When to start weaning premature baby?

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Am getting confused about when I should be starting weaning DS.

DS is 24 weeks now, and was 6 weeks early, so has a corrected age of 18 weeks. I'm not sure whether to wait till he's 6 months corrected, or start weaning at 6 months from when he was born.

DH has started pushing for weaning, as DS has been demanding more frequent feeds recently, and is almost constantly sucking his fingers.
DS also brings rattles etc to his mouth and suck on them if we give them to him. He's still not doing much reaching out for them yet though.

However, DS still can't sit up - if I sit him up, he tends to slump and tilt over sideways.

We're also confused about purees vs BLW. I'm keen to try BLW, but Cow & Gate sent us a booklet about weaning which suggests BLW is dangerous. I'm a bit skeptical about believing this from Cow & Gate given the vast range of purees they sell, but DH thinks they must be right about purees as "everyone in the world weans babies on purees".

Do you have your NHS birth to 5 book? There is an excellent chapter on weaning in it. You can also find it online here and here. Why would your DH believe a word of what C&G says? Its a company selling you ready made baby food!

As for when to wean I think you need to talk to your paeds about it, as prems are different from full term babies.

Ds was 7 weeks prem and was weaned at 4 months actual, even though that was ridiculously early corrected. Consultant advised it as he had severe reflux and was struggling to put on weight. He couldn't sit up unaided until he was 10 months actual.

oh my goodness i would LOVE to see that leaflet, do you have it there? on what grounds do they think it's dangerous?

i did BLW with my first child, all was fine. then came dd2... seven weeks early. THANK god i knew i was going to go along the same lines with her, because otherwise i would have found it so confusing. anyway, in the end she split the difference and started eating at 5 months, sat in her ikea antilop highchair.

don't have a lot of time to post now, i wrote this a few weeks ago, take a look.
www.babyledweaning.com/2011/today-is-world-prematurity-awareness-day/

The C&G booklet says that smooth purees are much easier for babies to swallow safely without choking. They do mention the gag reflux, but it's still a bit scaremongery.
And in the FAQ section at the back of the booklet, they also say that many healthcare professionals agree that a mixture of pureed, well mashed & finger foods is the perfect introduction to solid foods.

C&G also say that if you give purees, you can see how much the baby is actually eating and be sure they're getting a varied diet. I'm not sure how that's really different with BLW? I mean, the baby's hardly going to be sneaking off to the fridge and stuffing his face behind my back, is he?

Thanks for the links - looking at the signs for readiness in the birth to 5 one, it looks like DS isn't quite ready. And he's putting on weight well with milk alone at the minute, even if he's wanting it more often!

We have a check-up with the consultant coming up in a few weeks, so it might be best to leave weaning until we see what the consultant thinks, or ask him if DS needs any supplements before we wean him.

Bliss has a useful guide called "Weaning your premature baby" which you can download here

There are different signs for readiness to wean in a prem baby and the leaflet details them (can't remember them off the top of my head now!)

My DS was 8 weeks early. I wanted to do BLW with him but he just did not have the coordination and had no interest in feeding himself so we did purees for a long time and it took a long time before he could cope with any lumps. He stuffs everything in now though!

Sorry that link doesn't seem to be working. If you go to Bliss's homepage and then click on the publications link at the top of the page you will find it.

being 'easier' to swallow isn't necessarily an imprimatur of all wondrousness, though... the way i looked at BLW was that they learned how to chew and spit out before they learned to swallow (over a matter of days, i might add), and i had no great interest in them learning how to swallow food that they couldn't really handle and was slipping down in much the same way as their milk.

Thanks for that Marrow, I'll have a look at the Bliss website and read up on their guidelines :)