Really want to hold off solids till 6 months

[dinny]

if I can. but ds (4 months) is VERY interested in food/grabbing our food. want to excl bf him and start solids at 6 months. how do I make sure he's getting enough to eat? he's 18 weeks, 19 lbs and feeds every 2-3 hours day and night (we're all v happy thus far too). thanks for any advice.

[hotmama]

It's been mentioned before but a book I am finding REALLY helpful is "What Should I Feed my Baby - the complete nutrition guide from birth to two years" by Suzannah Oliver. Covers scientific stuff, menus and recipes etc. Given to me as a Xmas pressie from my SIL - clever girl!

[Levanna]

I have started giving DD2 a couple of spoons of food at 20 weeks. (About a teaspoon twice a day now).
With DD1 I felt so confused by advice versus the signals she was giving me, I ended up feeling extremely guilty whatever I did. With DD2 I decided from the start that I would take my cue from her, it has made for one contented baby (and mum!). She enjoys socialising very, very much, so giving her just that little bit of food has made her very happy....she loves joining in meal times, and now knows what all the fuss is about! For weeks and weeks she has imitated us eating - raising her hands to mouth, as if placing food there, then chewing her tongue (in place of food)and swallowing (not her tongue, TG!). Babies are individuals and to bunch them all into one set of recommendations (or rules seems more accurate) strikes me as totally ridiculous. Guidelines should be just that, we tend to pick and choose guidelines regarding most other aspects of life so I really feel our babies should be presented with the same choices, as individuals and that we as mums are not made to feel guilty or pressurised regarding what we (we are the parents after all) feel is right.

[WellieMum]

Zebra, For a confused person you sound amazingly together!

Some days it seems to me that parenthood means being in a permanent state of worry about doing the right thing. I think it's so important not to beat ourselves up into a frenzy of guilt about our decisions. (That's what health visitors and clinic nurses are for )

My take on weaning is that there's reasonable evidence that holding off weaning til 6 months has advantages for baby. But it's very much population based advice, as opposed to individual advice, so an individual baby might be better off weaning slightly before or slightly after the 6 month landmark.

That's where parental judgement comes in - and after all we know our babies better than anyone else.

I think guidelines are great, but not if applied rigidly in an if-you-do-it-differently-you-are-a-BAD-MOTHER sort of way. There just can't be 1 single right way to wean a baby.

Hmm, ranting again.....

[highlander]

hotmama, at last - someone with a scientific explanation as to why we wait!

I started to give DS a few teaspoons of rice a couple of weeks ago; it made no difference to how he sleeps (he's only up for 1 or 2 feeds anyway) or how often he feeds during the day. Like Dinny, I think I'm going to wait until 24 weeks.

[dinny]

see you in Therapy at 1pm then.

[dinny]

yes, see you there at 1pm? or shall we meet in that coffee place first maybe....? forgotten its name...

[dinny]

Just had ds weighed today, he is 18lb (19 weeks) and HV said she was surprised he hadn't had solids yet as he is a big boy. But he is happy (always has fed at night so night waking doesn't bother me). I am doing the right thing by holding off, aren't I? He is so happy and lively...

[hotmama]

There seems such pressure to bring babies on to the next stage rather than enjoying where they are. My understanding is that babies digestive systems are too immature and don't produce amylase the enzyme that breaks down starch until at least 4 months of age - hence the 4 month guideline.

In the mother & baby group I go to we were told that formula fed babies may need to be weaned from 16 weeks - but not necessarily. As breastmilk changes in its composition then bf babes won't need to be weaned until 6 months but that food will need to be introduced from then as iron stores will be getting depleted.

Although my dd is 15 weeks and 15lbs often leaves some of her feeds and sleeps through the night - I have thought about weaning her as this seems to be the trend - most of the mums I know have weaned from 16 weeks if not slightly earlier.

However, advised by my hv that can wean from 16 weeks but if you can hang fire the nearer to 26 weeks the better and if the babe is putting on weight even if it slows, is sleeping and doesn't seem desperate to start scoffing then chill out and enjoy unsplattered wallpaper - it will soon come around!

[KathH]

sorry - when i took him to get weighed a fortnight ago there was a mum with a baby who's 2 weeks younger then him so was about 11 weeks old being given advice on what foods to try first and being told that when they start chewing on their fists its one of the first signs - according to this theory i should have started my baby on rice at about 8 weeks old.

[KathH]

thought i might as well add my piece. with my 3rd child - 6 in a fortnight - i took him to see gp when he was exactly 12 wks as he had dropped off his centile and i could not get him to take any milk. she told me to start him on baby rice. it now turns out he had silent reflux - starting the rice did not help in fact when i look back i think i was forcefeeding him it . it did not stop his weight dropping of the centile and he got very constipated. it wasn't until he was about 7 or 8 months that he would eat it "properly". my 15 1/2 week old will not even be looking at baby rice until he's at least 21!

[Pidge]

SamN - have just seen your post (don't tend to be around at the weekend) - quinoa seems unpopular with lots of babies, maybe I was lucky that my dd took to it. I didn't try it till 7 months, and always sweetened it with banana / apricot / prune. I found the Suzanne Olivier book fab. Sorry folks ... slight quinoa ramble there!

Very interesting posts - I felt under huge pressure to wean dd before 6 months (guidelines then were 4-6 months), but really glad I held out. Plan to do the same for next baby due in March, and won't feel guilty this time round.

[zebra]

Welliemum, I don't know what I'm saying. Often I feel very inadequate & guilty for not getting to 6 months (mind, not as inadequate as I do when I see how keen my babies are on solids once they start, I worry they don't get enough milk.) The rest of the time I'm just plain confused.

[dinny]

some really useful posts here. ds so interested in family meal times, but then he's interested in everything. just been giving him spoon to play with etc. think the comment that cavepeople would have waited for signs babies were ready for solids (sitting up/no gag relex) is excellent. also love the thought of just giving ds tastes of "normal" food instead of blooming baby rice. thanks, everyone

[hercules]

Blimey

[biglips]

one of the mumsnetter's baba when was 11 weeks old he started on the solids coz he was permantly hungry.

[busyalexsmummy]

Alex was ready at 8 weeks for solids, he hardly had any gagging reflex and was staring at us eating our food, he had the odd bit of fruit/veg puree every now and then till 4 months when he couldnt wait to get tucking in to rusks/biscuits/anything else that tasted nice! We have no allergies in our family, if we had, i wouldnt of done it so early, he also started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks. he is now 10 months and at the average centile for weight/height and still loves his food!

[biglips]

well she is a hungry baba though (she is now 15 weeks old) so not long to go now

[hercules]

It's nothing to do with appetite at that age. Solids are really not recommended at all before 4 months.

[biglips]

my baba is 3 months and im thinking of giving her abit of Rusk to fill her up just a little bit more as she is on white sma aswell and she got a big appetite.

[hercules]

my hv was very shocked to hear that at 5 1/2 months dd had had no solids. She had never heard of the WHO or gov recommendations .

I was told by a bf counsellor to think of it in terms of when the baby would naturally be ready ie sitting up, no choking reflex with the tongue etc. She said that cave people wouldnt have faffed around with purees!

DD was a large baby and has considerably dropped down the centiles. Idont get her weighed as I know it makes the hvs concerned but she is simply petite. She hardly sleeps and has stacks of energy plus eats well.

[Prufrock]

I waited until ds was6 months (well apart from one taste of babyrice at 23 weeks when I thought he was getting desperate - he hated it so I waited) It was good that we had only a week or so of pureed food to get him used to the concept, then he refused purees and started eating just our food mashed up, or finger food. There was a link recentlyto research on baby led weaning - AFAICR they just put lots of bits of food in front of a baby and let them help themselves when they were ready - for those first few weeks solids are simply a learning and tasting experience rather than a milk substitute so there isn't really any pressure to get a certain amount of food into your child.

I do disagree with your comment about bf on demand day and night if you want to do 6 months of exclusive bf though cardigan. DS was on scheduled breast feeds from day 1, and stuck to them apart from a few growth spurts, none of which lasted longer than 1 week and only necessitated one extra bf a night.

[WellieMum]

Wow, lots to think about here.

Zebra, I'm really interested in your point about weaning being very contrived. What you're describing is (if I've got the right end of the stick) a much more gradual, baby-led process. I like that idea a lot.

I agree about the calorie content thing, though surely most people would know that the point isn't about calorie content as such, rather overall nutritional value. I think the WHO guidelines make the point explicitly somewhere about breast milk being nutritionally complete, so other foods would only have a displacing effect. At least that's true for young babies, but that mother of the 9 month old you mention sounds a bit extreme!

That kellymom site is really interesting, thanks SamN! I notice the list of cues for weaning suggests a fairly advanced level of co-ordination, eg sitting without support, pincer grasp, chewing, etc.

Thinking about it, it does make sense to me that if babies can eat a particular food by themselves (reach for it, chew it, swallow it), then they're probably developmentally ready for it (as opposed to having the food pureed and then spooned in by anxious mum reading a timetable from a book). Sort of what Cardigan is suggesting too, I think.

It also seems to make sense that if they are helping themselves, they'll only be taking in tiny amounts at first, and maybe that would give the gut time to adapt and mature. Don't know how you'd prove that though.

OK, going to stop blathering now.....

[zebra]

Welliemum...this is what I'm tending to think, which may be rubbish...
Imagine that we didn't spoonfeed babies, didn't care what they ate, how much mess they made. We also let them grab and try to eat anything they liked. Most babies (full-term at birth) would start to get moderately successful at grabbing things (anything including non-food items) & shoving them in their mouths at around 5 months (20-24). Most would just mouth something & spit it out (more like choke on it then drool it out) to start. Which is fine... the grabbing & mouthing is, to my mind, the start of them learning how to eat. Mouthing things is curiousity, but it also is how they start to learn how to eat & what to eat.

But... it's like walking or talking... some babies are much quicker at it than others. It may takes months or it make take days.

But instead, the way we do it is so contrived; we puree things down to make them easier to swallow, put them into highchairs & beam approval if they eat loads. Or get frustrated if they don't swallow anything...We don't want to "waste our time" trying if they aren't keen, but we don't want to "push them" if they aren't ready; the whole thing is artificial. On top of that, we get anxious about them moving to the next developmental stage, or comparing with other babies...

With all of mine I meant to wait until 6 months but something undermined me each time. Whether I'm pathetic or being sensible I really don't know. Current baby it was when he cut teeth at 20 weeks & rather than chew on my fingers I thought an apple core might be more suitable... But I'm glad I held off mostly -- just occasional (like 1-2x/week) tastes until he was 6 months... Except when he was about 22 weeks I gave him a pizza cruist one night & BOY was he keen. As soon as we hit 6 months we leapt in to 3 meals/day pretty fast...and like his sister before him he'd rather 'eat' than breastfeed now so he's not getting as much milk as I'd like, that's one reason why I am glad I mostly held off until 6 months.

Something else upsetting me. There are typical early baby foods which do have more calories than breastmilk per 100g... starting to be dangerous myths otherwise. On a breastfeeding list I read recently a woman saying that her 9 month old was falling off the bottom percentiles but she didn't want to start solids because they all have too few calories compared to breastmilk, thankfully the list members tactfully suggested maybe she should give solids a try. Baby Rice, avocado, any vegetable oil (including olive), live full-fat or Greek yogurt, porridge, those are ones that come to mind that are more calorie-dense than breastmilk. I think banana is nearly the same, too.