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[kerala]

Am sure I read the World Health Organisation recommends holding off weaning until six months unless the baby is showing signs of being ready (waking up in the night when previously sleeping through, showing interest in food).

How do these HVs get away with giving such mad advice? A friend of mine was told her 2 week old needed to learn to be "independent" and be left to cry in her own room - shudder

dont know how they get away with it! i started weaning my dd at 6 weeks when she was wanting food, im one of 5 an 4 of us were weaned at 6weeks an fine my youngest sister was older due to having cf.

6 weeks?

kerala, everywhere says 6 mths now, including the UK, Australia, Canada, US....sleeping through has nothing to do with it, BTW!

elsieanjoanne - not sure of your point. Are you saying weaning at 6 weeks is a good thing????

Or is this a typo?

i was not saying everyone should start weaning at that age but i found it was what my baby was needng to get her through the night a teaspoon of baby rice before her last feed did the trick and she had just that for months just uped the amount v.v.slowly, i was saying it never did me or my sisters any harm nor my dd she wil be one in three weeks and is thriving and eats whatever we are eating now whether its roast dinner or lasagne

Sorry, elsieanjoanne, rice at 6 weeks to help a baby get through the night is not good or safe practice....glad you add that it's not for everyone, and actually, it's not really for anyone.....

elsie...lots of babies have a growth spurt around 6 weeks....so they do seem hungrier..in fact babies have several growth spurts...and there are more calories and nutritional value in a big milk feed than a spoon of rice

it is more likely your baby would ahve slept through around that time, than the rice helped her sleep

weaning should start around 6 months, before then, milk,milk and more milk is all a baby needs. and milk is often their main source of nutrition for the first year anyway

a 6 week old baby does not want food, they don;t know food exists....

Elsie - sorry I must be misunderstanding you - my DD (seven months) eats everything roast dinners or lasagne, but that's got nothing to do with when we started weaning (at six months).

Honestly, their guts just don't process food at that age so it just goes through the system, you are giving the equivalent of all-bran to your babies.

Go on then.....

seriously, weaning guidlines aside

the bit that really puzzles me, is that a baby is a baby for such a short time...i don;t get the hurry to get them on solids....why not let them simply be babies, who drink milk, look sweet and just , well, be babies??

why would a baby, who has taken 9 months to develop in utero need anything other milk 6 weeks after birth...??

I started weaning my first at 6 weeks (well, in fact, my SIL started weaning him ) That was in 1975 and it seems to have done him no harm. But would I do it now? No, no, and thrice times, no. Totally unnecessary, a lot of faffing around and the evidence shows that's it the wrong thing to do.

My MIL gave rice before bed to all her tiny babies to get them to sleep through.

It worked.

I told her that it may have helped them sleep because their little bodies were having to expend so much energy mending the damage it was doing to their gut. She said 'well, you have to be hard to be a good mum'.