Losing the fight to make it to 6months

[Northernbeachbum]

5 month and 2 weeks old DS is sitting well unassisted, staring at us eating and getting upset he doesnt get food, wants our food not his milk and copying eating motions constantly.....i cant see how we can make 6 months....i know the guidlines are there for a reason but i cant see every baby magically changing overnight when they hit 6 months?! In other words reassure me about caving in

As Babdoc says, latest research suggests it decreases allergy risk to wean from 4 months. The USA and Australia have changed their advice back to small amounts of solids from 4 months. I don't know how long For the nhs to do the same but with growing numbers of allergic kids they need to catch up fast if you ask me. As the mother of one allergic child I will be weaning dc2 from 4 months.

The guidelines are around 6 months, you don't have to count the days!

So long as you wait until at least 17 weeks it's up to you.

Saw a paeds dietician recently who confirmed the guidelines are changing back to 17 weeks I think.

And so we'll have loads of babies being given solids at well less than 17 weeks because people always want to beat any "milestone" and rush to the next stage. I really don't see how that will be beneficial overall.

I can see that giving specific advice to those with a higher risk of developing a food allergy to introduce small amounts of just potential allergens from 17 weeks is possibly going to happen.

those with a higher risk of developing a food allergy is an awful lot of kids then, as our allergy rate is soaring. I think we have about 10% compared to Sweden’s 3% (where the advice is small amounts of parent food from 4 months). Glad to hear that the advice here will probably change. Living with severe allergy is awful.

Thinking about it, I never knew anyone with food allergies when my DCs were small or at school, but nowadays there are loads.

How many babies in Sweden are given solids from less than 17 weeks, I wonder.

For PFB: DS1 we mixed Aptamil creamed porridge 4+ month and breast milk.

DS2 we just let him grab what was on our own plate.

Weaning does not make things easier. It’s a lot of work and clean up and more expense. If you don’t have to do it, guidelines or not, I wouldn’t. Enjoy a few more weeks of life being easier.

Most recent research is that weaning at 4-6 months as long as baby shows signs of readiness reduces long-term risk of allergies.

Following this with interest because I'm considering moderately (perhaps around 5 months) weaning of DS with allergenic food because I've read the research and particularly for babies like him (has eczema) the results seem quite compelling. I spoke to the GP and she said she couldn't tell me what to do but she thought it seemed sensible and reasonable to do this based on that research.

What confuses me though is the stuff about physical readiness. He's 4 months and a week and nowhere near sitting up independently. I can't imagine he will be in three weeks - which should mean not attempting weaning, as I understand it. But what about the allergy risk? He's not going to have a lower risk because he's a bit slow to sit up, is he?

Sorry, that should say 'considering moderately early weaning'

They don't have to sit unaided, just be able to sit upright on your lap or in a high chair rather than reclined in a bouncer. Many babies don't sit unaided until 8 months.

Please ignore Babdoc - you're fine to wean at 5.5 months but you'd be fucking stupid to wean at 8 or 9 weeks!

He's not slow to sit up, it's normal to still be wobbly at just turned 5 months.

It's a choking risk if they can't sit up well, nothing to do with allergies. But you can use cushioned supports in a high chair, as long as he doesn't flop forwards or slump to the side. Or support him sat on yourself whilst you spoonfeed him. If you want to mimic the research it would only be tiny tastes of potential allergens, not trying to feed him spoonfuls to fill him up.

The reason that sitting up etc is given as signs, is that normally this happens at around the same time as being ready for solid foods. The research into allergies isn't concerned with what everyone should be doing just those at higher risk of allergies. So for them, it's worth the risk to give tiny tastes of potential allergens from 4 months.

I assume that they will only be ingesting very small amounts of the allergenic foods. They are not really ‘eating’ therefore it doesn’t matter if they are sitting up unaided? I was going to just spoon a little peanut butter/ scrambled egg/ etc into ds mouth from around 17 weeks after discussing with my doctor.

Thanks all - I don't think he could sit in high chair yet, but that does seem more likely to happen in next couple of weeks. He sits in my lap but with what I'd call more than minimal support - but a few weeks is a long time to a baby!

The EAT study protocol - which is what I was going to try and more and less follow - isn't absolutely tiny bits of food, I don't think - 1 egg twice a week, 1 small pot of yoghurt, etc - and they did find a) that more than half their subjects didn't manage to give that (I guess probably because their babies weren't ready to eat that much?) and 2) the more closely it was followed the better the results in terms of allergy results (though at that point their numbers became quite small)

There are a lot of indications that the guidelines will go back.

I started weaning both of mine at about 20 weeks. It worked very well for us.