Four signs of weaning readiness

[ag123]

I have heard, and read on a post on here earlier in fact that instead of advising that all babies are ready to wean at 6 months that they are instead referring to the 4 signs of readiness. I was just wondering if someone could clarify what these are..?

Hmmm, not heard of the four signs, but the NHS recommend that a baby should be be able to sit up by themselves, have the coordination to get food to their mouth themself and be able to swallow the food.

So stick some finger food in front of them and let them get on with it kind of thing!!! Although I think that if babies are premature the rules are different as they have lower stores of vitamins and are behind in their development so they tend to need to be weaned earlier.

The nhs site here also lists things that are not signs of readiness, like watching people eat and chewing fists

Yes I thought the sitting and hand to mouth coordination must be 2 of them but I didn't know what the others would be...

I think one is the tongue pushing reflex - they lose that around 6mo I think? Basically before then, they push anything you put in their mouths out with their tongue.

So in your opinions, if your LO' was displaying the four signs before 26 weeks, are they equally ready?

Yes ag123. Nothing magical happens at 26 weeks. It's just around that time, most babies are ready.

Yes, a bit before 6 months if they show the signs. We weaned ds at 5.5 months as he showed the signs. Straight to finger foods, some mashed food. If you follow the BLW approach strictly then Rapley says wait until 6 months.

Agree teeth have nothing to do with it though - ds still doesn't have teeth at 13 months.

www.nhs.uk/start4life/pages/babies-introducing-solid-food.aspx

I also second this link. Great advice.

you're supposed to wait until 6 months because you can't see what's inside their gut.

if they're showing signs before 6 months, then why notwait until then?

dd is 25 weeks, and we sat her down for a couple of pieces of veg today. (she stole a piece of my pizza this week)
of course, she hasn't eaten any of it, just played around with it.
then decided she was hungry and cried for her usual.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/Pages/solid-foods-weaning.aspx

This all makes me very confused, back in my home country babies are given mashed food from 4 months onwards. My niece is now 7 months old and eats nearly everything.

We started weaning DD at 6months once she could sit up straight, hand to mouth co ordination, waking more again in the nights for feeds

She's been eating proper food for 2 weeks and eats everything so not convinced starting any earlier would have a different effect

Also I am lazy and wanted to put it off as long as possible...

If you introduce food before six months then most of the time it passes through the baby completely undiagested. Virtually all the children in my son's class had food at four months and the majority of them do not have allergeries.

DD started weaning at 24 weeks, she grabbed some curry off my plate and decided it was was time to wean. The great thing about starting weaning late is that they can eat proper food almost straight away.

Will 24 weeks old. Weaning began 'properly' 3 weeks ago. He lost the tongue thrust at 16 weeks (gave him baby rice for medical reasons and supported by medical professionals - I never mentioned this before in other posts because some people on MN are not open minded about it). He can sit in some high chairs with a harness, it depends on the style but I sit him in his bouncer and he never has a problem. We started off with fruit and veg purees at lunchtime and this week introduced 'tea'.
It depends on where we are and what we're doing as to how we feed Will. Sometimes we spoon feed him, give him food using a food mesh (which I have found works brilliantly for Will) and when we have a roast dinner, I put food on his high chair plate (minus meat at the moment) and he was very excited about it. Mainly played with it but he knows what to do with it (eat it!) and has very good chewing actions. Yorkshire pudding was a firm favourite. A little concerned because it is made with flour but he devoured half of it and has been fine since!

Very recently, I have noticed that he hates jars of food (4-6mth) and prefers home made (less fluid, more food!). I think it's because he prefers to chew and savour the taste! Today he is having beef stew with the food mesh for his meat and the rest on his tray. He has had Tesco rice cakes made with apple juice. It says from 7 mths but because he can chew and swallow, he's fine with them. I just make sure he is in front of me when he eats!

I couldn't remember when DD turned 26 weeks (she's my second) so went with her signs. There's no switch that goes off - some are ready earlier, some later. She's 6.5 months and her hand to mouth coordination is great (although she could get things in her mouth a lot earlier), she can sit now, no tongue thrust etc. it's easier to watch the baby than stress about when they're 26 weeks etc.

MiauMiau the WHO recommends milk only until 6 months, but sometimes health profs can be a bit slow on updating! (but this advice was around when I weaned dd2 7 years ago, so not that new).

Where I live (Italy) many oldfashioned peadiatricians still advise starting at 4 months for no particular reason. I just nod and smile and follow WHO guidelines

My son's consultant paediatrician said anytime between 4-6 months is fine when he saw him last week. He said the WHO guidance was aimed at developing countries and anytime from 17 weeks s fine in the UK. The only reason the NHS recommend 6 months is to encourage people to wait for as long as possible, in full knowledge that very, very few people get to 6 months. This consultant must be 40 max, so I don't reckon he is 'slow on updating'. I am in the UK.

My son is 23 weeks btw and hasn't had any solids yet, so no agenda here. I just don't understand why people are so militant on his thread about other people's choices. If they are weaning after 17 weeks they are extremely unlikely to be doing their DC any harm.

Penalty if that id directed at me, maybe I didn't makd myself clear but I wasn't being militant or judgy, MiauMiau said she was confused by what she was reading on this thread as this was not happening in her home country. I was just trying to explain why.

I cannot comment on your consultant, but IME, the peads I have met in Italy (who are the ones giving you info about this, we don't have hvs here),that wean at 4 months do it because that is what they have always done. I wasn't talking about the uk at all.

Even the advice of putting babies to sleep on their back has only been introduced in Italy relatively recently, just to give an example.

To add my two-penth and confuse the matter even more: I'm in sweden and the advice here is to start weaning from 4-6 months and start with baby porridge, which is baby rice in milk substitute from what I can figure out. Then bring in the veg purees, followed by meat, etc. after 6 months.