Would you wean early in 99th percentile?

[Meeting]

My baby is just over 4 months old and has been in the 99th percentile since birth. Do I still need to wait until 6 months to wean or could I start early? He's showing all the signs of readiness already.

If your child is on the 99th centile with what your doing now there doesn't seem to be a justification for early weaning.

I had big babies, breastfed exclusively and grew at a rate of knots. Baby one was introduced to solids at around 6 months but showed no interest until 2 YEARS! He was almost exclusively breastfed until 2.

When infants are ready to wean, they'll put food in their mouths!

Baby two was also exclusively breastfed but lunged forward at 5 months of age and took food off my plate. It was in his mouth before I could react! If they're interested

Both were later diagnosed with autism btw 😃

Irrelevant though as I was responding to a poster who said formula was less healthy than purées for her 5 month old

In very premature or very sick children, it can be the difference between their survival or not. That's why there's a hierarchy.

Breastfed children are shown, statistically, to get less infections and need less antibiotics.

Can we tell the difference 10, 15 years later. I don't know, what are we looking for, who is in the control group? There are so many variables in childhood outcomes that it's likely impossible to tell but the facts remain that "breast is best". As I said, formula is fine and breastfeeding your child doesn't make you mother superior. I know mothers who will tell you that they breastfed through bleeding nipples. The abuse they handed out to their children just a few years later utterly negated that.

I was formula fed, as was my husband. We both have university degrees, live productive lives and are fit and healthy in our 50's.

Very sensible answer.

You do realise my thread is nothing to do with BF Vs formula?

Why are you still posting about this? This isn’t a formula vs breast feeding thread. I was responding to someone saying formula was less healthy than purées, not that you bothered reading that.

Google it. It’s fact that formula is less healthy

I think we started my walloper on baby porridge/banana at around 4 months, under my mum's advice. She was horribly constipated as a recall....but i may have misremembered the timing.

I googled it, it didn’t state that formula was less healthy than purées for a 5 month old, feel free to link.

A baby who is thriving on milk feeds so why would you move to solids unless you want them to thrive less?

My mistake. I completely read that as formula less healthy than breast milk. That shows me to be more careful with skim reading - apologies

Not unless a specialist tells you to.

Not to say formula is less healthy or anything like that but the guidance in my country is that if a breastfed baby is hungrier than the breastmilk they are getting then they should be weaned on the earlier side of 4-6 months rather than introducing formula top ups.

Its the guidance in countries that follow evidence

I weaned my babies when I thought they were ready. That varied between 18 weeks and 22 weeks depending on the child’s interests. All bf until 18 months/2yrs.

All had excellent adventurous appetites and no allergies or digestive issues.

I started weaning mine at around 4 -5 months (in a small way) because they started taking an interest and were getting hungrier. They were still mainly breast fed. It was a very gradual shift towards solids so I'm not sure why people are saying it is hard work or a faff. It isn't as you have to start serving them a 3 course meal 3 times a day.

Yeah they're only supposed to have small tastes after milk feeds to begin with, not meals and not replacing milk feeds.

Weaning at 6 months is when the baby's organs are ready for food, that's what the HV told me years ago. Doing it early isn't a good idea for any reason, babies aren't ready for it yet.

Your hv was going on the information at the time, now we know more and know that weaning between 4 and 6 months can reduce allergies, and that waiting until 6 months increases the risk of anaemia in breastfed babies.

I don’t understand what weight has to do with it.
Breast milk / formula are both very calorie dense. Unless you’re planning on weaning onto double cream I don’t see how filling their tummy with veg purée is going to help?
That sounds more like a diet than anything.