Should I wean early?

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DC is four months. She feeds all day at 2 hourly intervals. I am excl. BF and feed on demand. She always feeds for at least 20 mins so I am confident I am not misreading her cues. She is just a hungry girl! She sleeps ok, but wakes frequently between 12 and 6 (as expected!) She also still cluster feeds from 5 to 8pm.

She is quite interested in watching us eat and will reach for thing i.e. all the right signs are there.

She is also 6.5 kg now so not a small baby by any means.

Do you think I should wean a little early and see how she goes, or should I leave it till 6 months?

(I weaned my first early as he was drinking to much (under peads advice) so was wondering if she was the same?)

HAs anyone done this?

No, you shouldn't.

My ds2 was 6.5kg at 8 weeks btw, and I wouldn't have weaned him then!

If there's no medical reason to, then save yourself the hassle for a while. There's no great reason to hurry, and if you wait until she's older you can offer a wider variety of tastes, textures, types of food and means of weaning. And nappies won't be stinky for a while!

Do what you feel is right, you will know when is the right time. Just because someone else didn't at that stage it doesn't mean it isn't right for your child.

All babies are different and if you feel it is right for yours then do it. You can always take it slow.

No

The NHS guidelines say that if your baby is sitting up well without support, and able to pick up and taste finger foods before 6 months then you should encourage them to do so - those are the signs of readiness. Otherwise you should wait till 6 months (which the WHO defines as 180 days - the NHS recommendations are based on the WHO ones).

There is a common growth/developmental spurt at 4 months (see here and here , which means babies need more milk. Introducing things like fruit & veg mush will fill her up but with fewer calories, which will be counterproductive.

no, you shouldn't

there are possible risks to weaning early
there are no risks from waiting

babies do feed frequently, it's what they're supposed to do. 4 months is also classic growth spurt age... they have a big one at 16 weeks
if she needs more calories then she needs more milk, as it has a higher calorific and fat content than any first weaning food

fwiw all of mine have fed 2 hourly for a LOT longer than 4 months lol

No. It's a pain in the ass. Leave as long as possible.

Once you've weaned:
Your baby will never be clean again.
Your house will never be clean again.
You will never be clean again.

Also for the nutritional / developmental reasons cited above.

My son NEVER went two hours between BF and he BF til 18 months! TBH the whole 1-16 weeks was one long non-stop BF with occasional sleeps.

Nope.

Four month old babies develop ravenous hunger. There are fewer calories in food than breastmilk. So her calorific intake could go down if you try to substitute bfs for solids.

If your baby develops allergies etc later on you will forever wonder if it was because you weaned early.

DS was feeding like that between 4 and 6 months (at least every 2 hours). And he's big (99.6th percentile). So I hear ya.

But I waited until 6 months as DH and I have zillions of allergies (nuts, fish, eczema, hayfever, asthma) between us. So the risk of weaning early for us outweighed the exhaustion of exclusively BF so regularly until 6 months.

So I'd advise waiting. But I can't speak without my allergy hat on, so probably not the best person to help.

perhaps see how you go over the next few weeks? As others have said, milk is more calorific than early solids. Clearly, that's why my DS is such a porker

Yup wait. Your baby is normal. They watch you do everything (drive cars, use knives etc), they're just interested.

Sitting up unaided, able to reach, use a pincer grip, bite, chew and swallow. Those are the things you're looking for.

Instinct can't tell you a baby's gut has matured. Instinct can tell you your baby is hungry. Milk is where the calories are for now and up until 12 months actually but from 6 months you can introduce solids alongside this.

DD fed hourly from 4-6 months unless we were out of the house. I didn't wean early. She didn't starve.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf you are so right about the not being clean any more!

I think the pincer grip often develops later around 8/9 months (my BLW 8 m.o. doesn't have it yet but has been feeding himself finger foods since 6 months). But SOH is right - DS has always been utterly enraptured by me putting on deodorant and would really like to have some himself, but I've never taken that as a cue to let him start using it.

believe me, it is soooooooo much easier to keep on breastfeeding than weaning onto solids. altho i started my dd2 on solids at 6 months, she really wasn't remotely interested in food until 6.5 months. at 7 months now, she eats a bit more, but still mainly plays with food and fills up with breastmilk and up to 3x a night, that is normal. i sometimes wish i could just breastfeed and forget the food altogether- cleaner, quicker, easier. i say wait a bit longer.

I am thinking the same except DS2 is 5 months, also EBF on demand, also feeding very often.

Bearing in mind I am planning to introduce daytime formula anyway at 6 months when I go back to work, do you think better to introduce a bottle of formula a day in the meantime so I can get some sleep at night?

ie is it better for him to have early weaning on non allergenic foods like babyrice / carrots / apples or alternatively a bedtime bottle.

My wee boy is 15weeks & vvvery hungry but like most I will continue until he's six months as I have asthma / hayfever etc & worried that is he is weaned too early he too is at risk of having any of these. Glad hes a grubber mind you :) like mummy like baby hehe..

I can only share my expeience, My LO has silent reflux.I took her to a consultant (pead) gastro enterologist this week and also a dietician.
Both said to start letting her have some food as she is now 18 weeks, and SOO interested in food its not real.
They said the 6 month guideline is WORLDWIDE and thus primarily because of areas where there is not clean water, and so Breast milk is the only truly safe from of nutrition. They were baiscially of the oppinion that if the child is not ready, it won't eat, which seems fair enough. They just told me to introduce solids in addition to the milk feeds which I am doing.
She wont entertain me feeding her but is pretty good with a spoon herself (for the baby rice, but she doesn't seem that enamoured with eating it) and managing well with sticks of veg, rice cakes etc, which does seem to be eating, judging by the nappies.
Each to their own. Follow your gut feeling.
(Please don't shoot me down for not following the guidelines!)

I'm not shooting you down but this is what I understand...

The 6 month rough guideline is worldwide and also includes areas where there is clean water and plenty of safe food to eat. 6 months is based on an evolving body of research relating to physiological readiness. WHO does not do one size fits all guidelines in other areas - why would it, in this instance?

Weaning because of reflux and on a paediatrician's advice is totally unrelated to the general guidelines and would not apply to all babies.

The risks of weaning post 17 weeks for many babies are small (and I believe that allergy is not one of them except in specific instances) but there are no benefits.

is it really true to say that there are no possible benefits at all to weaning between 4-6 months? surely the benefits would potentially be a more settled baby (in some cases) and a mum who is less exhausted/drained?

although not right for everyone, anecdotally there are many mothers who seem to find that their babies have responded well to weaning at this age. i don't think the experiences of all of those mothers should be completely discounted. also, there does seem to be conflicting evidence about the potential risks? i think some experts have argued that the risks may have been inflated in some studies, and that the evidence is not actually that strong re allergies etc.

theslumbertaker, see the position statement of the British Dietetic Associations Peadiatric group here: www.bda.uk.com/publications/statements/PositionStatementWeaning.pdf

In summery they conclude that there is no reason not to begin weaning babies between the ages of 4-6 months but not before 17 weeks. They believe that on review of the evidence the previously postulated allergy risks do not stand up to scrutiny.
The American Dietetic Association has a similar position eatright.org.

The WHO's 6 month guideline was based both on the above mentioned allergy studies and on the basis that babies will be breastfed. They were concerned that a breastfed baby weaned at 4 months may drop their milk consumption and thus threaten the mothers supply.

I don't think there's any harm in giving baby sticks of cooked carrot or broccoli. Likelihood is she'll just play with it and mush it up and none will actually get eaten anyway.

BLW follows the idea that 'ability to ingest = ability to digest' SO if she's not ready for solids (likely) she won't actually be able to eat any yet.

When DS was 4 months we would give him some bits of cooked veg to keep him occupied while we tried to eat. He didn't start actually eating solids till just shy of 6 months.

Would say don't spoon mush into her because it's unlikely she's really ready for solid food yet.

I weaned my baby at five months and we were both so much happier - she was not hungry and tired all the time, we could go out and about like we were before without her screaming for milk,and she slept through the night again.

I was still happily breastfeeding, but not every two hours, and my sanity was restored by sleep.
And weaning wasn't particularly difficult, and the house and baby were still cleant.
My health visitor and doctor were both happy with the decision. So was I!

And there's no research to prove that "ability to ingest = ability to digest"! Some babies are just better at co-ordination at others, it doesn't necessarily mean that their digestive system has developed any faster.

thanks sugarplumfairy, that is indeed interesting reading.

given that the potential risks of weaning after 17 weeks seem fairly minimal, it would be good to know if there has been much research into the potential benefits of weaning at this age. i don't have time to look into it right now, but i would think that as medical research obviously focuses on pathology, there wouldn't be very much about positive outcomes. this means that we don't have a very balanced view of the potential effects of weaning. i have read many times on here that 'weaning doesn't improve sleep, fussiness, etc', however what is the evidence for these arguments? because many people in rl seem to find that it does help.

i personally weaned dd1 at 5 months, and i'm contemplating weaning dd2 at the moment, between 4-5 months. i don't feel that the small potential risks of weaning now are sufficient to outweigh the potential benefits. i want my babies to be happy and contented, and i don't want to be an exhuasted and stressed mum. increasing milk feeds did not work for either of them, and they both showed many signs of readiness for food.