4mo starting solids

[MrsRV]

DD is just over 4mo & we introduced some pureed pears last week. She has this once a day at around lunchtime, just a few spoons full at the mo and half of the milk feed she'd usually have at this time. It's going well & she seems to be getting on ok, she's a bit constipated but I think I just need to give her more water to try to help? Thought the pears would work! So, that's all fine but now what? Planning on giving her carrot puree next... But do I just replace pears with carrots or give carrots at a different time of day as well as pears? Confused about the when's and how's? Help!

[ChairmanWow]

Gawd, at the risk of walking in on yet another MN argument, for better or worse we weaned our son at 4 months. He was showing all the signs and was trying to grab food and put it into his mouth. When I had to yank a piece of orange from him before he stuffed it in I decided to give it a go.

The OP was asking advice on what to give so sticking to that I'd second the others who mentioned Annabel Karmel. From what I remember carrots and pears are best to start with because they're very easy to digest. Her book has a programme in it which will show you when to introduce a new purée and how to alternate. I pretty much followed it to the letter in the first couple of months out of laziness, and I've now got a great little eater of 23 months.

Good luck!

[mummy2lola]

Thanks Jayne x

[mummy2lola]

I agree, guidelines are there for a reason. I also agree that health visitors and paediatritions & dietitions are well trained for a reason & that their advice is based on years of training, only for people on here to rubbish their advice (which has helped my baby) and make me feel like I'm a terrible person. I already feel horrible enough most of the time, without being reminded. I came on here because I'm lonely & hoped for some reassurance & I'm just being slated. I give up

[Jayne266]

My DS suffered bad constipation and my HV said to introduce 2oz of water a day and I also switched to colic and constipation milk.

If you are giving the solids give the bottle first and then the food (give about 30 mins at least)

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Guidelines are not written in 'baby books' - they're based on population-based research and released by international bodies such as the World Health Orgsnisation and UNICEF, then disseminated via national bodies like the NHS. Hopefully, my baby is 100% like most other babies, physiologically speaking, therefore I'm going to follow the evidence that indicates what is physiologically best for the majority of babies. I don't understand why people ignore this advice in the strange belief that their baby's personality and behaviour is reflective of biological maturity.

Encouraging/supporting another mother to wean early when yours had one of the rare instances where early weaning is occasionally suggested is not healthy

[mummy2lola]

I see. I didn't know people even did that. My dd sleeps 11 hours, so thankfully things are settled at mo xx

[SpottyTeacakes]

I did say further up that it was different if they weren't thriving on milk. Your post said 'all this bollocks about waiting until six months' we're talking about people doing it simply because they're in a rush to push their baby to the next stage or because they're big/hungry/waking at night etc. fwiw I had to wean my daughter early because she wasn't putting ok weight and point blank refused to drink her milk

[mummy2lola]

It's a huge shame that mothers on here feel the need to criticise each others choices and ways of doing things without knowing the full picture- simply jumping to conclusions and making people feel useless, and like they're being bad patents. I've personally been advised by health professionals to wean early due to severe reflux in my dd... This has worked wonders & helped greatly with the constipation caused by her prescription milk. If anybody feels the need to criticise my doings further, feel free- guidelines and everything written in baby books is general, and babies are all different- you can't seriously tell me that your babies are 100% as described in baby books??!! If they are, then you must be perfectly abnormal

[Flisspaps]

KLou the plural of anecdote is not data. Just because you and your DB are OK, doesn't mean it's ok to disregard the guidelines.

[SpottyTeacakes]

No, it's fact not opinion. I just don't want someone searching through old threads, seeing this, and thinking it's ok to wean so early just because their baby is having a hungry few weeks.

[KLou111]

Believe me, all I did was sit on the internet reading up on it, speaking to friends etc.

You need to understand that even though SOME kids get problematic, not ALL kids get problems.
The same way SOME babies die from being put in a room on their own, not ALL babies.

You need to respect a mothers decision is her perogative, guidelines are not LAW!!

This woman was asking what we had done and we told her, she didn't ask for a lecture and not did I.

Just becaude you have your own opinion, it does not mean that every child is bound by that.

[SpottyTeacakes]

Why don't you read some research before you start spouting rubbish. Babies digestive systems ARE NOT READY at such a ridiculously young age fgs

[KLou111]

Well, I suppose it was will be solids at 9 months one day, and they'll be something else that feeding them before will cause, and then all those that fed solids at 6 months will panic etc etc.
My brother was fed solids at 6 weeks (now 42) me at 2 months (33) and neither of us have any problems.
Obviously there will always be something linked to something linked to something else. All I went off was my what I thought was best, backed by my hv.
I have a friend who's baby was fed solids at 6 months, she is 1 week younger than my son, and she must be at the doctors at least once a month with all sorts of issues. I suppose sometimes (not all the time as research is there and some people stick to it like glue) you just have to take control for yourself.

[ElphabaTheGreen]

That HV should be struck off, if that's what he/she really said. I'm sure he is happy and healthy at 18 months. Hope he's still that way in his 30s and 40s and not incapacitated by gut problems related to ridiculously early introduction of solids. I'm with Spotty - hearing of a baby weaned at 13 weeks, when advice to wait until 6 months has been around for over ten years, is just upsetting.

[Flisspaps]

Your HV was talking out of her hat.

DS was 98th centile or thereabouts at birth - 11lb 7oz and a 40.5cm head circumference - straight into 3 month old clothes, and needed nothing but BM until about 24 weeks.

But still, zombie thread resurrected by someone who hasn't any regard for weaning research

[KLou111]

Bunbaker, I phoned the hv and she told me to give him something more substantial if i felt the need as he was already drinking double the amount. He has always been 98th cent for height, 91st for weight, so he needed to eat, he was starving. as soon as he did, he was so much happier, and still had double the milk.

He has never been sick, bar a cold for teeth, and is happy and healthy.

A mother always wants the best for her child, and I was very nervous about giving solids, but for us it was the best thing we did.

[ilovepowerhoop]

this is a thread from last July so the OP's child will be well into weaning by now (and nearly 1 year old!)

[Bunbaker]

"DS was drinking double the recommended hungry baby milk, so I had to start rice."

So you just give them more milk then, not solids. The guidelines are there for a reason. I have IBS and I'm sure it was because way back in the old days I was put on solids way before I was ready.

[SpottyTeacakes]

Babies' guts form properly, to allow solid food, between four and six months. Each baby is different but it's NEVER before four months and usually before six hence the guidelines. This thread is making me angry. Ds is twelve weeks and the thought of him having solids is just ridiculous.

[KLou111]

*of!

[KLou111]

Oh, and I started at 13 weeks with a spoon on rice

[KLou111]

It might be worth buying a book? There's an annabel karmel one I think and a ahem....gina ford one. Personally I used the...ahem...gina ford one as I didn't have a clue what I was doing, all I knew I had a very hungry baby. I gave up breast feeding at 11 weeks due to tongue tie, which was cut at 3 weeks, but never sucked properly.
DS was drinking double the recommended hungry baby milk, so I had to start rice.
There were lots of nice purees in there, then next stage foods.

I know I'll get murdered for mentioning her name, but this was a book for the food, not the routine stuff

Now have a happy healthy 18 month old who loves his food!

[ElphabaTheGreen]

And baby juice? I wouldn't even give my nine month old baby juice. Juice will be a 'sometimes drink' only when he's old enough to discover there are things to drink other than water and milk. Of course she 'loves it' - it's bloody sweet! Why give a baby a sweet tooth before they've even got teeth?!

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Solids at 3.5 months? mummy2lola is your baby really ready (i.e. independent or minimally supported sitting balance, and able to accurately see, grab and direct food straight into her own mouth) or are you just really keen to push her onto the next phase? I know it's exciting to progress your child, but the evidence is very convincing that early introduction of solids (i.e. before six months but especially before four months) is strongly linked to allergies, gut problems such as Crohn's, coeliac disease IBS, obesity and diabetes in much later life. Babies or young children may be 'fine' now, but why risk giving your child a really unpleasant middle- to late- adulthood? I just don't understand...

OP - current advice is that you give a full milk feed one hour before solids until well after six months. Especially at the age of four months when they really need additional calories due to a big growth spurt, you shouldn't be cutting any milk feeds at all, and should actually really be increasing them right up to six months.

[MoppingMummy]

'All this bollocks about wait until 6 months...' I'm sure you think your own personal experience makes you much more of an expert than those who have been researching weaning for yrs .

Weaning at 6 months involves introducing normal, home cooked food to baby (not jars or packets of food) - far easier than starting early on unnecessary purees I can assure you.