HV says start weaning, I say wait....confused now

[NineUnlikelyTales]

Hello

I'd appreciate your perspectives on this.

DS will be 5 months next week. He is exclusively fed EBM. This is important to me as DH has asthma and there are quite a few allergies in his family. I felt quite strongly that we should hold off weaning onto solids until the recommended 26 weeks, just in case it triggered any food allergies.

I took DS to be weighed etc today for the first time since he was 6 weeks old. He started life on the 75th centile for weight (but then he was 3 weeks late...), went up to 91st because he was the hungriest baby ever. Now he is on 50th for weight and height, which is fine.

HV asked about sleeping. I said that since he had a chest infection at Christmas, he had gone from waking once or twice a night to waking every couple of hours. She said I should start weaning him. I explained about wanting to wait because of the allergies, etc but she said that it didn't count from 20 weeks, and if you wait until 26 weeks they associate the pain of teething with the sensation of having a spoon in their mouth and will refuse to eat. Also it is important to start solids before 26 weeks with a BF baby because there is not enough iron.

My heart tells me that this is a load of gubbins, but obviously the 2 hour sleep thing is a bit wearing and I would be very glad if he slept better if I started him on solids.

Any views? BTW DS is showing no other signs of readiness for weaning except that he is interested in people eating. And people washing up, and people doing pretty much everything really.

Thanks
Nine

I only saw mine once too. She paid a visit when dd was about a week old and freaked because dd was wearing a Moltex unbleached nappy - she assumed it was brown because I hadn't changed my newborn for several days (rolls eyes).

india - you are doing the right thing waiting 6 months despite living in a country that doesn't promote it.

babies are interested in EVERYTHING we do, mine used to stare at me when i hoovered and wanted to hold the hoover stick, but that didn't mean he wanted to learn how to hoover (i wish he had, i bloody hate hoovering !!)

my boy just turned 6mths. He is EBF, huge (9-12mth clothes) and sleeps all night. Have just started (yesterday) with tiny bits of food but he is so not interested. go with your own feeling def.

OK so I will definitely stick with my instincts and hold off on the weaning for another month or so.

The funny thing is, I don't usually bother going to see the HVs because so far the only answer to my questions has been "Ask your GP" (in which case I might as well cut out the middle man and go straight to GP). I only went yesterday out of a sort of idle curiosity to see how much DS weighs.

Luckily she's not my usual HV, who is at least a kind person and very supportive in the early days, even if not very informative. I just can't see the point of them, really. It would probably be cheaper to issue every parent with a free set of scales and a direct hotline to NHS Direct!

I have probably got myself on some sort of blacklist with this one, having casually mentioned that I am vegetarian...

Thanks again, it's good to know that my own feelings were backed up by facts and common sense!

Nine