Blummin health visitors (long sorry)

[rachi1990xx]

Jus need a rant really . My 19 week old is having his bottles n 3 bowls of 15-20 spoons of porridge in morn n afternoon n dinner on evening . He had pyloric stenosis and was way behind on his weight so tried him with weanin at 14 weeks (took to it like a duck to water ) and his weight has come right back where it shoild be wich docs are pleasef with so why are health visitors making me feel like im forcing him n telling me hes not ready? ( he can sit up and he gets excited at the sight of
the food ) i dnt force him if he doesnt want any but 99.9% he does hes come on really well so wat am i doing wrong ???x

Well, you're not suppose to wean before 6 months due to the ability to digest food.

So that's what you're doing wrong.

Better to increase amount of milk than start solids too early.

If you've weaned early under medical advice then no, of course you're not doing anything wrong and health visitors should be aware of that.

Well personally i was weaned from 4 months as were my siblings and the majority of people ive spoken to about it and theres nothing wrong with any of us if thats the case why sell baby food from four months? And another thing there quick to encourage me to get him drinking out a cup by 6 months bit hypocritical really! They all know his medical history n the drs r happy with his progress hes still gettin his milk im nt replacing it with food iv jus introduced it slowly . X

We know now things that we didn't perhaps know when the advice was to wean at 16 weeks, ie that it is better for babies to get their nutrients from milk exclusively until 26 weeks, and that early weaning can cause problems in some babies. Weaning early also means you have to puree, mash and spoon feed foods, whereas waiting until babies are a bit older can make the process easier, and allows for them to eat the same food as the rest of the family which is cheaper and sets up good habits in terms of a variable diet and sociable eating. It is also safer to wait until a baby can sit unaided and hold their own head etc well, to reduce the risk of choking.

The HV you have spoken to will be aware of the evidence base to the 26 week guideline, and will be doing their best to allow you to make an informed decision. It's a shame you feel they have not delivered that information well, and you as your DC mum will make the decisions that you feel is best for your son but I'm not sure they're automatically wrong for discussing the issue with you.

Can someone link the evidence that weaning between 4-6 months in a developed country is harmful ? Thought not they are researching it at the moment with the eat and leap studies. The jury is out for developed countries we just don't know. The 6m guideline is WHO and refers to world wide advice.

so you are getting conflicting advice from gp and health visitor?
go with the GP I think

I don't see a problem with you weaning before 6 months if you were advised to do so by the GP. Did you say that to the HV?

IME there's a huge variation in the quality of HV's. My SIL's one was brilliant, mine was pretty rubbish and some I've heard of are downright dangerous.

I would just ignore the HV and if she raises the weaning thing again I would refer her to the GP.

my GP would be less informed on current guidelines regarding weaning than my health visitor

Ignore hv. If you were told to wean early as medical advice then your doing nothing wrong. Refluxy babies are often weaned early as solids stay down better than just milk. Your hv would have been just as concerned due to no weight gain . You couldn't have won this one anyway.

Anyhow it's done now, you can't very well unwean him, your health visitor should be supporting you

You're not doing anything wrong! He is your son, and you know him more than anyone else in this world. I'm not a big fan of health visitors to be honest. They're there to advise, not tell you how to bring up your children. If it's working, and you and DC are happy, then carry on, ignore the HV!

It sounds from the way you wrote your original post as if you decided on your own to wean at 14 weeks, without being directed to by a hcp. Dept of Health advice is that no baby should be weaned before 17 weeks, and that 26 weeks is advised.

Presumably your doctor advised the early weaning due to the pyloric stenosis, in which case this is fair enough. I would explain this repeatedly to any HV who queries you about what you are doing.

My GP told me that 6mts is a good guideline but many do before and it's ok as long as you are careful about what you introduce (no eggs for example). She did say however to never wean before 17weeks as it is physically too hard on their kidneys. My personal decision is to get very close to 6months before introducing anything.

In Sweden the advice is still 4-6 months, rather than 6 months.

It depends on how you interpret the WHO guidelines. Also what is understood by weaning. Ime early weaners tend to go very, very slowly and still incorporate large quantities of milk in the baby's diet, whereas later weaners may understand something different by the word. Dd had her first taster foods at 4 months, she was still breastfed at 11 months.

Whether early weaning means baby can eat the family diet or not depends on what the family diet looks like. We eat a lot of things like boiled spuds and other veg, so all I had to do was take a bit off my plate and mash it up for dc. Minimum of faff and very healthy. Pureeing doesn't have to mean you laboriously buy a special manual and cook special little baby recipes with food you wouldn't otherwise buy; it can simply be a handy way of using up left-overs.