Advised by consultant to wean

[Lipsticktraces]

Looking for some advice please.

Ftm to 23 week old twins (17 weeks corrected) Both are ebf.

DS is still under the care of NICU and had an appointment this week. Consultant asked me how he is sleeping. I told her that in the last few weeks he’s started waking every 1/2 hours to feed. She advised that I start weaning. I thought they were too young as my HV told me not before five and a half months corrected age, but consultant said that wasn’t right and I could start now.

She advised me to start with baby rice, but I had planned to do BLW. They can’t sit unaided yet though. I tried them with some baby led spread and some hummus on their lips yesterday to see how they reacted. DD clearly not fussed but DS grinning and opening his mouth for food.

Really not sure how to proceed. I wanted to avoid purées and spoon feeding if possible, but I can’t see how they are ready for anything else at this age?

Would really appreciate people’s thoughts

Bliss have good advice. They say it's not about corrected age. I had to use purees but she loved it.

How prem were they? 6 weeks? I had a 12 week prem baby and BLW would never have worked.
If you really have your heart set on it then you need to discuss further with your consultant and HV. But my experience of having a preemie was that you need to let go of any plans or hopes you had and just go with it.
My DD was exclusively spoon fed for a long time and actually I did exactly the same with my full term second baby. My DD is a fantastic eater and I think it may be because I was able to expose her to such a wide range of tastes when she was very young. She’s a big veg eater now.
It is a bit of a pain having to spoon feed but I felt it was more important to follow the experts advice and ensure my DD was getting the nutrients she needed. She was a hungry baby and having purée brough her on leaps and bounds.

BLW is a fad, nothign wrong with purees and babyrice.
But it does sound young, and the WHO recommendation is 6 months.
Was it just because she is waking? If so, I would say you can decide to follow it or not, plenty of babies start waking in the night around 4 months

Follow the consultants advice . Nothing wrong with purees. I found a combination best- they’ll be ready for finger food later.

And no it’s about actual age not corrected. Iron reserves start deleting at 6 months so it’s important they are getting this from food. Ask if there are any HVs specialising in preemies you can speak to.

If it helps. I have an ebf fed 9 month old who loves food. She often wakes every 2 hours through the night and has some milk. How much she eats doesn’t change that.

If the consultant thought he needed food, that would be a reason to wean. Waking wouldn’t be a good reason!

I’d go back to the consultant and ask for the basis for their advice and discuss food type etc.

Has the consultant told you to wean merely because of waking up in the night? That's utterly ridiculous and probably pointless. There's a huge development leap around 4 months which results in sleep regression. Feeding your baby solids is highly unlikely to result in better sleeping. Breast milk still has far more calories than any purée you could give your baby.
Unless there's a medical reason I've missed, I'd be inclined to ask the consultant for more information, their reasoning for the advice and links to the peer reviewed research which backs up the advice.
Have a search for virgin gut and consider the advantages of waiting to wean onto solids.
As for the pointless gunk that's baby rice, just skip it.
www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2011/12/nine-good-reasons-not-to-use-baby-rice.html?m=1

Yes of course follow the consultant’s advice! They’re a qualified doctor and specialist paediatrician, for goodness sake- why would you prefer to ask a health visitor?!
The guidelines about weaning at six months may well be changed soon anyway - there is evidence emerging that it causes a big increase in food allergies, and that babies need exposed to a wide range of foodstuffs from 3 or 4 months to allow the gut to identify them as harmless before the skin labels them as allergens and mounts an immune response to them.

Blw is tricky with prems because you wean by actual rather than corrected age but their motor skills will be at the corrected age. I wanted to blw but it was impossible ( I had a 34 weeker).

Follow the consultant's advice, I think the rules can be slightly different for premies. My ds was prem and had baby rice from five months and started a range of food at six months (actual, not adjusted) this was under advice too and it really helped him to start putting on weight and growing.

What babdoc said, follow the consultant advice. The who recommended 6 months ebf is aimed at the whole world, so in developing countries it’s beneficial to hold off weaning (they don’t tend to have food alllergies) as starting solids in places with poor hygiene exposes baby to extra risks. Here, 4 months is beneficial as it greatly reduces the risk of developing allergy. This is backed up with lots of good quality research and two very large study’s the EAT and LEAP. I have an allergic child (who was also prem) and I’ve not spoken to a doctor who doesn’t agree with a 17 weeks intro to solids. I’m feeding my 4.5 month old veg and fruit purees, scrambled egg, peanut butter, yogurt, baby porridge. As soon as they are sitting up you can introduce finger foods. It’s doesnt have to be all one way or the other.

You have to do what’s best for baby, and if a consultant heads recommended weaning then that’s what you should do. Blw is your preference but it’s not the be all and end all and if it’s not best for your baby then why wait until they’re ready for blw when you’ve been advised to wean now? Nothing wrong with traditional weaning at all

Do they have reflux?

With ds we were advised to wean earlier than 6 months due to reflux. He also couldn't sit up.

Of course you should follow the consultants advice. As a pp said baby led weaning is a fad and food is food...doesnt matter how they eat as long as they eat.

Why the hell is a consultant recommending baby rice?! It’s hideous non-food that has absolutely no nutritional value, so it it is in regards to upping baby’s natural iron is pointless.

Agree that if they have said wean then I would. But use proper food! You can make really smooth purées etc for them rather than feeding them sawdust.

Once their pincer grip is better and they can sit you can move onto BLW.

Avoid hummus etc as it’s way way too much salt for a tiny bab.

Consultant did mention weaning when I said DS was waking a lot, but she did acknowledge it’s not a magic cure for it. I didn’t mention weaning myself. I know from my mum friends that weaning doesn’t improve sleep!

I did say I’d prefer not to use baby rice and consultant said that was fine. She said start with putting food on their lips, which is what I did yesterday and DS loved it!

I suppose I just feel a bit overwhelmed as I hadn’t planned to start weaning yet! So can I feed purées before they can hold their heads up? Will I need a high chair if so? I’m not even sure how many times a day to try feeding them.

I’ll do some research. I’d only looked into BLW as HV had previously told me that would be fine.

Thank you everyone😊

I really would not get hung up on BLW - it’s a fad which whilst not wrong will end up with exactly the same result that spoon feeding purées will so I really would follow the consultants advice and get going.

BLW isn’t a fad btw, dd has never had a purée in her life and eats like a champ now. I would never want to eat fecking puréed broccoli so no idea why people would feed their kids that!!

BUT if a consultant told me to start weaning her with purées I would have listened and not given it another thought. It’s what’s best for your babies at the end of the day.

I started my 32 week prem baby at 6 months (4 months corrected). I’m surprised the HV gave that advice; when we were in SCBU (2017) the advice was wean at 6 months actual age then shortly after that Bliss changed their advice.
My DD wasn’t quite ready to go straight into baby led weaning so we started with purées but within a month we could switch to BLW so don’t feel that just because you start with purées you’re stuck with it.
My own experience of HVs was they were great but they didn’t understand premature babies and gave conflicting advice to SCBU.

I wouldn't advise starting with hummus as it has sesame oil in it. You need to start with plain foods. My now cucumber loving 6 year old had a 30 min tantrum the first time we have him cucumber!

So the consultant is only recommending weaning because of waking in the night? And recommends baby rice? Baby rice has no nutritional value. I would follow the advice of the WHO - which is 6 months of milk exclusively.

I don't think the baby rice itself has much nutritional value, it's the milk it's mixed with; it just adds some bulk to the feed which will take longer to digest. Hopefully meaning that a baby's tummy doesn't feel empty so quickly.

Weaned DC1 at 18 weeks because of reflux. We did use baby rice but also pureed root veg are a good place to start - carrots, sweet potato, parsnip. She took to it well. I think I mixed it with a bit of rice at the beginning to make it a milder flavour.

Incidentally DC2 was started on BLW at around 6 months. Is now the fussiest eater ever while DC1 eats everything, so don't worry about that.

She mentioned weaning when I said DS has started waking so frequently in the night. She then went onto explain about how you don’t have to wait until corrected age etc. She explained how leaving it until corrected age of six months might be detrimental, which I hadn’t realised.

She did say to mix baby rice with breast milk if I choose to give it, but she did say I don’t have to feed it if I don’t want to.

I guess I’ll start with find purées then? They can’t sit unaided yet so I’m guessing I will have to prop them up?

I didn’t know that about the seaseme oil. Thank you.