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Original poster

Thoughts on weaning early ....

28 replies

Ghosty · 09/05/2004 04:33

I think I know the answer to this but I thought I would just ask anyway ...

DD is 14 weeks old on Tuesday. She is over 15 and a half LBS in weight ... the weight of an average 6 month old.

She is fully breastfed and up until last week was feeding well and sleeping brilliantly ... She dropped her 4am feed nearly 3 weeks ago and apart from one or two nights when a dummy got her back off she has slept from 11pm till 7.30am.

A couple of nights ago she started waking at 4am again ... feeding frantically for 15 minutes then going back to sleep. Then at 7.30am she is hungry again. She is feeding more often during the day too.

I know that she could just be having a growth spurt but what are your thoughts on starting a bit of baby rice?

I weaned DS early (at 13 and a half weeks on the advice of my HV) because he was drinking 48 fl oz of milk a day and I really wanted to reduce his formula to a more respectable level ... he too was a really big baby (bigger at this age than DD is ...) and he took to it well and at 4 years old has no digestive problems or allergies.

DH suggested we introduce formula but I am reluctant to do that because as most of you know I am now a fully paid up member of the 'Breastfeeding Forever Until She Goes to School Club'

So ... bit of baby rice? Or shall I wait a bit longer to see if it is just a growth spurt? (She already had a growth spurt at 12 weeks but it didn't disrupt her night times ....)

TIA ... (sorry for length of post ... very boring!)

Ghosty xxx

OP posts:

toddlerbob · 09/05/2004 06:20

Ghosty, it's just a growth spurt and it will pass. She really is a fantastic sleeper for her age, and your milk is obviously wonderful or she wouldn't be the size she is.

Baby rice has fewer calories than breastmilk anyway so it wouldn't have any more than a placebo effect.

14 weeks is 3 weeks too early even for Plunket (who are still saying 17 weeks, despite the whole 6 month thing.)

While she is the size of a 6 month old her stomach is only as developed as a nearly 14 week old, and that is not developed enough.

She is extremely portable at the moment, enjoy that and do not doubt your breasts.

Have I given you enough reasons yet? - I could do more...

geekgrrl · 09/05/2004 06:22

mmmh Ghosty, I really wouldn't start baby rice, as you said - it's probably just a phase that will pass within a week or so (and you can still start the baby rice then). I don't think your dd's size is such an issue, after all breastmilk adjusts itself to the baby's requirements. For what it's worth, my ds weighs 21lbs at 5 months old and is still happily fully breastfed. He still wakes up during the night for small feeds but that's because he's got reflux and it gives him a nighttime cough.

Original poster

Ghosty · 09/05/2004 22:07

Thanks toddlerbob and geekgirl ... I thought that would be the general answer ... just wanted to pick some brains!
Yesterday DD did a remarkable impression of a GF baby despite my avoiding GF routines this time round ... and she slept through till 5.50 ... so maybe it is just a phase ...
Ta xx

OP posts:

elliott · 10/05/2004 13:21

Ghosty I hope the night waking does pass, but my experience was that it didn't until I started solids (sorry folks!). Ds2 nearly slept through from 11pm at around 12 weeks, then he started waking earlier for a feed in the night. I went with it for a lot of weeks but he never returned to his best sleeping habits. Then when he started waking for feeds three times in the night I decided that was too much for me(!) and we started on solids - at about 20 weeks. now he doesn't usually need a night feed at all.
But your experience may be different....I'll be interested to hear!

colinsmommy · 10/05/2004 20:14

I had a similar experience as you, Elliott. My son woke up pretty much every hour until he was 2 months old, and then woke up 4-5 times a night after that.(I doubt it was a lack of milk issue, because he weighed 16 lbs at 3 mo. His Dr. told me to wait until 5 mo to introduce solids, but at 4 1/2 mo, I couldn't take the lack of sleep anymore. The night he got rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, he slept until 5:30. As much as I wanted to bf until he was 1 yr old, he weaned himself at 6 mo, and had to be put on formula,and has slept from about 9 pm until 7:30 am every day except when teething. (Please don't think from this I am advocating early feeding or formula feeding. I would love to still be breastfeeding, but my son is so independent that he has to hold his own bottle and fell from the 95th to 50th percentile until we switched to formula because he wouldn't breastfeed at all. Just sharing my experience.)

suzywong · 10/05/2004 20:26

Ghosty
I am a member of that club too. If you want to try her on solids then why not, but don't bother with the baby rice.
I didn't do it for my DS2 (8months) and went straight on to pureed pears and pureed sweet potato and he has wolfed down everything I have given him since then.
DS1 clearly loathed the baby rice but started at 13 because he was big and not sleeping, and I feel that only served to make him a fussy eater.
So go for it if you want to but don't bother with the wallpaper past.

suzywong · 10/05/2004 20:28

Should have said I started him at 19 weeks on the purees

colinsmommy · 10/05/2004 20:28

I agree with you on the wallpaper paste. But my DS has not come across anything he will not willingly put in his mouth and eat (except his vitamins).

Piffleoffagus · 10/05/2004 20:29

I'd wait, you'll be glad you did

Hayls · 10/05/2004 20:47

Hi Ghosty, I have to confess that I have given my dd some baby rice and pureed pears. She's almost 15 weeks and I went through a couple of weeks of her waking constantly (much more than your dd and taking a proper feed and just couldn't handle it any more. SHe was still feeding loads during the day as well. She too is a big baby and I spoke to my HV before giving it to her (only started at the weekend). She really does seem to enjoy it and last night she slept a lot better than she had for ages. She no longer looks or acts hungry shortly after feeding. I thought it was a growth spurt but it just went on and on and on so I have no regrets about doing ti but obviously it's your choice. I'm in no way advocating weaning early, I'm just saying it was the right choice for us. If you're not sure I'd say don't do it until you are convinced! DH tried to convince me for ages before I finally agreed to give it a go and I'm glad I did.

P>S I'm also a fully paid member of the bReastfeeding forever club

Hayls · 10/05/2004 20:48

OMG, I think I'm the only one..

Cam · 11/05/2004 09:37

hayls, why apologise for doing what is right for your baby? Surely babies develop at different rates for feeding the same as they develop at deifferent rates for everything else?

Hayls · 11/05/2004 12:11

Just what I was thinking, CAm
Ghosty, hope last night was a bit better.

oliveoil · 11/05/2004 12:44

My dd was 9lb 10 at birth and was a huge baby (still is). I started weaning at about 4 months on bits of baby rice mixed with formula and it was a bit of a result as due to this, she started taking to bottles (was completely b/f before) and it was starting to annoy me that I couldn't leave her for more than a few hours. I checked with my h/v first.

She is now 18 months and a very good eater (touch wood) and I used the Gina Ford weaning book as a guide.

cuppy · 11/05/2004 21:08

Can I just ask why its now 6mths you wean babies? It was always 4 months , and it still says that on the baby food labels .... does anyone now the reason for this?

StripyMouse · 11/05/2004 21:23

I don?t know exactly why in scientific terms the time scale has altered, would be interested in a specific answer too, if anyone has one. My HV blatantly avoided this question when it was put to ehr and waffled about how parents told 4 months often satrt a couple of weeks even earlier so if told 6 months there is more "room for manouvere", safety first, no rush etc. etc. but no real solid answer.
My HV also told us to take the new guidelines with a pinch of salt - she reckoned that the new 6 month idea instead of 4 months could potentially lead to problems with learning to chew and swallow food properly. According to her, she said that children need to be used to lumpy food by the end of the 7 month as after this time many children find it very difficult to learn the "skill" of chewing and swallowing lumpier food. If parents are leaving weaning until later they have a much shorter time span to get babies accustomed to this and it could lead to eating problems later on.

cuppy · 11/05/2004 21:32

interesting...thanks stripey

hoxtonchick · 11/05/2004 21:43

I think it's because the government has adopted the World Health Organisation policy of recommending that babies should be exclusively breastfed for 6 months. You should find it somewhere in here but I can't quite face reading the whole thing....

elliott · 11/05/2004 21:46

The six month recommendation has come about because of a review of research which showed no evidence that solids were needed for babies exclusively breast fed for six months, and some evidence of benefits (can't remember exactly what now, but the review can be accessed on the internet at the cochrane collaboration) WHO began recommending six months exclusive bf some time ago .
Interestingly the idea that there is a window of opportunity for developing chewing is based on limited evidence (children with developmental problems fed for prolonged periods on semi liquid diets) I will try to find the link to the report I found that in as it was quite interesting.
So stripy null points to the poor HV yet again!

elliott · 11/05/2004 21:54

this is the report - see point 18 for the evidence about chewing. The whole thing is quite illuminating in setting out the thinking behind the 4 month recommendation and the UK govnt's response to the six month recommendation from WHO.

butwhatdoiknow · 11/05/2004 22:02

My mum gave both me and my brother:

icecream, wheetabix and squashed banana at about two months, she said it made us sleep through the night within an few days. Also instead of formula all babies were just given cows milk. Except we were breastfed so that is by the by.

It was the Dr Spock way. We are not allergic to anything.

Prior to the 60's babies weren't weaned onto food until around one year of age.

So just do what ever suits you i reckon.......

Except my dad gives my 3 month old a taste of all sorts of food, and i keep telling him off because I too am scared of the HV and doctors, ha ha

butwhatdoiknow · 11/05/2004 22:06

And another thing...

babies having difficulty learning to chew and swallow food properly!!! Give em a biscuit , they'l soon pick it up

ermm how many adults do you know who have never learnt to chew or swallow food properly. Perrleese!

spikeycat · 12/05/2004 09:21

Well, get this, DS was born 6 weeks ago at 7lb 8oz, he is now 11lb odd and breast feeding well, I went to my mother in laws the other day and she said he seemed a very hungry baby (as he fed a lot while I was there) and she asked me if I had thought about weaning him yet - At 6 weeks! She looked after my other ds when I tried going back to work when he was 8 weeks old, (I only lasted two months before I gave up!) but I always thought she had started feeding him as his poos became v firm and he seemed to have trouble with constipation - now I know she did. Boy was I mad!

There again, this is the woman who told me to start sitting him on the potty at 3 months

Sorry for the rant!

Furball · 12/05/2004 10:09

Spikeycat - I'd be extremely upset if anyone tried that with my DS especially MIL. Probably no harm done but it's not her decision.

I started b/f DS on babyrice and purreed fruit and veg at about 13 weeks, he couldn't wait and scoffed it down. Interestingly, he couldn't hack lumps until about 13/14 months - I take it this doesn't tie in with those reports?

littlerach · 12/05/2004 10:32

My DH was given baby rice from 6 wks old, as that was the recommendation at the time (late 1960's). I was weaned from 3 months, again due to the recommendations at the time, and I was not a big baby at all. Neither of us have any probs, although maybe we are just lucky!!!!

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