21 week old is TINY will weaning make her worse?!

[Tornupinside]

Hello,

I'm not sure if the should be posted in infant feeding but we are becoming close to the weaning age now and I have my questions and concerns.

I'm confident that I would like to go down the BLW route, DD is currently showing no signs of being ready so there's no rush but I like to be organised!

So first on all, my DD is a tiny little shrimp! She has only just outgrown her up to 3 months sleep suits due to length but the vests still have lots of room for her. She's not that interested in milk either. She's fully breast fed and over the course of 24 hours she feeds around 8 times and for no more than 5-7 minutes at a time. She's usually awake from 7 and doesn't go to sleep at night until around 9 and had roughly 1.5 hours of total naps during the day.

She's a very happy little girl, she's been rolling since 18 weeks and you can never fail to get a smile out of her.

My concern is this- will weaning her from 6 months just fill her up on even less calories when she really needs her main source of nutrition to be milk? I don't want her to drop any milk feeds as the milk is more calorific than the food but obviously, she will need to start trying food soon?

My questions are- does 'sitting up' mean sitting entirely unaided, as in with nothing supporting the back, or does it mean sitting well in a high chair? Currently DD just falls to the side

Also why is it bad to wait until after 26 weeks? Is that just in the case for babies with potential allergies? Or for all babies? please could somebody explain this to me as I'm unsure whether it just means that a baby whose parents are gluten intolerant for eg should try gluten before 26 weeks in order to reduce the risk of allergies? Or have I entirely got the wrong end of the stick? Me and her dad do not have any food allergies.

Many thanks in advance for your responses!

If you're going to do BLW (as in no spoon feeding) then she's highly unlikely to fill up with solids at the expense of milk. She'll need to get the hang of picking up and chewing food, so to begin with not a huge amount will go in. Plus you should prioritise milk feeds, so offer solid food around an hour after a milk feed. Milk feeds won't drop for a good while if you don't actively try and drop them.

Also, if you wean at 26 weeks ish then you can give a wide variety of food, not just plain fruit and veg. (Avoid honey till 12 months, and avoid obvious choking hazards like whole nuts, and whole grapes).

"Sitting up" means being able to sit in a high chair with some support without slumping forwards or sideways. So, when we started weaning, we used the Antilop ikea chair which comes with a blow up cushion that tucked in behind and around the sides. My DS could sit with that support without slumping, for easily the duration of a meal.

I'm not sure what you're asking regarding allergies tbh. But if you've no close family history of any allergies then you don't need to worry about it. Weaning should happen at around 26 weeks, doesn't have to be exactly on the dot. There's no issue at all with waiting for a week or two past 6 months if you feel your DD isn't physically ready.

weaning is supposed to be on top of the milk at the beginning.

I have 2 small children (both 2 centile). At 8 months old dd2 is only just growing out of 0-3 month baby grows.

Weaning never made a difference to their growth / centile lines. And both moved quite quickly to 3 good meals and dropped milk feeds. Dd2 now down to 3 good meals and 3 breast feeds a day. Dropping milk has been driven by her - not asking and refusing when offered (in day - been pleased some night feeds have finally dropped!)

With meals amount eaten varies daily but see a general increase and I up what is offered in main part of meal a little every 5-7 days.

They change so fast so you will see big difference over next 4-5 weeks so hopefully she'll seem more ready.

I think aim is to start at 26 weeks but each baby will take to it at their own pace.

I second recommendation for antilop from ikea and cushion. Dd struggles with most high chairs due to her size so the cushion is used when we're out for a meal too.

You might find the opposite to be true, she might start gaining weight faster. If she is a very alert baby, she might have trouble concentrating during feeds, which might be the reason she only feeds for a few minutes.
Make sure you give her food that has a high calorie content. Milk has around 70 kcal per 100 ml with 3 g of fat, so aim for that by adding some oil, butter or cream to whatever you're offering. Buttered toast is a good idea for example. Stear clear from low-calorie foods like rice cakes etc.

This is my story and won't hold for anyone else, no research can account for all factors not can it predict outcomes for any one individual.

I have three small children who have varying degrees of inability to absorb nutrients, intolerances and allergies. In hindsight, there were clues in our family history but these were not glaringly obvious.

For us, late introduction and looking at the whole picture has been critical. My youngest was far from a happy baby, had eczema and was very dribble and snotty, he grew significantly after we investigated and found gut issues but still has lots of intolerances and some allergies. While reintroduction seems to allow his tolerance to that food to increase, we see reduced tolerance to other things and a gradual disimprovement in overall immune system reactions, energy levels, ability to absorb nutrients and behavioural issues.

Risk factors to allergies / intolerances include slow growth, frequent infections of any kind, antibiotics either in the child or the mother, Caesarian birth, family history of eczema, asthma, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, mental illness including depression, but again, they are only factors.

My middle child was happy healthy, good sleeper but on the lower centiles. She avoided milk, yogart but ate cheese, it turns out this was the right thing for her to do. My eldest loved those foods but it turns out they do him harm, the longer we stay off them, the more intense his reactions. Even within our family, nothing is predictable.

The average gut matures around 6 months, the research in the area of gut health is constantly being updated. (See Ted talk on the American Gut Microbiome, it's fascinating!). Food before the age of 1 is less important than breastmilk assuming not allergies / intolerances to foods being passed through the breastmilk. I wish I had excluded more than I did but there are others who believe early introduction is better.