?change in weaning guidelines

[jandmmum]

I was at my local bf group today and the lady that works at the children's centre told me that the guidelines for weaning have been changed back to 4 months again. When I questioned her on this (thought she might have got it from the recent media thing that was largely retracted) she said they were told at her last LLL training that recent studies have shown that bm alone doesn't provide all the nutrients required at 6 months. My understanding is that it actually provides all that is needed or the first year but you need to introduce tastes and textures from 6 months because they are more open to trying at that age whilst may refuse by age of one - awkward toddlerdom and all that. I've done a Google and pubmed search and can't find anything that backs up what she is saying. Anyone know? Is she talking bollocks? She did say she was told at La Leche training.

She is talking rubbish - there is absolutely no way she will have been told this by anyone qualified. She needs to get herself sorted with decent info.

Thanks Tiktok. Do you know of any papers showing that bm has all the necessary nutrients (I know it makes sense that it would but would like to show her more scientific proof). Just another dose of misinformation to stress and confuse us mums.

this is quite interesting

I think she has her wires crossed - is she saying LLL told her this - I highly doubt that!

what LLL training was it, do you know? there is no way they would say this, i am sure of it!

Complementary feeding

Around the age of six months, an infant's need for energy and nutrients starts to exceed what is provided by breast milk and complementary foods are necessary to meet those needs. At about six months of age, an infant is also developmentally ready for other foods. If complementary foods are not introduced when a child has reached six months, or if they are given inappropriately, an infant's growth may falter. Guiding principles for appropriate complementary feeding are:

continue frequent, on demand breastfeeding until two years old or beyond;
practise responsive feeding (e.g. feed infants directly and assist older children. Feed slowly and patiently, encourage them to eat but do not force them, talk to the child and maintain eye contact);
practise good hygiene and proper food handling;
start at six months with small amounts of foods and increase gradually as the child gets older;
gradually increase food consistency and variety;
increase the number of times that the child is fed, 2-3 meals per day for infants 6-8 months of age, and 3-4 meals per day for infants 9-23 months of age, with 1-2 additional snacks as required;
feed a variety of nutrient rich foods;
use fortified complementary foods or vitamin-mineral supplements, as needed; and
increase fluid intake during illness, including more breastfeeding, and offer soft, favourite foods.

Taken from WHO website - blows out the food is fun before one but still says should start around 6 months

www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs342/en/
www.who.int/nutrition/topics/complementary_feeding/en/index.html

I think the current case of the 11 month old in France proves that breastmilk is not enough on its own up to one year. Although I expect the mum was highly deficient in her diet too in that case.

Last year, the British Medical Jounal published a paper which was a review of all the latest evidence on weaning. It appeared to say that the current guidelines of weaning at six months should be reviewed. Not once did the paper advocate change of guidelines to 4 months. Every child develops at different pace and you should take cues from your own child. Vitamin D in breastfeed is depleted in about 6 months, so complementary weaning to ensure complete nutrition intake for child would be reasonable and right.

Oh that dratted article, and the media coverage, did sooo much harm.

Privet - I think there's a bit more to that story than just "breastmilk isn't enough". Sounds like the mother was malnourished and vitamin deficient, and the child was chronically ill and had no medical treatment. Can't really draw conclusions from that to a normal situation.

Wasn't that bmj paper more about allergies than nutrition? I did say I thought there had been some.controversy recently as to when was best to introduce gluten to which she replied "ooh don't confuse me"! I go to this group mostly for the social side but also as the staff don't stay around for the whole meeting and there isn't always a peer supporter there as a mum who has bf 2 through a number of difficulties and is fairly well read thanks to mn (with people linking lots of articles ) I feel I can provide some peer support and was maybe thinking of doing the training. I didn't want to get into am argument with her without being sure of the facts but was concerned that she's going to tell new mums they should now.be.weaning at 4 moms because their bm is not enough after that.
I agree with RitaMorgan about the 11 month old. She was denied medical treatment when she was ill and as her mother worked was she given all she demanded? There are many blw babies that don't really start eating any quantity of food until around 10 month mark and you don't hear reports of them being grossly underweight or obviously malnourished.

I have never seen any evidence to support the "food before one is just for fun" theory. There is however plenty of evidence that food should be started around six months (including WHO website).

i don't know about evidence but we followed the whole food is fun until they're one thing and got on really well with it.

my ds is a total chunky monkey and was ebf to 6 months. we introduced all foods pretty quickly after that, beef, wheat, gluten, eggs etc via blw. i was on a blw thread in the weaning section which really helped. its just a lovely way of doing it as the have such fun with it at first and then around ten months they really get the picture and start properly chowing down. i did have to feed him during the night for a bit longer than most though. but tbh he is such a gorgeous monkey i didn't mind . he is now a happy toddler that eats all sorts with not a food issue in sight. love it.

The WHO recommends that solids are started at around 6 months and should form approximately 50% of a child's nutrition between 6 and 12 months. I always understood that that's where the 'food's for fun' comes from - it's not till after the first year that solids are advised to be more important than breastmilk.

There was a recent piece of research looking at the age at which babies were first able to pick up & eat finger food (here). The authors concluded 'Baby-led weaning is probably feasible for a majority of infants, but could lead to nutritional problems for infants who are relatively developmentally delayed.'

There's a difference between starting to offer solids and babies actually starting to eat them at 6 months.

Do remember as well that the WHO recommends breastmilk as 100% of a child's nutrition up until 6 months, so the idea is to gradually transition from 100% bm at 6 months and 50% bm/solids at 12 months.

jandmmum - that lady has definitely got her wires crossed. The recent media coverage did highlight that 6 months is the average age that babies are ready and in need of weaning and some babies are ready a little earlier. But the guidelines definitely aren't changing because when the guidance was that you could wean from 4 months, some people assumed that was an average and weaned before 4 months, which is a bad idea.

AFAIK NHS Guidance is that Vitamin D should be supplemented in all children from 6 months and if you didn't supplement vitamin D during pregnancy, the baby should have a vitamin D supplement from 1 month old. Vitamin D is not got from diet.