Reduce bf in 9 mo?

[QueenNeurosis]

Would really appreciate any advice/experience. Dd is nearly nine months. We?re doing a BLW/occasional spoon-feed if it?s something like yogurt combo and it?s going really well. When I?m at work she?s happy to bf morning and night but now I?m on holiday and at weekends she likes 2 or 3 day feeds. She also wakes at least once in the night to feed too regardless of how she?s eaten during the day. Eight month check last week and she?s gaining weight really well? no concerns at all other than the health visitor saying that her night feeds are a behaviour issue rather than a genuine need to feed. She also said I need to be careful as some babies prefer breast milk to food and if don?t push food over milk I may delay speech development etc. I?d really like to keep on following my dd?s lead but is my health visitor right? And we hadn?t been too bothered by her weaning or night feeding until the health visitor?s suggestions.

Please excuse typos/formatting. Laptop on blink!

She?s on 3 family meals a day, btw.

Very similar situation here queen, 9 mo DS, blw, bf as and when in the day and at least once in the night! As far as I was aware, for this first year, the milk is more important than the food. Also, I've never heard of too much bf delaying speech development .

I'm just carrying on as we are for now. when the night wakings become an issue, then we'll address it. I think you're right to follow your dd's lead fwiw.

i'm pretty sure that speech development has more to do with responding to your baby's utterances than how much milk they have rather than food.

what a bizarre thing to say! imo this is another crazy HV spouting shite. (in my amateur no real idea opinion, you understand)

(hi crikey )

Nicely put rubybuckle ! (Hi back )

This is actually quite concerning - it's another example of a HV speaking way beyond her remit and without any sound knowledge of normal bf and normal infant development.

Bf is always more than just the nutrition of the milk, and it is normal for babies of this age (and older, too) to wake in the night for the comfort, reassurance and contact which they get from a breastfeed. It is possible she does not 'need' the milk to grow (though at 8 mths no one could be sure about this) but since when did a baby's needs only include food and drink?

The bit about speech development is utter rubbish and she deserves to be pulled up on that and challenged for her references - where has she read this? She is, I suspect, confusing breastfeeding with bottle feeding, where there may be concerns about a much older baby swigging on a bottle all day with the teat permanently in his/her mouth, or with the all day dummy, both of which can delay clear speech.

If you feel brave, how about challenging her to back up her stories??? Tell her they made you feel under-confident and rather anxious, and that can't be good for a health visitor to do, can it?

Thank you for your very reassuring replies, everyone. DH, DD and I were all feeling ok until that appointment. I'm feeling doubly awful now as we have been distracting dd and offering her juice this last week and it didn't feel right, to be honest.

Would it be really naive to presume that one night she'll just sleep through without any intervention from us? She's the only baby in my parenting group who doesn't yet sleep through (or so I am told!) and all the other mums as well as the hv in our parenting class advocate cc or gradually withdrawing and seem to apply that a baby won't wean or sleep through unless they're taught to. I'm the only one who is still bf - don't know if that makes a difference.

Thanks.

Tiktok - she said that bf could delay speech because it would fill the baby up and so she wouldn't be chewing the solids that help her to develop her speech. Thanks. (I'm a huge fan)

if she is doing ble she is getting plenty of chewing practice

2/3 bf a day for a 9mo is really normal, i'm sure!

1 night feed at that age is not a behaviour 'issue'. entirely normal and nice for mother and baby. if either you or she want to stop, then stop. i can't believe she had you distracting her with juice . mad.

well done you for thinking

(i have just night weaned DS but we were both entirely ready and it took one night. he still has a bf at 5am and that is more than ok with me! he is 10mo).

TikTok you are great - you have legendary status a bit like The Stig! I wonder who you are .

Re sleeping - I waited with DS1 until he was ready to do it himself and one night he did it when he was around 12 months. He is now 2.6 and has been a fantastic sleeper ever since he was ready to sleep through. SO I am with you on thinking that it will happen when the baby is ready.

Thanks Ruby. My poor dd. Juice indeed. Feel very silly now. Please could you talk me through how you night weaned for future ref...

She is the silly one! Crazy lady!

Nightweaned DS by cracking bedtime firstly. He had to fall asleep from completely awake (not drowsy) Bathed and relaxed but not milk drunk. He cried for 26 minutes with me going in reassuring him every few minutes - not according to some schedule, but according to my judgement. I went in quickly and firmly told him he was absolutely fine and he could have a good night sleep and he didn't need me everytime he woke up and I walked out again (this bit is very important as it told him I had faith that he would be able to do it). Looking back in behaviour terms, before, I was teaching him that the way to fall asleep is to be cuddled. I (and he) needed him to feel like the way we go to sleep is by snuggling up in my bed. He slept ten hours the second night after complaining loudly for three minutes. I went in twice during that time. I am talking to him more like you would talk to a toddler and I didn't think I would do it so early - but he was turning into a bit of a mess waking up so many times and I was too! He is happier during the day and it feels better for me to have at least six hours of sleep in a row! On the first night he woke up five times and I did the same thing. Just reassure him that he knew what to do and leave. He cried/fussed/shouted for about a minute on a few occasions and the worst was the 4am one which was on and off for about 45 minutes. He kept falling asleep and waking up again - I think he is getting hungry by that stage which is why I am happy to feed him at 5am. He settles easily and happily after that and sleeps till 7/8. A bloody miracle!

'his bed'

That's really useful to know - thanks Ruby and Sazlocks. Gut feeling says she's not ready but it's good to know that I haven't made a rod for my own back, got her into irreversible bad habits... all the other cliches I've been fed!

Will keep you posted!

No, def not a rod for your own back. Any habit can be broken and why change a nice habit even if its just a 'habit'. Anyway, its an entirely 'good' for both of you' habit (it annoys me that it is portrayed as a 'bad habit'), and when it stops being so for either one of you, you can stop . Good Luck!

That health visitor is out of order - my bf baby slept through at 9 months only, and did this by me making the room pitch black, up until then I fed him during the night.

I am sure I read some research about bf being better for speech development.

At my 8 month check my health visitor said - oh well some babies may not sleep through until a year or more, and your baby may still need to wake at night for a feed.

Queen, I am a woman of mystery :)

Seriously, I think your HV does need challenging, though I accept it can take some bravery to do so.

'Filling her up so she doesn't chew to get practice for speaking' - preposterous!! What is worse, though, is this has made you feel worried (even though you know, now, it's rubbish) and has undermined your confidence...and that is the opposite of what she should be doing.

How about this as a conversation:

'I've been a bit anxious since I last saw you...can I ask a bit more about what you said, in case I got the wrong end of the stick? You said that the two or three breastfeeds I'm giving X, and the night feed, are going to interfere with her speech...I've done a bit of reading about this, and I can't find anything that backs this up....is there something me and her dad can read to explain this a bit more?'

:)

Tiktok Could you tell me, please (if you are still on this thread ), how your comments might differ for a baby of 14 mths? DS is a very poor feeder when it comes to solids and has gone from 50th centile since birth to 2nd for length and weight. I don't know how nutritious bm is compared to solid food for a child of that age. He does have vitamin drops.
I stopped all night feeds at 11mths and he was fine about that.
The HV seems unconcerned btw. It's just everyone else telling me I should reduce the bf to make him more hungry. I think it'll just make him cry.

FWIW, the WHO guidelines on infant and young child feeding say babies should be breastfed 'frequently and on-demand' (their words) until at least 2 years old, and ideally beyond.

The NHS guidelines on feeding babies explicitly say that they are based on the WHO ones, although the NHS fights shy of recommeding bf up to 2 years, which I suspect is a cultural issue rather than a scientific one. Here.

9 months is actually a time when many babies are in the middle of a sleep regression which causes them to wake a lot more than they did before. There's a thread on the Sleep board asking when babies start sleeping through, and the answers varied from about 6 weeks to 3 years, so don't feel pressurised to do sleep training just because other people think you should.

Tabitha, not really my area of knowledge, but I would say it depends what you mean by 'nutritious'. Of course breastmilk is nutritious - it doesn't lose any of its nourishment just 'cos the baby is 14 mths. But if you are talking about calories, then it has fewer in it than, say, a liquidised Mars Bar :). Which you would not want to give him!

It seems (to me) daft to take away something nourishing, wholesome and convenient in order to make a lightweight toddler gain weight....but yes, it makes sense to encourage a wide range of solid foods at this age, as an addition to his milk, because breastmilk will not supply everything. Your HV could help with some idea for this, to tempt his appetite.

Thanks! It's all such a worry, isn't it, when they seem to just stop growing?