Dd is almost 6 weeks old and exclusively breastfed, do you think i should be giving her cool boiled water to drink aswell, or is breastfeeding enough for her?

[ManyMonkeys]

She is having plenty of wet nappy's but my mum said recently she'd have thought it'd be a good idea to give her something to water or a little baby juice?? It never occured to me, i just figured b-milk was enough!

breast milk is enough

Breastmilk is enough. Your mum's advice is very out of date, my mum was told the same thing when she was formula feeding us more then 30 years ago.

baby juice !! at 6 weeks! absolutely not

unless you live somewhere exceptionally hot, you don't need to offer water, and even if you are somwhere v v hot, breastmilk is usually more than enough

also, there is no point giving a baby with a tiny stomach anything other than milk, it fills the belly, but does not nourish and help a baby grow

as much breast milk as she wants is all you need to give

No, just breast milk. She doesn't need anything else.

Ditto everyone else its not necessary- if your DD is thirsty, she will feed more often, and thus get more of the watery thirst quenching fore milk.
As for the fruit juice, definate no to that until 6 months. The cartons may say 4 months, but current recommendations are nothing but milk (either BM or artificial milk) until 6 months.

breastmilk is enough

Ignore your mum. Breastmilk is enough!

Bmilk is enough...

sounds like advice generally given to ff mums in the 50's, so not applicable.

Ditto, nothing else necessary for months yet. As I had to explain to my gp who was also surprised I had never given dd2 water

just breastmilk

it is food and drink

Just breastmilk. My mum was told to give cool boiled water when she bf my brother and I in the 1970s - completely out of date advice.

ditto everyone else, your baby has a virgin gut, stick with it tell your mum to google the WHO advice and stick to your guns, your baby needs you and that is all.

( well done btw for b/feeding this far, )

btw, anything else that you did give your baby ie water or juice would be less nutritionally complete than breastmilk as another poster said it is food and drink in 1 and the only food your baby requires until 6 months. Many of us have had the 1970's recommendation from our mums, its just the beginning of the differences between parenting then and now, good luck....

Oh thankyou everyone i feel alot better now. My mum is lovely but fusses quite alot, i love all her help but i am aware of how quite out of date some of her 'ideas' are bless her. Thanks again - i shall stay away from everything until she is much much older xx

ooh, I can top that. My MIL is giving me 1950's/1960's advice. She was rightly offended when I just laughed out loud at some of her advice

Toppiing up bm with water is an old-fashioned piece of advice which is completely irrelevant. Babies get everything they need from breastmilk - even in hot weather.

Hope bfing is going well for you! I'm really excited about doing it again when DC2 pops in the next couple of months!

Be aware that your dd may stop pooing quite so regularly in a little while (ds sometimes went up to 3 days between poos - with explosive results) and the cool boiled water/prune juice/brown sugar in water thing will come up again to combat this "constipation".

Not constipation (if poos are soft) and totally normal for a bf baby. But apparently not in the 1970s again

Nothing but breast milk. I can second the advice to resist well meaning efforts to help you deal with any alleged constipation. Constipation was a huge preoccupation for the older generation for some reason. exMIL thought I should be feeding DD1 orange juice from Day 1...

Why don't you show your mum this - someone linked to it the other day and I thought it was very good.

Oh that's an excellent leaflet Longtalljosie. I wish I'd had it to hand to give to MIL when I started feeding!

I was told by a midwife to give DS water between feeds at about 12 weeks, because he was 'snacking' and 'needed to cut back his feeds'. Needless to say, I ignored her (I'd only gone in to the local unit to see if they could get to the bottom of his fussing at the breast).

Like everyone else has said, breastmilk is enough, and if they're thirsty because it's hot, or because there's an 'R' in the month they'll feed more often and get more of the thirst-quenching milk.

ManyMonkeys - this will be a common scenario on your new life as a mum. You will find u get unwanted and (sometimes incorrect) advice from every angle. I would put my last pound on the fact that u are doing a fab job. And well done u for 6 weeks worth of BF! It's flippin hard work :0

Breast milk is 98%water, sterile and delicious!!!

I was advised by someone who had her babies a few decades ago to give 4 week old DD boiled water with brown sugar in it during the summer to stop her being thirsty! Brown sugar being healthy, of course

Gotta love the 70s! I'm surprised anybody in the UK over the age of 30 has any teeth left!

That's a wonderful leaflet, very well thought-out. It made me a bit sad though, as it showed the kind of horrible advice the grandparents were getting, and the treatment their babies got as a result.

I have an American recipe book from 1976 that includes a section on infant feeding -- it left me gobsmacked.