HV said to consider formula as a 'solid' wtf??!!

[suzym1984]

Hi

I thought I would post this here to see if anyone can help me make sense of what my HV said to me. When we were discussing weaning onto solid food she said that although I had done well to exclusivly breastfeed until now, that maybe in a few weeks I might want to introduce a formula feed and consider that a 'solid'.

Is thiss normal advice? I assumed I would continue breatsfeeding and then wean DS onto normal solid food (ie. not another type of milk!)

Thanks!

Sounds bonkers. There's absolutely no need to introduce formula.

In terms of its effect on the gut, formula is pretty much the same as solids (or so I understood). But there is absolutely no reason why you should introduce a formula feed unless you have a reason to want to.

It doesn't sound like proper normal advice to me but so many HVs seem to talk rubbish when it comes to bf. :( How old is your DS?

My DS is 15 months and no-one has ever suggested he be given formula (or cow's milk, for that matter). Except for cow's milk once to see if he liked it, the only milk he's ever had is bm.

What?! That sounds really odd. If you are happy continuing BF-ing then definitely perfectly possible to go straight to introducing usual weaning foods, whilst continuing to BF. In fact, you can skip formula completely if you want, if you BF until 12 months or so (obviously gradually reducing feeds as you increase solids) and then just go straight to cows' milk.

Totally not normal advice from the HV.

No, you don't need to. I expect she is thinking you must be exhausted by now and you should give yourself a break, and wanted to give you an idea of a gentle way to do that. Some people have strange ideas about breastfeeding!

You can absolutely continue breastfeeding alongside solids, for as long as you want! :) If he's 6 months and you want to make up cereal etc with milk, you can just use normal cow's milk (should be full fat until age 2 if possible).

Thats the weird thing....my ds is only 11 weeks old!

Mad as a sack of spiders

Maybe you could ask her to explain her advice and ask if it is line with current WHO recommendations regarding breastfeeding.

I wish I had asked her to explain, but I found myself nodding away and thinking to myself "what is she talking about?!"

She's probably just suggesting that once you have introduced solids you aren't exclusively breastfeeding anymore so there's no harm in using formula if you want to.

Absolutely no need to introduce formula, unless of course you want to. If the HV mentions it again, just smile and say something like "Oh that's interesting, I haven't heard of that before. Can you give me some information to read up the benefits of that please"? I strongly suspect though that the only people writing on the benefits of introducing formula for a bf baby are the formula companies themselves.

If you are thinking of weaning your local LLL usually do a talk on weaning, your NCT might run a weaning course and this site is very good as is this info on the NCT website.

11 weeks!?

She really needs to be questioned on this advice. WTF?

11 weeks?? Were you asking her if you could wean next week, and maybe she thought she would suggest formula instead of risking you weaning early?

Why do HVs assume such random shit, and not just ASK what you want to do?

Nutty as a fruitcake IME - weaning is AGES away yet.

I think Rita is right that she's suggesting that once you've started on solids that giving formula is less of a big deal (assuming you were hoping for her to have the health benefits of being EBF)

(I'd recommend BLW myself )

suzy how did the conversation start off with your HV? Were you thinking of weaning soon? If so Bertie may be right in that the HV just suggested trying formula if you were finding bfing difficult or overwhelming.