Interesting article on the controversy over when to start solids...

[emkana]

...here

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What does everyone think?

I'm a 6 month breastmilk only lass (dd2, dd1 was 5 and a bit, before the new guidelines) but do agree these mixed messages don't help, especially claims that it'll help babies to sleep through. dare i say it, Gina Ford is good on this, how the early weaning foods have fewer calories in them than breastmilk, ie they're just fillers and useless in terms of nutrition.
what's your take emkana?

I started my ds on baby rice at 3 months. He had a weak mix just before bed and it helped him go 4 hourly rather than 2 hourly! Never had any problems with him and by 4 months he was on 2 meals a day! Was not overweight and still drunk normal amount of milk! I now have a healthy 4 year old so couldnt have been that bad!

Well ds2 has been on solids for 5 days now (he turned 26 weeks yesterday). I'm glad I did wait this long from an allergies point of view, but he doesn't seem that interested and in fact looks downright suspicious at the presence of a spoon.

ds1 who was weaned dead on 4 months ADORED solids right from the word go and now has a very good diet.

A little part of me does worry that the "nutritionalists" in the article who say that it's easier when younger to get them interested in a wide range of tastes, but it's so hard to tell if it's just that their personalities are different.

If truth be told, I'm feeling a bit down about the whole solids thing at the moment.

georgina, don't feel down, i'm sorry if my tone was a bit dismissive of people who weaned early , i just knew it was right for me and dd2 (now 18 mths has the appetite of a horse) if your ds2 is well and enjoying it then that's cool

Ds1 was weaned at 4 months after hv pressure about him being big and needing solids, with ds2 I was much more prepared to counter that, and went 6 months breastfeeding only, even though he was bigger than ds1. I did tell the hv, who didn't look convinced, but I agree with the article the guidelines are undermined by the hvs, and until they come round to the idea it will not be common.

Oh I'm not feeling down about that bundle - I didn't wean early (well, did with ds1!) - just a fraction under 6 months which I'm not counting!! It's just a bit of a difference between how his brother took to food and it's brought home that you never really know if you're doing the right thing by them. I feel a bit like I can't win either way.

I stuck it out to 6 months with dd (that was before the guidelines changed, and anyone who argued with me I just referred to the WHO ). For me it was a no-brainer, I was exclusively breastfeeding 4-5 feeds per day, dd started sleeping 7-7 at 5.5 months, plus I have eczema, asthma and nut allergies and so am a good candidate for late weaning. I fully intend to do the same with number 2 (due in March).

The most interesting thing in the article is the bit about bottle-fed babies. It seems there's little doubt about what is best for breast-fed babies, but no-one seems really sure when the optimum weaning point for bottle-fed babies is.

And I also agree with the writer that it was foolish of the government not to get health visitors on board. Though I struggle to understand why so many of them are opposed to the advice given the WHO have been banging on about it for years. I was lucky - my health visitor was actually very supportive of my decision.

I think it's really important to take the lead from your baby. I was keen to wean by ds before 6 months as I was going back to work and wanted to do it myself, rather than get nursery to do it. However, he has only just (at almost 8 months) started to eat anything other than fruit, so probably shouldn't have been weaned until 6 months. But I know that many babies have a keen appetite when they are much younger. My HV didn't put me under any pressure to wean, but my MIL did - from 3 months, which was quite hard to deal with. I think it's best to ignore the advice and do what you think is best.

I totally agree with this article.... in every aspect !

Perhaps I read the wrong books or leaflets on weaning but when DS was born but I thought you only needed to wait until 12 weeks before starting weaning (subject to mum & baby agreeing on the point!) With this in mind and a DS who was unable to drink a large enough volume of milk to satisfy him for more than 2hours, I started weaning at 10 weeks.

Must confess that I didn't ask my HV but I figured that as weaning started even earlier when I was a baby, it was all a fad or over protectivness or the medical profession over reacting to a couple of problem cases or a plot by powdered milk manufacturers to keep me buying tons of the stuff (joke, please don't sue me!)

Ds is now 21 months, 3 foot tall, 2.5stones in weight and full of vitality with no known allergies.

I could have waited till 12 weeks but there was no way DS & I could have held out til 6 months before weaning. We'd have required a herd of cows in the garden just to start with I think it's all dependent upon the baby and when they need the extra calories solids provide.

solids provide less calories than milk until they take a significant amount of solids.

I must have a different type of HV to most. DD was 9lb 6oz when she was born, and is exclusively breastfed. She's now 16 weeks old, and I took her to be weighed on Monday where I was told that she is now 16lb 11oz. I asked about solids, as I am under increasing pressure from everyone to wean her, even though my gut feeling is that she is happy with just breastmilk. the HV said no...she does not need solids, and explained that her weight gain is perfect, and it's now starting to level out. Only if she were to drop in weight would she say that she needs solids. It's not as if I am a confused first time Mum (and let's face it...who wouldn't be confused with all the conflicting advice) as she is my third baby. With my first the advice was 3 months, the 2nd was 4 months, and now 6 months. But I'm happy to keep on feeding her exclusivley for as long as she wants.

I loved this sentence: "When you've got a house full of kids to cook for and wash up after, having one you can feed lying on the sofa with your feet up and whose meal doesn't incur any clearing-up afterwards is always, in my book, a bit of a boon."

In the US the advice has been to wait until 6 months at least since my eldest was born 5 years ago. I didn't find it a problem to wait that long.

The bit about breastfed vs. formula babies confused me. Yes, of course, breastmilk is best, but formula is the closest thing you can get to breastmilk. So why would you need to add, for example, rice and apples to make the formula closer to the standard of breastmilk? Makes no sense. If anything, I would think it would be easier to wait longer with a formula fed baby, just because the formula takes longer to digest and they don't need to be fed as often.

My eldest absolutely refused solids until around 8 months old, she was quite happy with her milk. My youngest daughter started on solids at 8 weeks, on the advice of the health visitor and doctor as she was having 12oz of milk at each feed - every three hours, couldn't fill her yet she was a skinny little thing. My son was around four months and my grandson was 6 months. All when they were ready. Fads come and go and I honestly feel, that a parent knows their child better than anyone else. We know when milk sin't satisfying their hunger, and surely that's the time to start weaning whether that's as 3, 4, 6 or even 8 months old.

I emailed the author to say how much I liked it!

I'm not even going to say when / how I started weaning my DD (now 7.5 m). I have found weaning the hardest part of bringing up baby by far. I have felt pressure from all sides, my mum, hv, mumsnet (sorry folks but it's true), friends, Annabel Karmel (!) etc. And when I say pressure, it's hidden pressure, can be just other mums talking about what / when they are doing it. I have made decisions and then wondered if I've made the right one. I agree totally with the article that it is all very confusing, and I am a well educated pretty intelligent mum!
I have a feeling that all will turn out fine and that will be either because of or in spite of what I am doing.

GeorginaA, I have a 30s cookery book with a huge chapter on weaning and baby foods, in which it talks about weaning at 8months. If your chid doesn't feel that ready at six months, it's not so strange.

Actually I thought the article was a bit muddled about the formula/breast issue - many of the arguments quoted to support earlier weaning for formula fed babies apply equally to breast fed babies. In fact the issue is that there is no research evidence on which to base weaning advice for formula or mixed fed babies - research has only looked at the question in relation to the optimum duration of exclusive breast feeding.
Personally I do not think that 6 months is appropriate for all babies - I really think my own would have struggled without food before then, and I think probably I waited too long for ds2 - while clearly other babies are not ready before 8-9 months.

I thought the article was very very good. With dd1 I waited until 5 months, and then went into the whole babyrice/pureeing thing while constantly agonising about it. With dd2 I exclusively breastfed until 6 months, then tried to offer solids, but she hated it. She is now 15 months and has never ever been happy to be fed with a spoon, and it's only been about three months now in which she has eaten any substantial amounts of solid food, otherwise it's just breastmilk. I worried about it for a while, but to be fair you just need to look at her to know that she is happy and healthy. I did go to a paediatrician in Germany (where I'm from) when she was a year old, because I wanted a professional opinion - he told me that I should let her starve and not offer breastmilk on demand, then she would soon eat solids - advice I didn't take .
If I have another child I will do the same thing again, but I must add that it was easier for me to do it this way because I'm a SAHM, so I could just carry on to breastfeed on demand.

GeorginaA - my DD is like your DS2 and Pamina's DD2.

She's 8.5 months so we're getting there with food now but it has definitely taken her longer to get into the whole idea. She will eat anything and everything but not very much and she still hasn't figured out drinking water. DS was by this point holding the beaker and drinking it but DD just gets 'flooded' when I hold the beaker and she can't do it for herself.

That said I'm glad I held out til 6 months this time (DS - 15 weeks) as not only do I feel she benefitted but as it took longer for her to get the hang of breastfeeding by doing it exclusively for longer I have been able to enjoy it.

This thread is interesting. I started weaning dd at 14 weeks on hv's advice as she was bf'ing every 2 hours and had started waking more at night. It took her ages to get into solids - she was probably about 9 months before the food seemed more important than the milk. Just not interested. She's 2.5 now and still not very interested in food, but give her a beaker of milk and she's anybody's!

I always wondered if she would have taken to solids better if I'd left it later. And here are you guys wondering if your kids would have taken to solids better if you'd started earlier. I think each child is a law unto itself and parents are doomed to wonder .

That's one thing they don't teach you at the parenting classes - WORRY!

I think weaning has got earlier and earlier in the last century (partly due to decline of breastfeeding) and getting back to a six month guideline is just returning to what used to be the norm.

My mother always says that in Ireland when she was young, they didn't give a baby solids until they were nearly a year old! (I don't know whether she's exaggerating about that, but perhaps not?)