when can i start feeding my baby solids?!?

[xaneesx]

Have a 3month old. Baby food jars say start at 4 months health visitor says 6 months. I feel he is very hungry and ready for solids however have been told his digestive system may not be fully developed. Please help.

We weaned ds at 17weeks because the health visitor told us too, he was combination fed,and fed every hour day and night, BUT he was also sitting up (strange but true). I wish we had waited tbh,not because he's had any adverse affects just because I know he didn't really need it,and I'll be holding off with dd (13weeks) until around 6months or when she is able to sit up and grasp foods etc. H think there's a culture of babies eating early being perceived as "clever". I have several friends who constantly regale people Facebook with tales of their "clever" dc eating at 16/17 weeks-bizarre

DD couldn't sit up on her own until she was 10 months.

I am not enjoying the crawling!! Dd is pulling herself up on furniture but does NOT have the strength to do it, just the sheer pig headed determination, so she falls constantly then does it again two mins later. My nerves are frazzled.

i really don't get the typically Facebook related showing off about weaning really young babies. It's like the people who move their six/nine month olds into forward facing car seats, as if it shows their babies are really advanced or something. Why the rush for babies to grow up!

i really don't get the typically Facebook related showing off about weaning really young babies. It's like the people who move their six/nine month olds into forward facing car seats, as if it shows their babies are really advanced or something. Why the rush for babies to grow up!

I see this all the time. A photo in a forward facing car seat (too young) with a caption like 'look at x in their big girl/boy car seat, so grown up'. Baffling. It's as though they think their child is so advanced they couldn't possibly be expected to be rear facing!

littlebearpad this is one of the most irritating things I've ever seen. Drives me crazy. I hate how parents are so desperate for their babies to 'grow up'. I want mine to stay little lol and I certainly wouldn't compromise their safety because I wanted them to move onto the next stage just for the sake of it.

Dd1 is three and still rearward facing which I get constantly slated for but its proven to be safer. Most of my friends did the whole turning their babies around the moment they hit 9 months. I also never turned dd1 round to face forward in the pram because she liked facing me to talk to me. Again I got slated as apparently 1 was 'too old' to be facing me and she would 'get bored'.

Oh god yes, people and their advanced babies. My daughter is 14 months and the amount of people I met bragging about their 3 month old sleeping in their own room and moving to a forward facing car seat because their baby is so grown up and advanced. I just can't see the hurry.

yy, see also potty training.

My child is so advance because they are potty trained have an anxious mother behind them with a potty in a desperate attempt to catch the child before they pee on the floor by two years old.

No nappies at night either but they have to wash the bedding everyday

So clever!

Micah - I don't see that with potty training. For us it was more ' they will be trained by 18 months as I can't be arsed washing and changing nappies any longer'

But very few children are actually 'ready' at 18 months in my experience. How long before they were dry?

Mine were dry between 2.5 and 3. The amount of people that asked me if I was potty training yet, going on to say little jonny was so clever he was dry day and night by 2. Usually as little jonny pissed all over the floor.

I got so fed up with the comments I actually searched the literature to see if anyone had a) done the research and b) correlated early toilet training with intelligence. They have, and there was no link.

Art- if yours were out of nappies by 18m then it's unlikely you'll get any smug competitive parenting comments about it. Not many would be able to boast theirs were dry before that.

God yes. Nothing is safe from parental boasting/random association with future genius. Including, but not limited to:

• starting solids
• sitting up
• sleeping through
• walking
• car seats
• giving up the buggy
• potty training
• being dry at night.
• variety of foods eaten.

Thankfully it tails off when they start school and it becomes clear that across all 30 of them there isn't anyone who is a dead cert for a Nobel prize...

Most are ready before tbh. Why were almost all babies in UK 50 years ago dry early? And now in most of the non westernise world

I started mine sitting on the toilet at every nappy change from around 6/7 months so they got used to it gradually as a natural place to go. Ds1 was fully dry by 14 months, ds2 by 16/17 months. Both pooed 99% in toilet only by 8/9months.

Really, I know people choose to train later in the UK, and I couldn't care less what they do. But most children would be dry earlier if a gradual approach from tiny is taken. It's almost a soft version of elimination communication ( people who use no nappies), but allows you to use nappies but also giving child once they can sit every opportunity to use toilet. Most people never ever sit a young child/ baby on the toilet, and then at 2 years expect said child to start training, of course it's going to be hard then as they have spent 2 years being encouraged to use a nappy so they have to change habit.

Artandco, did you use any kind of childcare setting when doing this process with your children?

Whatever, Art. If it works for you, fine.

But don't tell me your child is more intelligent than mine because I took the leave it till they were later approach. That's all I'm saying. Not that my way is right, or yours is wrong, just that it's no reflection on intelligence.

Train them early, but don't say to anyone who doesn't that your child is "so clever" for getting there first.

To each their own. My dd was dry within 3 days at 2.5. She had been sitting on the potty sporadically since around 15 months so I agree toilet training is a gradual thing. However she was in nursery full time from 9 months so not really an option to dangle her over the toilet every time she got her nappy changed. She was aware of doing poos from an early age and so was given the opportunity to use the potty when she wanted.
I found toilet training her really easy as she was the one who decided she didn't want to wear nappies anymore. We had minimal accidents and I didn't find it stressful at all and neither did she.
I'm not criticising your method but it certainly wouldn't work for me. I have an 8 month old now too and can't imagine starting that just now.

Culture - no as I worked from home at this age. However surely everyone changing baby bum in a bathroom anyway ( and we needed to with reusables) so it only is a case of moving child from mat to toilet for a few mins. An older child at nursery would need to be taken to toilet so no different.

Micah - I never said they were intelligent, I said many children would be trained younger if started younger. Surely you understand that. A 6 month old until 2 years would have 18 months to learn the process, compared to a 2 year old who only started day before, who of course would have no idea. You can't expect any child to know how to do something without time and practice.

You could say the same for riding a bike, a 4 year old who had been practicing since 2 will probably be racing around confident without stabilisers , a 4 year old who had never been on a bike would be struggling to even peddle

I know you didn't! I simply said I'd met people who seemed to think their child was clever for potty training early, in the spirit of the thread. I didn't say it wasn't possible- it's you who started that discussion.

I don't change my baby in the bathroom there's no space. I change her on a mat in her room on the changing table.

And my dd wasn't taken to the toilet at nursery at 10 months

Never changed my baby in the bathroom! They have changing tables in their bedrooms (I have 2 under 2, both in nappies).

At the nursery my DS goes to they have a baby changing area in the baby room, they wouldn't take a baby to the toilets. I doubt they'd change their structures to suit one parent. Also, my DS took 2 days to toilet train at 2.9 and has been reliable ever since. I'd rather that than 18 months of training!

Oh and I was potty trained by 17 months, I had a rash on my bum which stung and just refused to wear nappies any more apparently. I'm not particularly intelligent . I'm in no rush to train my nearly 2 year old.

"Why were almost all babies in UK 50 years ago dry early?"

I bet they weren't. They were out of nappies, but they had more "accidents". DD was dry at 2 years 8 months, and by that I mean she was properly dry and accident free. She was dry at night a month later. I started trying to potty train DD from about 18 months, but she simply was not ready.

MIL keeps telling me that SIL was out of nappies at 13 months - but she kept wetting a her knickers for a long time afterwards.

I think also, that the incentive to get babies out of nappies was greater because there were a) no disposables and b) most mothers were SAHMs.

And when DD was a baby I changed her nappy on a changing mat in the front room because it was near all the medical equipment that she required.