Couldn't believe this one - weaning a 7 DAY old baby!

[sweetkitty]

Have to tell someone about this one. At M&T's today and got talking to one of the other mum's who had a DD who was very premature anyway I said "what age is she now" she says 6 months so I'm like have you started solids yet? Oh yes she says, she was out hospital and was 7 days past her due date when I started her on solids. I was speechless. She went on to say that she was at hospital with the baby last night and they were asking her about milk intake and she sais she was getting 3 meals a day and they were like but she's only 3 months old corrected weight but the woman said but she is actually 6 months old so she's getting solids. She said the hospital were stupid and knew nothing and that her DD was ready for solids. She said she had weaned her other 2 early as they had milk allergies!

Another friend then went on to say that the baby has breathing problems yet the Mum smokes in the house in front of her so it doesn't surprise me.

Felt a bit when she asked when I had weaned DD2 and I said 6 months, DD2 is a big lump compared to this tiny wee thing.

Watch it ladies...you'll be villified for being "nasty netters", or terribly misquoted on other threads for your "extreme" views

Oh, piss off, VVV

How DARE you tell me to "fuck off"

[innocent]

I'm confused by the OP though - was the baby 7 days old, or 7 days past the due date? In which case, what are the guidelines for prem babies? Do you go by due dates or birth dates? I wonder if it is a bit different - maybe the gut matures earlier because it is digesting milk earlier. Just wondering!

A freind of mine was giving baby rice at 6 weeks. She implied I was the nutter for leaving DD till she was 6 months.

My mum told me that her mum (my gran) gave her fried mince and onions with a sprinkle of salt at 8 weeks. Apparently gran tried that with me, but my mum screamed at her LOL

I was weaned at 9 weeks apparently, on bone and vegetable broth!

Not exactly weaning, but I caught one of my single cousins trying to feed a bit of cake icing to my other cousin's 2m old! She couldn't understand why I was so mean as not sharing at least part of DS's birthday cake with the baby!

daisynut - "I know someone who did at 12 weeks - was on 3 meals come 14 weeks apparently mum didn't want to get baby into the habit of having milk in the evening so thought solids would fix the prob of baby waking up"

Yep, this was me, although I started weaning ds at 14 weeks because he was hungry and tbh there was no great emphasis at the time about not weaning before 6 months (same with dd) maybe the mother had an older one and was just doing the same as she had done for the older one. Maybe have a think before you start with the judgemental comments

Oh and my children are happy and healthy and amazingly have escaped kidney damamge

i met someone who said they'd started giving their child solids at a few weeks old, because they wanted milk every couple of hours, so must have been hungry! I didn't say anything about the fact that newborns are meant to want feeding every 2 hrs anyway!

From Bliss website

*Weaning

When to start
We recommend weaning between 4-7 months from the baby's date of birth, for the following reasons:

Babies begin to be able to make some early 'chewing movements' from around 4 months. (If this happens much earlier and baby seems distressed, check these symptoms with your doctor.)

It is important for the development of the mouth and jaw muscles that babies start solids around the time that these chewing movements start.

At around 4-7 months babies are usually willing to take new flavours. As they grow older, they may become suspicious of new foods which can take longer to be accepted.

If a baby is used to a spoon and semi-solids by 7 months, the introduction of lumps later may be easier.*

So perhaps the mum was right about weaning ??

Heres the link

bliss weaning

dd2 was given a bottle of coke at 2months old. not by me! i left her unattended in another room with someone elses child who had a bottle of coke for two minutes to get something (another thread really about coke in baby bottles) came back and she was guzzling a bottle of coke down!

i was and almost cried. i think my cries of 'NOOOOOOOOOO' could be heard throughout the region.

i would go spare misdee!

my ds was born at 33 weeks and I was advised to wean him at his actual age rather than his corrected age as his stomach had been digesting food from a couple of days old (he was on a glucose drip to start with)
ds wasn't actually ready when I first tried though

I should say though not entirely sure that it would be the same for a baby born 3 months early though and other mums I spoke to were told different things

oops this had moved on since my OP

sorry for the confusion the baby was on solids 7 days after she would have been born but her actual age from her birthday was about 3 months, she was very poorly when born and was in hospital for a good few months after birth.

I was really shocked as all the health professions told her mother not to wean her early but the mother went ahead anyway.

Saw another 11 week old baby being spooned food today, she can hardly hold her head up.

(I was a 29 week premmie and apparently I was being fed potatoes and mince at 6 weeks old).

lol @ bone broth

my poor cousin has no mind of her own

she didnt bf cos it was drummed into her by her mother that it was "disgusting" and her mother even bought her v tight bras to wear to keep the "bothersome" milk at bay

then she weaned her babies at 6 weeks on ambrosia rice pudding and chocolate yogurts

and she wonders why they are overweight and asthmatic and have excema

i feel for her i really do

mine were premature and the advice then was to use the actual date of birth not the expected date for weaning

I began weaning ds1 in 1975 at 6wks old (no, actually, SIL began weaning him, I was staying with her while dh was away) By the time he was six mths he was on three meals a day and drank boiled cows milk from a cup. Apart from the 6wk bit (10 or 12 w3ks was more usual) all the rest was text book Health Visitor instructions.

Luckily ds doesn't seem to have suffered any long term ill-effects but I later realised it was just as well the HV resigned to go and raise horses in Suffolk.

Re the bliss guidelines posted earlier on the thread...."It is important for the development of the mouth and jaw muscles that babies start solids around the time that these chewing movements start."

I was under the impression that this "window of opportunity" theory has been discounted...surely bliss should be aware of this & change their guidelines accordingly...or is there a special reason why prem babies have a "window of opportunity"

ds 1 was premature and in with some very early babies who were weanded on to solids before they left SCBU. I was told it was something to do with their development of the next stage of their digestion since they had already been having milk for a number of months due to their early arrival.
ds1 was 16 weeks non corrected when we were told by a paed at his check to move him on to solids.

same thing happened with my neighbour. They brought the baby home from hospital, a week later the mum was admitted to a psych hospital with severe PND, leaving the dad and the baby alone, so he called his mum to stay and she promptly started the baby on mashed potato (if smash counts!!) and bisto gravy, served to him off an old saucer out of the cupboard and a teaspoon straight out of the drawer.

My mum kept telling me to break a rusk up into dds bottle when she wasn't sleeping

Another mum at my ds's school started her baby on solids early, and I don't mean just a bit of baby rice-she was shoving as many jars of baby food down him as she could get because she said he wasn't sleeping!!

i do think we should remember that the 6 month thing is a "guideline" not a rule and alot of people on mumsnet give advice about acting on instincts about your own baby .Maybe for some babies 6 months is too long to wait , after all we are all individuals. for what its worth my dd1 was born at 34 weeks and was on solids very happily at 14 weeks( mainly because she was refusing milk and losing wieght . offered a custard or rice meal she woolfed it down and began gaining weight) which was actually 8 weeks by corrected age and nobody batted an eyelid - she has some how amazingly survived to the age of 7 with no lasting health damage

oh i had this too, a friend came over a short while ago with her new dd. she was born just 2 days after i had ds2, but she was 5 weeks early!

so when she came over they were about 6 or 7 weeks (baby was only 2 weeks past her actual due date, so if she'd been 2 weeks late she would have been 2 days old!).. -friend 'have you started solids yet?' -me (puzzled face) 'no, he's only a few weeks old' -friend 'i have, i got bored with bottles!'

apparently hv told her off for this

i also said a few things!