4 month old not gaining weight - told to introduce baby rice

[soapy2]

My BF DS is 17 weeks old and has just been weighed and hasn't put on any weight in 3 weeks. He is very long and has gone up the 75th centile line perfectly up until now and is otherwise bright, healthy (wet nappies, etc) and quite wriggly! I have always had to express in the mornings to give him extra in the evenings as he is so hungry at this time. He will take 7-9oz EBM plus extra from me at around 7pm but will then usually sleep all night. This week, though, he has started to wake at least once a night. The HV told me to introduce baby rice as he hasn't gained any weight. I'm not keen and would rather continue to breast feed alone for as long as possible. He usually feeds every 2.5 to 3 hours in the day. Should I go with the baby rice or is there something I can do to up my supply, also so that I can keep up with his demands in the evenings. It is getting difficult this week to be able to express enough because of the night feeds and therefore there isn't enough for him in the evening and so I have to feed him every half hour or so before he'll go to sleep. Formula??? I'm new to this message thing so sorry if this is too long and waffly and has all been said before!

My ds1 was b/f till 6 weeks then formula. He was born 9lb 1oz and on the 75th percentile. He stayed there happily until 12 weeks where he started to drop off the line. He never 'didn't' gain weight (bad English I know)but he never made it back up to the line. I weaned at 15 weeks (16 was the guidlines then) as he showed all the signs. I don't regeret weaning him then at all but I did want to tell you he didn't suddenly pile on loads of weight. He fell to the 25th line where he was still last time he was weighed -he's 3.9 now.

He's very slight now, tiny waist and long legs and also tall for his age. My body grew a big baby (I've since had a 9lb 15oz) but he wasn't meant to be a big person.

oh, having just read the last few posts I wasn't joining in the weaning deabte. I just wanted to say that
weaning doesn't = your lo popping back up to his line.

Tiktok is lots of things - expert, trained, experienced, sensible, right...

Not really 'vehement'.

Nobody is "trying to make mothers conform".

Plenty of people and organisations (tiktok, the Govt, WHO etc) are trying to make the information available to enable mothers to make an informed decision about the weaning of their baby.

I don't think mothers should be made to conform with anything! I think infant feeding is a suitable subject for public health policy, and that this includes informing healthcare professionals and mothers what the 'best' guidance is....I am keener that healthcare professionals enable mothers to do this, rather than mothers think of it as some sort of 'instruction' for them.

Anyone who thinks public health policy changes 'all the time' in this area reveals their lack of knowledge on this topic - for more than 20 years, UK guidance on weaning was '4-6 mths' (it was never 16 weeks - that's just stuff made up by HVs!) so there was always this window. In 2003 it changed to '6 mths', so it was not a huge change, nor the latest in a long list of changes.

It has been 6 mths internationally for a lot longer and we fell in with it rather later - some might say because of mat leave, I don't know.

No one policy can fit every individual baby, and babies' individual needs will vary. I have always said that. However, it is unlikely that any individual baby's needs will be for 'early' solids , but anyone with common sense would be guided by those individual needs rather than government guidance...and that goes for the babies who seem to want milk only at 8 mths as well as the babies who seem to want more at only 4 mths.

stripey.....sometimes I am a teensy bit vehement.....

Starlight the 2-day-old/banana argument is silly and undermining. We are making a serious point that sticking this rigidly and religiously to guidelines that change quite often and arise out of arbitrary numbers might not be seeing the whole picture. That guidelines are guidelines, and that therefore weaning before 6mo may be a flexible interpretation of guidelines rather than a terrible error - and it may be the best option, or at least a reasonable option, for some babies.

None of these studies you have all been mentioning has addressed the possibility that babies could vary a lot. Although yes in general early weaning may impair the immune system, for some babies it may not. Maybe a baby knows when s/he needs solid food and gives us those signals. Maybe.

A 2-day old does not want a banana and I'd hazard a guess that around 4mo is probably about the earliest that some babies show a strong interest in solid food.

Yes, some people wean far too early for stupid reaons like their MIL told them to. Whatever. Guidelines are there to guide us all. Not to force us all into behaving like automatons. It's this attitude that makes me really worry because it heaps guilt upon those who are really struggling and that's why I wade in on threads like this.

... but I see we are more in agreement than I realised before tiktok!

leopard, no we don't agree....you think guidelines 'change quite often and arise out of arbitrary numbers' and they do not.

I think that's tiktok being vehement!

Yes ok I stand corrected.

I didn't say we agreed completely! just more than I thought.

They've changed within the last few years and many times withion the last century - that's quite quick IMO compared to the history of babies.

leopard, so now we have you saying they have changed a lot within the last 100 years....well, as it happens you have touched on a specialist subject of mine (history of infant feeding) . Published, evidence-based guidelines are a recent phenomenon, but I expect you mean 'what mothers have been told to do over the past century by doctors', and this covers a whole load of utter rubbish, I grant you, and not just with regard to weaning.

I really think its disingenous of you to argue that I am somehow wrong by going back a century. Today's guidelines are based on current knowledge, not opinion or what someone's granny told them, or fashion.

Now, this is anecdotal, I realise but I have 3 boys, all very alike. I weaned ds1 and ds2 at 4 months, with baby rice to start with but left ds3 till 6 months. Ds3 is the only one who didn't get glue ear and they are otherwise so alike that I really feel it was the early weaning that triggered the glue ear in the older ones.

Gosh - a whole debate has started! Thanks for all the advice. My intuition tells me that he is not ready for weaning yet and it sounds like there are some very good reasons to hold off until 6 months so am going to do all I can to boost my milk supply - have been feeding every 2 hours today. I do feel that this could be a growth spurt and that he has grown in length so now he just needs to fill out a bit.

I think my favourite bit of advice out of all these postings is to eat more flapjacks. We're currently out of flapjacks but luckily the biscuit tin is full of Hobnobs. Hooray!

My babies were exclusively breastfed and at eight weeks I introduced polyribosylribitol phosphate (an artificial sweetener), fomaldehyde, aluminium phosphate or aluminium hydroxide, neomycin, streptomycin and polymyxin B and polysorbate 80, an emulsifier. They screamed a lot and didn't like it even though it was recommended by the government so I waited four weeks before I tried again. It still didn't agree with them and they started getting things like ear infections so I waited another four weeks and tried again. After that I gave up. I thought a bit of toast at five months couldn't do much more to their immune systems than all of that.

Think she's talking about vaccines starlight

Oh, now I geddit!

Personally, I never had a problem with vaccines as I felt the alternatives were worse (and there were no contraindications in my family) - but I recognise that that is a whole separate debate!

hello
yes, i am being annoying but it's kind of on thread because the argument is that early weaning can damage the immune system and cause allergies and ear infections. My point is (of course) is that all of the above are introduced when the immune system is still under construction and I would put it to you m'luds and ladies that they do far more damage than baby rice at four months.

I rest my case.

How, exactly? There's an entirely scientifically plausible mechanism for early weaning causing food allergies... There isn't any for saying that vaccination causes them - I'm not aware of a single piece of peer-reviewed research linking vaccines to food allergies. Vaccines may have all sorts of effects, but allergy is far more likely to be related to particles of food passing directly into a baby's bloodstream. Which is what happens when you give them food before their digestive system is ready for it.

but vaccines can also prevent an awful lot of damage, whereas early weaning cannot