Should I stop weaning?

[Pernod]

Hi - don't really know what to do for best (even though this concerns no.3!!).
My dd3 is now 19 weeks old, 3 weeks ago I got her weighed & she'd dropped from the 99th to the 55th centile, she was fully bf, my hv said I should start weaning her onto solids, especially as she had begun to wake again in the night. I started her on one meal a day and slowly incresed this to 2, she was not very keen at all & it didn't help her sleep any better at night. I got her weighed again last week and she has increased slightly on the centile chart but the hv recommended I increased her solids to 3 meals a day!

Last week she had a tooth come through and yesterday a second one, I'm starting to think that her fist chewing and waking up at nights is now down to her teething rather than needing solids. I've just tried feeding her again tonight but she doesn't want to know!

Should I stop???

Current advice is 26 weeks, you can't give her anything better than b/milk and it will be enough until she is 6m or so. I fed a huge baby until 7m on bm alone and it was fine. Teething and growth spurts are not solved by giving them solids. Unfortunately HVs are not very up to date on this but this really is the best advice at the moment. Try Calpol for teething and go back to the food in a bit.

Btw ds was on the 98th centile when he was born and then dropped back down. It is just what they do - they average out. Also, your hv will be using a chart designed for formula fed babies which will suggest that your baby is smaller than it really is as there are different growth rates for formula and breast fed babies.

Thanks for that Beansprout, I'm going to stop the solids for a while, don't want her to get a food phobia!
Also forgot to mention that she's constipated which I think the solids have caused - any ideas??

I think if you go back to just bfing, the poop will work its way out and she'll stop being constipated.

Pernod, I did the same thing with weaning (i.e. started because dd was waking at night etc.), but stopped as soon as I realised my dd was teething, rather than waking through hunger. In fact, we stopped and started several times as she kept getting colds and refusing food. We finally got going properly at about 7 months I suppose.