Hunker - Four Month Weaning Question

[BabiesEverywhere]

Do you remember asking about early weaning a while back on here ?

Well, my HV came to weigh/visit DS (3.5 months old) and unpromped told me they say 20 weeks for weaning, else your child misses the boat ?!?

I asked about the boat, something to do with textures apparantly. I showed my surprise and explained that I weaned DD over 6 months and she has no issues. Asked what I started her on, my answer lumps of potato and carrot !!!

She mentioned the size of my baby (currently looking like 5/6 months old at 3.5 months od actual age) and to see how we get on. I hope him being big won't be an issue, it shouldn't be when I exclusively nursed his sister exclusively until 6 months to date (2.3 years) and that includes a week without solids at 18 months when she suffered from a tummy bug.

Surely a 'big' baby can't be harder to fill than a toddler. LOL, sad really I am a fairly confident nursing mother yet I do feel sad when I hear such undetermining gruff from the professionals and this lady is really lovely too.

Oh dear....HV needs to be asked (politely, if she is as you say, lovely!) where she has her info from?

www.breastfeeding.nhs.uk/en/docs/FINAL_QA.pdf is the current guidance, and she should be following this. Where she has '20 weeks' from, I have no idea, and maybe you can say to her 'I'm a bit confused...I have been doing my own reading on this, and I can't find anywhere where they say 20 weeks. Have I missed something, or is this a local thing, and if so, why does the local policy differ?'

There is no reason at all why big babies need weaning earlier - again, if she thinks that, she needs to justify it. The nutritional reason for '6 mths' is not really calories (ie 'filling' the baby) at least not for a bf baby who can easily take sufficient calories by bf more often, but iron - and it's not a 'deadline', just that in the 2nd half of the first year, the baby will start to need more iron and intro'ing solids about now does mean he will get the iron he needs when he needs it...gradually building up to more solids is fine, as long as the bf baby continues to bf often.

Can you feel brave enough to ask her where she got her info??

Oh and the boat thing is a load of rubbish - the pdf I linked to shows where this daft idea comes from.

I was a bit distracted whilst talking to her and I had already had the offical 'we don't approve of co-sleeping' talk. That was in response to is he sleeping through, and my response of 'well no he is a 3 month old breastfed baby, I don't expect him to sleep though yet'.

IME DD didn't sleep through consistantly until she was 16 months and I expect to be doing similar night parenting with DS.

I did wonder if I misheard 20 weeks but she was talking about avoiding Gluten and when I questioned that, she said it was only until 6 months, so she was definately in the pre 6 month area.

I know where they get their local guidelines from, the local breastfeeding NHS expert explained to me last year (when I was complaining about our local breastfeeding support group) that weaning was recommended to start 'around the middle of the first year' and the NHS leaflets including the one you quoted, says there is flexibility for introducing solids if a medical professional thinks it necessary. They are allow to interpret this as 20 weeks, if they think it is necessary.

I assume this flexibility was included for rare medical needs for solids, not for normal stuff like 'big' babies etc.

I think I will ring and recheck what she said...

I know that someone here actually contacted the Department of Health to confirm that there were no plans to change the weaning age.

And the flexibility is for babies with exceptional needs, not just cos they were big. DS was huge btw, and was no problem to exc bf to 6 months

Ask specifically if this is local policy, and if she says it is, ask what that is based on and can you get a copy. Sure the DoH would be interested...

It was hunker that got confirmation.
It's on her blog here

I thought it was, but was having a crisis of indecision, and didn't think to check her blog

WHat a mess the shipping channels would be if the boats all left at the same time.

I only knew cos she had emailed me about it