Exclussive BF till 6mth... how??

[WavesTheWhiteFlag]

Ok bit of a daft question, but how do you keep going with just bf without giving in to weaning??
My DS has muscle problems, cant sit or hold his head up for long. He can drink his milk really well, is just starting on a bottle of ebm and shows no signs of wanting food. But his weight is slowing, only 6ozs in 3 weeks rather than 4ozs a week.
I tried him with a tiny bit of baby rice and he just stuck his tongue out, so not ready yet.
Just wondered if there were any other mums refusing to wean before 6mths.

I don't know about refusing to wean but my three were around 6 months before they were weaned, the last two were BLWed so no baby rice or puree stage.

Someone with more knowledge will be along son but it could be that his weight was due to slow down, I believe it does after 6 months anyway.

What age is he? If he is happy on milk alone and still gaining weight then why wean?

I managed it. 3 times so it is do-able . You're in good company

Their weight gain does slow down. You just keep demand feeding.

How old is he?
Most babies slow at 4-5 months. You are aiming at roughly double birth weight by 6 months.
Solids (and baby rice) have less than milk so if weight gain is an issue can you try and up his milk intake?
HTH

Is he dropping down the centiles or his his weight gain just slowing? They all slow at that age so its the centiles that show if he is slowing more than others.

FWIW I weaned both mine at 5.5 months because they were showing lots of signs of being ready: sitting upright, lost the tongue thrust reflex, good hand eye co-ordination so could feed themselves.

Thanks for the replies, hes 5mths and has droppped to the next lower centile, but as he was weighed on diff scales HV doesnt seem fussed. Prob just me being a bit neurotic. I weaned my DD at 4.5mths but she was far more ready than DS. She was on 9ozs for most of her first few months! And wolfed her solids down.
Do breast fed babies take longer to loose their rooting reflex? DS has muscle probs so wont be able to sit or hold head up for a long time so its really hard to see the signs in him.
Dont get me wrong, Im in no hurry to start weaning, really hate pureeing food!!
Lovely to hear that there are those that make it to 6mths and beyond

I started to wean dd just before 6 mo, she was excl breastfed till then.

It wasn't difficult at all, I just fed her on demand until the time was right for her to wean onto solids

I exclusively bf both of mine till 6 months - DD on 50th centile and DS on the 98th. Interestingly it was DD who fed more often. It took both of them some time to really take to solids, both preferred just breastmilk.

I exclusively bf my son to 6 months, during which time he moved from the 6th to the 91st percentile. Just demand feed, as ShowofHands says - I stopped taking him to be weighed at about 3 months, to be honest, because he was obviously healthy and happy and I got sick of my HV and her 'nobody exclusively breastfeeds' attitude.

If he's not showing any interest in food then just keep feeding on demand.

My 2nd DS (now 8 1/2 months)really slowed down in his weight gain by 4 months. He initially was gaining well over the average weight gain for newborns then everything slowed down.
He was initially born on the 75th centile but has slowly found his own curve between the 25th-50th centile. I think his height is on a similar scale so completely in proportion.
We did baby led weaning from 6 months and its only in the last month or so that he has a real interest in food.

If your son has muscle problems he will also be using up extra energy as he is probably working a bit harder but BF on demand will keep up his energy demands.

I ebf until 6 months. Ds is tiny and has development delay so he can't hold his head up or sit either. Now he has high calorie formula mixed into his food and a scoop of sma to increase the calories in his solids but the dietician was happy with him being ebf until 6 months as milk is more calorific than solids.

It's already been said on here, but just wanted to second that your breast milk is much more efficient at getting calories and fat into him than any sort of solids will be at this stage, so just keep feeding him! You are giving him the best thing possible.

I exclusively bf'd till 6 months - I was just going to say what missjackson said. It's much easier than weaning too!

We waited until after 6 months before weaning ours.

We just put them in the high chair at 6 months and let them grab for food when they wanted. We didn't mash up food or prepare anything special. We did cook salt-free, and limited spices, but didn't find it hard.

I have always found breastfeeding easier than giving purees. I have no idea why some mums are so anxious to move their babies on. Breastmilk is more nutritious too.

Even though I introduced them to the table at around 6 months, they weren't in a hurry to each much. They were interested in a small taste, but that was it.

Echoing missjackson & mrsmalcolmtucker, more calories in bm than carrots! My dd dropped from 80th centile to 11th, worried lots about her due to hv worrying me! DD is now a healthy 3 year old. DS has followed exactly same growth pattern. HV now agrees that some babies start off heavy but gain weight in a different pattern to the charts (based on ff babies).
Keep on with the boob!

I BF till 6 months, and my baby is above the 99th percentile!

To echo what the others have said, your baby gets a lot more nutrition and calories from breast milk than solids. If you think about it, lots of things we give babies as first foods (particularly fruit and veg) are what we might consider diet foods!

Thanks everyone. So hard to ignore the 'he needs solids' brigade. Im still enjoying bf and hope to keep going for a while longer. Although I think I need to come up with some sort of baby holder - hes so darn big to hold now, cant imagine what it will be like when hes getting close to 1!!!!

When they are bigger they sort of sit up in your lap more.

Have you seen www.babyledweaning.com/? You mentioned you hate the puree stage - you can skip it if you prefer. An interesting read either way.

We're at 23 weeks and hanging on in there. DD not ready yet I don't think she still takes lots of milk will sit in high chair and watch us eat whilst she plays with cups. at 6 months plan to see if she fancies playing with some veggies if she does great if not I'm not worried as breast milk is so good for them. Just close your ears to those who wean early and take delight in the fact that you don't have extra dishes to wash or plates to sterilise! Re the weight gain they naturally slow down with weight gain anyway so as long as you're not dropping centiles and you/hv are happy I wouldn't worry about it. Just enjoy it while it lasts.

We waited until 26 weeks by which time she was so ready she took the bowl off DH and fed herself I even have a video clip of it - so funny!. She did slow right down on her weight gain from 20 weeks or so but still stayed over the 50%.

One thing I would say is that DD is now just turned 3 years and has never had a course of ABs and despite lots of allergies in the family seems to have gotten away with just a little mild eczema.

I really do put that down to BFing exc for 6m then extended to 2 years. Add into that careful weaning i.e we took advice on avoiding allergies and restricted her diet for the first 2 years. We also switched to BLW very quickly, more from DDs lead really not that I am a lazy puree hater

If your DS has muscle issues he may find later weaning better anyway - you might need to up how often you offer BM though - I found DD would get too interested in the world to ask then would get so hungry she wouldn't feed well!

Yes, good point - as they get older, suddenly everything is much more interesting than feeding! You may want to take him into a quiet room to offer a feed every few hours during the day so that you know he is getting enough. If you are finding it difficult to hold him, you could try lying down next to him on the bed - this works really well for us.

Good luck!

Yes, good point - as they get older, suddenly everything is much more interesting than feeding! You may want to take him into a quiet room to offer a feed every few hours during the day so that you know he is getting enough. If you are finding it difficult to hold him, you could try lying down next to him on the bed - this works really well for us.

Good luck!