It's not rocket science - "it may cause harm to wean early, it does no harm to leave it till 6m" - WHY do people still want to shovel baby rice in at 12 weeks (or earlier)?

[hunkermunker]

I have come up with some ideas as to why people wean early:

they have competitive baby syndrome and are annoyed someone else's baby rolled first, so they want to get theirs onto steak and chips via baby rice and one fruit or veg a week for months

Well, an idea. Any more?

singersgirl, food was scarce is the 1950s and 1960s and fir that matter the 1970s among the poor and the working classes. not everyone grew up in cosy little middle class land.

There you go again ignorantcrony

(This is a game anyone can play, right?)

Oh does that make me notorious? Fabulous.

I can start a clique with cod and have threads started purely just to "bash" me.

I truly have made it. Take note on the promotion wicked cronies...(whoever you are).

my head hurts

i need an application form too please

Message withdrawn

My friend has talked to me of that research, BB, and also there is a theory that it is linked to the MMR (gulp) in some children. but she nevertheless said she'd kill me if i weaned before 6 months as her docs were telling her in the 80s about the open gut stuff. as i've said before, it's risk management. no risk vs unknown risk... at least you'd always know you folowed the guidelines so you wouldn't have to second-guess yourself.
and to be fair, bb, you have a habit of talking v authoritatively about weaning, despite the fact that the other research thread demonstrated that you hadn't read as widely as one might expect...

That was a bit uncalled for, (Truly)IgnorantCrony. How do you know where I grew up or how much food we had or how my widowed mother fed 2 children?

The amount of food given to young infants is tiny, in any case. Food is still scarce for many people the world over, but I was flippantly suggesting that many British people had enough to eat in the 1960s. I still reckon that's true.

Danae, I think that might even be illegal!

That's about right bigbird2003, rational, lack of extremism

yep, apply to evilmotherbasher.com

There will never now be a randomised controlled study of early weaning.

Randomisation in a study can only be approved if there is no evidence that 1 option is more harmful than the other. The criteria for this are very very strict.

Each year there is more and more evidence that early weaning could be harmful to babies. The "weaning research" thread discusses some of that evidence.

On the other hand there's no evidence that weaning at 6 months harms babies - and WHO looked for that very carefully. (If you look on their website under infant feeding, you can read a comprehensive review of the evidence behind the 6 month guideline).

Can you see why no ethics committee on earth would allow researchers to deliberately wean babies before 6 months?

So why would a parent want to do this?

(started bashing thread if anyone is interested)

I have to go now or the sun will be up.

Carry on, I'll catch up in the morning.

Delightful ladies! Every one!

nightnight x

Trying to figure out WHY anybody does anything is a sure fire way to wind up crazy and/or an indulgent attempt to show the world that your way is better. Each to their own I say.

Message withdrawn

Well quite danae. There is no statistic to back that up either

Actually Aitch, There were just a few pieces I hadn't read, most I have/am

The pieces I really wanted to find were the closed gut/open gut theory and the food is fun.......and no one could find me any

My work is supporting parents in their parenting and weaning is tiny part of that. It is my interest now due to the further studies I am taking and I have chosen to focus on it. Last year it was the terrible twos, and adolescents before that

I don't believe anyones way is the 100% right way, I do believe there is no rush and guidelines are important though and people who put rice in a 6 week old bottle are wrong.

Oh god Danae we were visiting my uncle when dd1 was 14 months and I turned round and he was letting her drink wine out of his glass.

I couldn't look and decided just to pretend it hadn;t happend as we don't see them all that often.

Still makes me cringe though.

Oh, don't everyone go to bed, it's lunchtime here and dd2 has just gone to sleep!

I wanted to say also (to answer someone further down the thread) that looking retrospectively at weaning age and health is not a great idea because there's a big potential for bias.

Say you interview a group of 35 year olds and you ask them about health problems and you ask their mums what age they started solids.

There are a billion sources of bias just in that brief plan (which I'm happy to bore you with but it is, er quite boring!)

Enough to say, you could do that study very easily, but you would have a hard time convincing anyone that your findings were accurate and meaningful.

I suspect that's why there aren't lots of studies of this sort: they'd be cheap and easy - but there'd be no point since you couldn't believe the results.

Just to put another 2 pence in... and to horrify hunker further! My brothers girlfriend, gives her 4 month dd chocolate buttons! I try not to judge but...

but the lack of 'research' is due to the fact that parents aren't going to let their children be endoscopically examined and no ethics committee would pass it? but you must accept that it is widely acknowledged that the gut closes between 4-6 months - or do you not? Even my HV and paed told me that with terrific conviction. and food is fun until they're one is supported by the WHO paper, surely?

LOL Aitch.

I still want to see that article btw

Interesting Welliemum

I am fascinated by the whole exclusive bf thing and would love to know at which point hospitals did not advocate formula topping up after everyfeed from birth.

I would love to know at what point exclusive breastfeeding really meant exclusive, and when the top ups became the norm because this totally skews the whole weaning\gut debacle.

I mean they used to give new mums sleeping tablets and take all the babies to the nursery bf or not so they all got bottles.

My mum insisted on feeding us through the night and they thought she was mental. Way to stuff your supply/nipple confusion from day one.