Introduced baby rice to a BF baby ( 20 weeks) - do I need to offer water?

[undomesticatedgoddess]

OK - I know I shouldn't be weaning him yet but he's been showing an interest in food for a while and to be honest I haven't got the guts to go down the BLW route (yet).

He is only having a small amount mixed with about 60-70ml of EBM once a day.

Do I need to give him water or will BF suffice? He is fed on cue and has unrestricted access to breast feeding.

I agree that there isn't that much difference in the details between that and the fine print of the current UK guidelines. But I do think the tone is different and the 'headline summary' might end up being different. I suspect that the health visitor has been told about this and has perhaps overinterpreted it to me in a brief conversation.

jimbobsmummy, I have already said the tone is different....only slightly though.

I'll explain again:

You expect the tone to be different. The ESPGHAN paper is an overview of the research. The DH statement is a public health recommendation.

You'd get a further difference in tone if you had to interpret the same information in yet another different way.

The information is identical. Any 'headline summary', to use your phrase, would be identical.

Is there a very slight difference in 'tone'? Is '26 weeks is a desirable goal' sightly different from the UK guidance that "Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended for the first six months of an infant's life. Six months is the recommended age for the introduction of solid foods for infants" ?

I was agreeing with you!

The difference in those two statements - 'headline summaries' - is small, but I think really quite significant. Thats all I was saying.

Hi - just to add my two pennies - my DD was born on the 98th centile and I didn't start weaning her until 26 weeks. Well - I gave her a bit of melon to suck on at about 24 weeks, but started the 3 meals a day (if I can be bothered...) at 26 weeks. She's EBF.

Word of warning - when she started on the food - her sleep deteriorated for a couple of weeks. No idea why, but it is not the panacea that people can suggest! And by 26 weeks you don't worry about the gagging/choking because they are so much more robust and she was sitting well - and pretty dextrous. As lots of people have said - she went through a growth spurt at about 19/20 weeks and I remember a bad weekend when she fed every 1.5 to 2 hours all day - but it was only 2 days and then back to normal.

wow some strong opinions here!
am a bit of a lurker but had to post this!

ok so the DH guidelines is to bf until 6 months then introduce solids, some of you stick to these guidelines ridgidly, great for you but there are some of us who do need to wean our babies earlier and this does not make us bad mothers putting our babies at risk.
my ds is 21 weeks and i have introduced solids slowly over the past 2 weeks as he suddenly stopped putting on weight for past 6 weeks after previously being a 75th/91st percentiler. He will not take formula or a bottle at all (we have tried everything, he just does not like it and wont even take baby rice mixed with formula) so the only way to get more into him was solids. fruit and veg only and baby rice. he loves the food and gobbles it up with no probs at all. (he is also a fuss pot with food, home cooked only no jars!) he also grabs any food you have near him and puts it in his mouth.

guess my point is they are guidelines and not rules.

jimbobsmummy - you might be agreeing with me, but I am not agreeing with you

The difference in the two statements is not small, but tiny and not in substance, but only in tone. You think it is 'really quite significant'. I think it is totally unsignificant. The information is identical. The audience for each document is different. That's all.

sarahrhianna - I am not sure you have read the thread. No one has suggested any one is a 'bad mother' - where have you read this, or even seen it suggested? I think there have been several posts, especially recently, that explain how the guidelines allow for individuality. No need to feel 'got at'

I think a baby who does not put on any weight for six weeks does need evaluation - but in fact, the evidence is overwhelming that if the baby is otherwise healthy and thriving and active, then all is well. In particular, fruit, veg and baby rice is about the least likely combination to provide calories - the fruit and veg are bulk with only small amounts of calories and unless you give large volumes of baby rice, the calorie gain from this will be small...and any calorie gain will be wiped out by the tendency of early solids to replace breastmilk, not add to it (see my previous post).

None of this means anyone should think you are a bad mother. Individually, a baby of 19 weeks (the age your baby was when you began solids) will probably be fine anyway - if he gains weight on this, though, then he would prob have gained weight anyway. Chances are his net intake of calories is more or less the same as it was without the solids - but whatever, he's happy enough with it and enjoying life, and you feel better. From what you say here, he prob didn't 'need' the solids....but in the grand scheme of things it's no big deal

I was going to post something about this a week ago. I met up with my friend and a colleague of hers a couple of weeks ago. The colleague was spoon feeding her 16 week old a jar of baby food. She said he started waking more and was obviously hungry. My friend had encouraged her to wean. I was really cross with my friend and asked why. She said bm obviously wasn't enough anymore. I suggested it was a growth spurt and he maybe just needed more milk. She told me that its down to a mothers instinct when babies need solids, not guidelines and that the NHS had changed its guidelines to weaning between 2-3 months now anyway.

I had to call it a day and go home. DH asked me why I care anyway and I don't know, its not my baby but he was so tiny having this mush scraped off his chin and forced back into his mouth. I was cross at my friend talking rubbish but then I read the OP and wondered if there is a bit of a rumour going around about this (although my friend tried to encourage me to wean dd at about the same age).

She'd been weaning for 2 weeks btw and fwiw, I don't belive it is a mothers instinct to know when to wean. I think the baby has the insticnt and thats why we are doing BLW.

I wrote to the Department of Health regarding the weaning age changing

Their response is on that link. Suffice to say, no, they're not changing the guidelines.

It's interesting - there is a constant drip-drip of rumour on mumsnet and elsewhere that 'they' are going to change the guidelines soon/that 'they' are in the process of revising the guidelines. You responded to this back in October on your blog, hunker, and there have been several mentions of it since, including jimbobsmummy's HV who had been on an update course and took this message away with her....passing it on to her, who then passed it on here (and was challenged, but she might not have been if her post was missed).

Who could possibly benefit from these rumours?? I mean, clinically-based discussion of guidance in the prof. journals is one thing but assertions that guidance is going to change is another...it's undermining and confusing to mothers and HCPs.

I remember at my post-natal group, about 18 months ago, the HV said that the guidelines would be changing soon- back to 4-6 months. So it does seem to be something that 'does the rounds' every so often. Strange.

I do wish more people went to the source of dodgy rumour rather than just perpetuating them as "fact" (often with their own embellishments).

I suspect they're the same people who forward hoax "omg we're all gonna DIE because men with GUNS come up to you in CAR PARKS and chloroform you whilst you are putting your shopping in the boot! They disguise their GUNS with bunches of FLOWERS, they are EVIL!!!!" emails. I curl my lip in their general direction.

tiktok - "who could possibly benefit?"
Baby food manufacturers perhaps???
Weird and worrying, I'm not one for conspiracy theories but this does make me wonder...

That did cross my mind, idontbelieveit.

How it has worked in the past is that the industry gets 'in' with a few 'pet' health visitors and midwives and other HCPs. They have advisory boards and consultant committees and so on. They give them a nice lunch from time to time, and a handsome day rate for meetings and other work. There are a number of these consultation boards in the formula industry. I have met some of the people who sit on these boards, and they are perfectly nice people with genuine motives.

It's not really bribing, but the development of a cosy relationship. We've already discussed how the DH issued the new position on infant feeding with no training insisted on at all - it was just announced. So doubts are expressed and concerns raised and at the training sessions (of which there are many - they involve a good lunch in a nice hotel, a bag of freebies and no cost )run by the formula industry and often delivered by HCPs the guidance is 'briefed against'. I know this happens, because several people, on several occasions, have reported it to me.

Am also puzzled by the YOU MUSN'T attitude.

But historically it seems the case that women would breastfeed through to the end of the baby's "second summer". It's incredible to me.

So many things militated against weaning that now no longer apply: the unavailability of appropriate and safe food, and the spoiling of food in hot weather, and the fact that it's a reasonably successful contraceptive for example.

The earlier weaning does seem like a market driven thing.

I have to eat my trousers as I thought six months was nuts, far too long.

But whenever you wean I would avoid baby rice as it's vile and juts go for the veg.

and ps if you are interested in historical weaning ages it's all out there

academic papers on the weaning by affluent 18th century women, of African slave children, on wet nursing, the early failures of formula and all sorts

extremely interesting

tiktok that's so depressing.