Start weaning at 4 months

[NishaaS123]

My baby has reflux and is a hungry baby if I feed him a little extra milk because he's hungry he brings it all out! He's always hungry and now when he sees me eating he will open his mouth and I put a clean spoon near his mouth he opens and starts to lick his lips so I am thinking of starting porridge for him next week when he turns 4 months what age did you guys start weaning? Anyone else srared at 4 months? Any recommendations?

hes always hungry poor baby he cries alot after his milk

Babies don’t cry only when they are hungry. One of my DC had reflux and colic and she’d cry after her feed but it was because she was in pain from the reflux. Not because she was still hungry.

when he sees me eating he will open his mouth and I put a clean spoon near his mouth he opens and starts to lick his lips

He’s just mimicking you. It’s got no relation to being hungry or physically ready to eat solids.

Retired doctor here. I weaned my DDs at 8 weeks and 9 weeks respectively- solids were started much earlier in those days, and we saw far fewer food allergies (peanut allergy was almost unheard of, peanut butter was v popular with babies!)
My DDs are now in their thirties, both healthy, normal weight/height, no digestive issues.
I’d say go ahead and see how you get on, OP. It may or may not help with the reflux, but you can experiment with different foods and see.

My (nearly 7mo) baby is obsessed with watching people eat and loves nothing more than a spoon... unless you put food on it, in which case he'll fling it away in disgust. If your baby is showing all the physical signs of readiness then it's up to you if you choose to start weaning but these traits aren't indicators of readiness, or necessarily a guide to whether your baby will get on well with starting food.

I weaned my first at 17 weeks. My instinct told me she wasn't ready but I was heavily encouraged by the health visitor to do so. When I look at the signs of being ready to wean she showed none of them, she had tongue thrust, couldn't support her own head for long and couldn't pick up any food to eat.
She's almost 21 and has suffered with IBS for years. There's no way to know if the early weaning played a part but I can't help but feel maybe it did.
I didn't wean my subsequent three children until well over 6 months.

Have you tried pace feeding for the reflux? Apparently a lot of reflux in formula fed babies is down to over feeding.

@twobrews

I weaned my first at 17 weeks. My instinct told me she wasn't ready but I was heavily encouraged by the health visitor to do so. When I look at the signs of being ready to wean she showed none of them, she had tongue thrust, couldn't support her own head for long and couldn't pick up any food to eat. She's almost 21 and has suffered with IBS for years. There's no way to know if the early weaning played a part but I can't help but feel maybe it did. I didn't wean my subsequent three children until well over 6 months.

Have you tried pace feeding for the reflux? Apparently a lot of reflux in formula fed babies is down to over feeding.

The link between Early weaning and adult gut and immune health is a huge reason behind the advice. In India doctors are trying to stop early weaning altogether (it’s often customary) because inflamatory conditions do result.

I started weaning my second child at around 4 months (17 weeks, whatever) because the research is strong that it reduces risk of allergy and we have severe food allergy in the family. Every doctor I spoke to professionally (and personally, family, friends) suggested that it’s what they would do having seen the results of the LEAP and EAT studies. Basically anywhere between 17 weeks and 6months is absolutely fine. Depends on what works for you and your baby, I know some parents are 100% against purees so obviously you’d have to wait in that instance. But if you’re happy staring with puréed food and your baby can mange it there really isn’t anything to get worked up about. We have a food allergy epidemic in the U.K. and it’s a really shit thing to have to live with so anything that reduces the chance of it happening is worth a shot imo.

The hysteria found on MN about weaning at 6 months and only 6 months is ridiculous imo. If people actually read any research into I suspect they would be a bit more relaxed about it.

OP im here if you want any questions answered about weaning before 6 months.

@Babdoc by prefacing your message with the fact that you're a retired doctor, it's almost like you're giving it medical weight or gravitas. The content of your post is in direct contravention of modern advice and could even be quite dangerous. It's good to be careful about how you qualify your advice. The more pertinent qualification is that you weaned your dc 30+ years ago.