weaning baby - please help with baby rice instructions!

[Millsie1]

Hello - I need some advice! I have been advised to give my little one (who is 4 and a half months) one meal of baby rice a day as she's very big (over 7.5 kgs) and long and getting hungry - she can no longer do much more than 3 hours between feeds and wakes a lot during the night. First of all, I've read that it's a very bad idea to give anything other than breastmilk before 6 months...though another month and a half of hungry baby will break my heart! Is it really dangerous? What am I risking?

Secondly, I live in Switzerland and can't understand the instructions on the packet very well! Oh so embarrassing. I am currently making up a kind of very sloppy puree using expressed breastmilk - 100ml breast milk and 4/5 x 3ml spoons of organic rice flour. She takes about 4/5 mini baby spoons of this and then finishes with a wash-down of breastmilk straight from the tap. I have NO IDEA if this is what I am supposed to be doing - the instructions talk about "pap" what is pap? It sounds disgusting! Please help!

Why are you even contemplating giving this slop?There are far more calories in breastmilk than this.It fills up in smae way that wallpaper paste fills up chinks in a rough wall but does nothing else.

Throw it out.It's just a growth spurt.
Do you go longer than three hours without some food or drink or comfort?
If you need a break, express a bottle occasionally maybe?

3 hours or less between feeds is very normal at this age, and it's very unlikely that a tiny amount of baby rice would help with sleeping.

My DS was very big (99.8th percentile for height and weight), and was fine on breastmilk till he was 6 months old

If you really want to give baby rice (and note that the WHO recommend breastmilk only till 6 months to reduce the incidence of infections and allergies), then make it a little thinner than wallpaper paste

Moondog alread said what I was going to say.

OK Moondog new to this, but is there any need to be so rude? The reason I am "contemplating giving this slop" is because our paediatrician recommended it. I was asking for advice, not a barrage of abuse on my parenting.

I understand that there may be other babies who are fine on breastmilk until they are 6 months, but every baby is different and it seems to me that my daughter is hungry - even after a big breastmilk feed and that she is chewing her fist and extremely interested in food.

this is useful

My hungry boy (line on the charts) managed on bm alone (yes it was exhausting) until 25 weeks and it was a doddle to wean him.

The frequent feeding is normal, especially around 4 months when lo's have a huge growth spurt.

I'd stick it out with bm for a few more weeks if I was you

sorry - should say top line on the charts

Open baby rice, mix with water, pour into bin!

The big baby thing is a red herring. Paediatricians will be heard telling people to wean their baby as it is 'big', 'small' 'on a certain centile' 'blonde' 'brunette' 'wearing pink' etc. Your body knows how to feed your baby. If your baby is hungry then it needs more calories and baby rice has very few calories in it. Your milk has the perfect amount of calories and nurtrients for your baby. Just give more milk. At your baby's age my dd never went 3 hours between feeds. I trusted that she knew what she needed and my body knew how to respond. It's a growth spurt.

All babies chew fists, hungry or not. It could be teething, it's usually just a fascinating sensation. Of course your baby is interested in food. They're interested in how you drive, fire, lights, the birds, their own navel, the man with the beard. The true developmental signs of readiness for food are not watching you eat, chewing fists or seeming hungry. The developmental signs of readiness for food are sitting up unaided, loss of tongue thrust reflex and ability to pick up, chew food, move it to the back of the mouth and swallow.

I always found the best way to look at it was will it harm us to wait? Will it harm us to start solids now? Waiting is the sensible option. Just offer more calorie rich, baby designed by. Weaning early could introduce problems now and much later down the line.

Paeds know very little about breastfeeding and weaning.

Oh I can't spell. Am bfing. Obviously I can spell nutrients and by is bm.

It's hard with conflicting advice, I know.

feeding 3hrly sounds utterly normal to me

there is a growth spurt at 4m ish that means babies often suddenly up their milk consumption
but milk is still all they need

Moony (although brusque ) is right - milk has more calories than the rice pap ('pap' is like 'slop' or, more attractively, 'purée') and is easier to digest.
So if she is hungry more milk will fuel her growth and give here energy, whereas rice will just make her feel full so she stops asking for more feeds.

My dd fed every 2 hours at that age, even during the night and it was very tiring, so you have my sympathies!

She also did the fist chewing etc but I held out until she was 25 wks and as someone else said, it was then very easy to wean her. I knew she wasn't hungry because she'd put on plenty of weight. It sounds as if your dd is a bonny baby and is doing really well on your milk, so I'd just keep on bfing her if I were you.

Weaning didn't improve the sleeping at all, in fact I think it got a bit worse again if anything. Some people will say it helps, but in my experience it didn't.

Mouth at this age is a primary sensory organ for processing info. about the environment. (I know, being a SALT all about mouths and vocal tracts.) Hence the mouthing.

I wouldn't trust a paediatrician on this. least of all a Swiss one.They know even less about breastfeeding than British ones. (And as have sibling who has raised 4 children near gemeva am on pretty soild ground.)

Fact: Baby rice is nutritionally void
Fact: Paediatricians know eff all about breastfeeding.