Weaning at four months

[s86h]

Hi All,

I'm quite shocked at the judgemental reactions on here from, what I assume, are unqualified people simply tearing others apart on 'early' weaning.

What I'm looking for on here are some ACTUAL experiences, not advice, not opinions - actual experience from mums who, for whatever reason, decided it was time to try introducing solids (meaning baby rice, purée etc) before 6 months.

In my case, I need to return to work 2 days a week (financially necessary) and my 4 month (18 week) old DS won't take a bottle under any circumstances (we've tried literally everything and persevered for weeks) - neither breast milk nor formula and so it's impossible to feed him the amount he needs now during the hours my MIL has him.

We can feed with a cup, but he just doesn't get enough this way at the moment. We've now tried complimenting this by thickening the milk with baby rice so he can be spoon fed and he loves it. He's still getting his breast milk morning and evening as usual.
This is now my last resort, and wanted to reach out, but after seeing the responses I'm gobsmacked at how rude and unhelpful many (not all) of the responses are (and with shocking lack of evidence/ability to even spell at times!).

It seems people are quoting all sorts of negative 'side effects', issues, should/should nots based on 'science'.

Problem is, I can't find any empirically sound studies to support this.
The WHO based their recommendation of 6 months from two (rather shaky) studies, the main one being based on the comparison between EBF and early weaning (mostly in developing countries with poor sanitation). 1% of the population in the UK still BF at 6 months, so it's not even a comparison!!!!!

This article seems to assess most of the literature out there and questions much of the current guidelines, calling for more research (though it's not terribly recent):

eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/24133/530B9A5C-5982-44F8-829C-91F7226EDEED.pdf

I'm genuinely curious to learn if there ARE studies and science that I'm maybe missing, but after HOURS of trawling through various bodies of research, I thought I'd ask here/get some context.

Your poor mind!

Well I will answer as I feel sorry for your blown mind: She was screaming bloody murder for what seemed like a soother (but didnt have anything on me) I panicked because we were trying to purchase a car. One of those moments where you need to sign documents then baby starts screaming I had my scone in one hand and just without thinking gave her some.of the jam..well it worked..she stopped crying immediately. In fact, as we started weaning her (not properly as it was only bread here and there (pitta, flat bread) her crying definitely improved
I always think she was just a baby thag was fed up of milk.
She eats all sorts now..no issues whatsoever. So really do not care about the pinky-finger-worth smear of jam she had at 3 n 3/4 months.

@Macbeth8 isn't it funny how different they all are? It puts paid to this concept of 'one size fits all' and at 6 months all babies are ready, and none of them were before this point!
I mean, if he's anything like his parents this kiddo will defo have a sweet tooth - since breastfeeding I can't stop craving bloody biscuits 🤣

@Babyboomtastic yes! It's so confusing - I also saw the studies that suggest introducing certain foods REDUCES the chance of problems later.
I'm genuinely at a point where I feel that (like you) you have to gauge for yourself when they're 'ready' and proceed with caution.

I do plan to be the boob machine for the foreseeable 🐮, it's more just introducing thickened milk for the 14ish hrs a week he's with my MIL so she can spoon feed (along with as much cup milk as poss), thanks for sharing 🙏🏻

I did it with child who had reflux. Only smooth pureed food, no meat etc until after 6 months. Just small amounts after milk feed (to help keep milk down). All worked fine for us. DC is now 13, no issues with food and eats considerably better than younger DC who was weaned later.

In many other countries weaning guidance is 4 months.

I had severe reflux as a child and was given baby rice from 3 weeks on the advice of the Health Visitor!

Mine were both weaned at 4 months in 2002 and 2004. I started on veg/fruit purées. No issues at all. My youngest had eczema but so do my sister and I. No food allergies though.

@basilmint thanks for this - how much did you start with per feed roughly?

Two of mine are teenagers, and the advice to wean has been 6 months for at least 20 years to my knowledge. In case you think I’m popping up with snark, I’m not in any way. I was certainly advised no earlier 6 months for DCs of 16 and 14 and BLW was all the rage, purées very much not the thing. So we went with that.

Back to relevant experience, the youngest child had very severe reflux. Think multiple hospitalisations and talk of artificial feeding due to complete lack of weight gain and lack of nutrients. With that baby the hospital doctors were all about weaning ASAP in that it was better than a feeding tube. The baby however utterly disagreed with their carefully constructed feeding guidance. I’d never spoon fed a baby before as the older ones did blw as all the rage, above, but this baby would not allow me to put a spoon in regardless. Trying to feed solids just resulted in me smearing it all over their face and them rubbing their hands and arms all over their face and head and crying endlessly. It was messy and none went in. We were advised to leave it a week, same happened. Then we tried special dummy spoons that we could load with mush and put it in like a dummy and the sucking would get the food out. It might have worked only the food was so thin as to fit through the teat it made no difference to the actual problem of not keeping food down. They gave us things like syringes to squirt it in so they child didn’t have to actively suck but it was spit back out. So, I actually ended up with a baby I was desperately trying to feed but could not - a little like yours with the bottle.

We tried the spoon type weaning again every week on the advice of the doctors, keep trying but don’t push it. And basically breastfed every hour of the night and day as much as is possible to get the weight up. In the end the stubborn baby never did accept being fed with a spoon and the only way to get them to eat was to let them feed themselves and ironically they started doing that at around six months. It was like the dictionary definition of BLW. The only difference was my older ones were slow to start and messed with their food. But the youngest wolfed it down and got much fatter nearly overnight. The endless breastfeeding didn’t stop. I’ll never know if it was the maturity of growing out of reflux that did it or the food. But be aware it’s possible for babies to refuse early weaning in the same way they refuse the bottle or pretty much anything else they don’t like.

The more recent research shows that weaning BY six months is preferable in terms of not developing allergies but they've got a battle on their hands because of the WHO guidance about six months of EBF, which that contradicts! But WHO covers the whole world and it's safer for a baby in a developing country to have just breastmilk (assuming the Mum can make enough) than potentially contaminated food or formula milk.

At the time I waited slightly obsessively until six months, whereas friends with babies in other European countries started earlier!

Definitely by six months breastmilk (especially) alone doesn't provide all the nutrients they need - iron reserves are running lower, they already need a vit D supplement if EBF.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6567868/

www.food.gov.uk/research/food-allergy-and-intolerance-research/eat-study-early-introduction-of-allergenic-foods-to-induce-tolerance

www.kcl.ac.uk/archive/news/kings/newsrecords/2016/03%20march/giving-allergenic-foods-to-infants-from-3-months-may-prevent-allergies