HV insisting milk empty calories after 6 months!!

[jasperc163]

Just took DD2 to be weighed - she is 7.5 months and doing BLW but still not particularly interested so wanted to check it wasn't affecting her weight (its not she is between 91st/98th on 2/3 bf 1/3 ff).

Anyway, HV insisting milk not main source of nutrition after 6 months and that she should only be having 3 milk feeds , roughly a pint a day.

This is nonsense isnt it?!

Yeah its nonsense.

Refer her to the Kellymom website, which saved my sanity when my DS didn't eat hardly any solids (other than rice cakes and Organix puffs) until he was well over 12 months old. Some children just take longer to take to solid food than others. Its not harmful if they are not eating roast dinners by 6 and a half months old!

here

So, following government advice, your DD should be exclusively bf until 6 months, then when she is 6 months and one day, suddenly have this cut down to mainly other food, with just three milk feeds???

HV talking out of the wrong bodily orifice.

Milk is main source of nutrition until about 12m. Ever heard "Food is for fun until they're one"? Babies can h ave as many bfs a day as they like - there's no such thing as overfeeding when it comes to bfing.

A nice thing about bf is that they can have as little or as much as they like, so it doesn't necessarily put them off their solids, unlike ff, where the baby is generally used to taking a certain amount at a time.

FWIW, my ds2 wasn't interested in solids until about 8.5m, and hasn't suffered in the least. The amount of bfings he had in any day never had any effect on the amount of solids he would eat.

There is an almost identical post on the weaning board:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weaning/861359#17554992

Link there in my post to the current weaning guidance - sounds like your HV would benefit from reading it.

Thanks all,
I suppose my only worry is the iron issue - she def isnt getting any from food atm.

She is getting iron from your breastmilk - contary to popular belief, she will have been restocking with iron as it has been used, but after 6 months they do tend to start using it faster than they can intake from milk alone. But where this fits in the picture of unlimited bfs from a well nourished mother, a self controlled intake of nutritious food etc, isn't well documented.

Jasper, dd is nearly 8 months and we're trying BLW as well (tho she is ff, not bf). Yesterday seemed to be the first time that she actually swallowed anything. We've got her 8 month check tomorrow and I'm going to be interested to see what the HV has to say to me about weaning as there is no way that dd is getting much nutrition from solids atm...

thanks both
Carikube - glad to hear not got the only baby who doesn't want to know!

Another HV who is just making it up

Where does she think babies in less industrialised countries where they have to breastfeed (because there is no alternative) get their calories and essential vitamins and minerals (including iron) from? A bit of pureed carrot and apple?

FFS. This makes me so cross

Jasper, just back from 8 month check and I think I must have a reasonable HV! No comments about doing BLW and no comments about dd's pathetic weight gain over the past 2 months. Quite refreshing...

DD2 is 14 months and is still breast fed and we have been doing BLW since she was 6 months old. It took her about 4 months to realise that food was fun and filling. Now she is over a year she eats 3 meals and 2 snacks and stills bf several times a day. She is growing well and has put on weight quite steadily all the way through.