien (if you are going back to our ancestors we would be eating chewed up dandelions, turnips, wild boar and fox - how many bananas, avocados and rice plants in the UK?)you are putting stress on the digestive system.

My son became a grazer through late weaning, it was great, he only ate what he wanted when he wanted, and we didnt fall into this trap of competitive "ooh my son's on potato now" malarky.

There are also theories about developing sweet tooth in the US where they are now denouncing apple and carrot mush because they get children used to sweet tastes and don't actually contain enough calories to make a nutritional contribution.

I don't suppose it makes a difference to bottle fed babies, because they are ingesting "alien" foodstuffs in a way since birth.

To the other poster who was fed Carnation - so was my husband, watered down in a bottle. His teeth are like a row of condemned houses, and if he eats cheese or other proteins he wakes up in the night throwing his guts up.

OP, you do know you're talking shit, don't you? And on top of that you sound like you regularly hail to a statue of King Kong.

Sorry but I laugh out loud at your Super Intellectual Baby. Hate to disappoint you, but he's an entirely normal child. And even if he was Super Amazing, his gut is still as developed as any other baby.

question for earlier poster millyr - how can you know the weaning age of people by teeth record? when many babies don't have teeth until 8 mo or later?
i love a bit of forensic archaeology...

the teeth are all in there, they just haven't grown yet.

i don't know how that helps with the dating, though....

'trying to talk at 2 weeks'

That's my quote of the month

EAP, we know when each part of the tooth mineralises when it is forming in the jaw, so we can tell the weaning age from the enamel bands in the adult dentition.

Actually Tabouleh, they did have spoons.

When my dc were babies in the 70s we were advised to start weaning at 4months or even earlier.
Both of mine started solids [Farex]I think at about 16 weeks.However dd bf till 6 months with both of hers and d-i-l combined bf and solids till 18months.
Each to her own I think.

DS was weaned at 17 weeks but that was because he was a hungry baby and the BM wasn't enough for him. I don't think there's anything wrong with weaning early if that's what is best for the baby - but they are all so different you can't just say all babies should be weaned at 4 months old!

For those who ask why you would want to wean at four months:

Both my dss had reflux (to varying degrees). Reflux often improves considerably on introducing solids. I am looking forward to introducing solids as I dislike seeing my baby in pain. I would also like to be able to lie him down on his back occasionally.

I was wondering about that - is weaning at 4 months standard advice for bad reflux? A friend of mine (and wife, presumably) is having a hard time with his baby, the reflux meds are working but apparently the baby now no longer sleeps and cries a lot She's 3 months I really hope they only have a month of it left. i didn't like to ask though as they presumably know a lot more than me and will do what they are advised!!