BLW and a hungry baby

[catnip]

DS is nearly 6 months - he can handle and suck food but he can't swallow any of it. I know the "food for fun until they're one thing", and I wouldn't be worrying, but he seems to be really hungry. I also know that breast milk is more calorific than anything else, but he was so hungry at night, and crying after he had fed that I started to give him some baby rice,and the odd bottle of formula, which I had never intended to do.

He's happy, I mix rice and finger foods, and I'm not really worried, but I feel confused, and tbh a bit of a failure - tho I can't really articulate why. Is it really possible to fulfil all your baby's needs with just breast milk for 6 months - if so, why couldn't I? Or should I just chill out about it and think that BLW is just listening for the needs of your baby?

catnip, don't get to hung up on the BLW thing. My dd1 was weaned the traditional way - mush then finger food - and will eat anything. Dd2 decided that she didn't like much and would only eat finger food. But, like your ds, she couldn't manage it. So she upped her bfeeds, chucked more finger food on the the floor, bfed more - until she ended up bfeeding through the night to make up for lack of food by day. In the end she ended up anaemic and has had loads of viruses inc. two menigitis scares. Now, ds, bless him, can't eat finger food as he gags on it (he's always been sicky) so if it wasn't for mush he'd starve.

Remember, mush isn't artificial. In pre-industrial cultures mums would have chewed food before giving it to their babies. If your ds needs food, give it to him. I only wish I'd managed to get dd2 to eat mush, she woudl have been so much healthier and I wouldn't have spent two yrs bf every night. You can still make your own baby rice, go for a great organic diet etc.

can someone show me some proof that in pre-industrial cultures mums chewed ALL food before giving it to their babies? cos it seems like madness to me. why on earth would they have bothered if the baby coudl pick up the food and eat it himself? a bit of air-dried yak, yes, but fresh barbequed yak that can be eaten just fine..?

with regards to your questions, catnip, i couldn't ever exclusively bf because of a medical condition so i'm not the best person to ask, but the thinking is that if you'd been able to ride out the first bit without giving rice or formula, you'd have produced more milk and the gap between his appetite and your supply would have closed.

it's not a dissimilar process with learning how to eat food, the idea is that you feed milk on demand and don't interfere with that and meanwhile the baby will become more skillful at eating solids. it does take a week or so, or sometimes longer, for them ot get the picture.

Some babies have a more sensitive gag reflex than others but the gag reflex does move back with practice (think lady porn stars for an idea of how far back with practice) but they most certainly will not starve without mush if you are giving milk on demand.

and as for drawing a link between two meningitis scares and increased bfing...

if a baby really wasn't eating a single morsel off a spoon or otherwise then an iron supplement of some description later on would presumably have been of benefit and should have been recommended by the HV.

Hoever, Catnip, when it comes down to it, this has to be your decision, and while you can feel weird about it if you want there's absolutely no point in doing so. there has to be a balance, i think, between what you can sustain and what the baby needs. so if you're happy with the rice and formula etc, be happy, don't bother about adhering to something that isn't about rules anyway...

keep giving the finger food during the day, though, because he definitely will get better at it with practice. or is that practise? i can never remember that one... [failed pedant] good luck anyway, he sounds like a healthy, happy boy.

Can I just PMSL at aitch bringing female porn stars onto a weaining thread

catnip - please don't feel like a failure. I did blw mostly, but I occasionally help her with a yoghurt too, when she is too tired or we are at a house where the BLW mess might not be appreciated.

I did manage to get to almost 6 months purely BF (just 2 weeks shy of it I think) so it can be done, but I don't think it is something you should beat yourself up about.

your baby is only just 6 months old? it might be a fair while until he gets to grips with eating. some bf babies have no interest in food until they're 7 or 8 months old. i believe in some far eastern countries weaning doesn't happen until 8 or 9 months.

i did blw after bf exclusively for 6 months, dd was on 91st centile at 6 months. it is possible. imvho it's just a case of deciding if you're going to ride out the growth spurts by offering more milk (which i did), or if you go through the growth spurts by filling your baby with puree and baby rice.

i loved blw, it worked very very well for us, seemed like the obvious next step to bf. i never knew how much milk dd was getting, i just left it to her to sort out my supply etc, and i did the same for weaning. i just provided food, kept the milk coming and that was it. she worked it out, i did very little at all.

My DD is on the 98th percentile and she is still on BM and BLW food and not a lot of food TBH, mostly she chucks it around (btw Aitch I'm really WMMC under a monicker geddit!?)

It's more likely that she is going through a growth spurt and needs more frequent feeds or she may well be teething if she is night waking and needing comfort.

If you give your baby, baby rice when she is just going through a growth spurt your milk will not catch up with her demands so it'll be an ongoing problem. I would feed her every few hours for a week and see if that solve the problem.

at monicker... good name.

I din't say that ALL food would have been mushed, nor did I say that extended bf causes menigitis scares , but having been through thinking my dd2 was going to die twice (the second time the day after ds was born) I bloody well wish she'd eaten anything rather than got so sick she'd gone through that. Breast milk doesn't have enough iron.

I couldn't bfeed dd1 or ds, and I am bloody proud I managed it with dd2 against the odds. But I wish she'd weaned 'conventionally' as it would have saved us a lot of heartache and her untold distress and pain. And I wish ds didn't still keep chucking up his food at 13 mo, but he does.

Monicker, I absolutely understand the logic behind riding out growth spurts and your milk supply catching up and had done that a couple of times before - but by five and a half months and after a week or so of DS crying and pawing at me in hunger I just thought this isn't working any more.

Hi Catnip,
just wanted to say that I feel very much the same as you as my little DS is really hungry and has been for just over a month now. So we do some mushed food and some finger food. Before started giving solids he was having 12 feeds a day and still unsatisfied. Now he is having 9 feeds and three meals but is still waking up to 4 times a night for milk feeds. I too would like not to use formula and to BLW however after four weeks of this I really am running of energy to ride out the growth spurt just as you are. I could cope with a weeks worth but it's just been going on so long now.

My ds was on the 2nd centile and had dropped towards the 0.4th and is clearly ravenous. Since starting weaning is is now on his way back up. To suggest that we could have waited another month or two is very unrealistic and he was just getting wound up and upset by steamed carrot sticks etc on their own because he really wanted to eat. So now we do a bit of both and he's happy. He loves munching on toast but he also loves mashed potato. I think you just have to do what your baby is happy with and what will help you to have enough energy to be a not too tired and stressed mum.

Christmas Pud
Silly isn't it - why are we beating ourselves up? I'm not really, but do feel a bit confused by it

I don't know why but I suppose there always seems to be a 'ideal' way of doing things and then the way things happen because of the circustances that occur as you go along. Instead of saying 'haven't I done well to BF for 6 months' I think 'aren't I bad for considering trying some formula to see if I can get a little bit more sleep tonight'.

I think it's part of the society we live in now - we all try to measure up to a uniform standard and yet we are all different and our babies are all different so that's never really going to happen.

Hello again Catnip (have switched back to my more familiar monicker, mostly to wind Aitch up because she can't have it now nahnahnahnanah ).

Growth spurts can last about three weeks IME. They are exhausting frustrating experiences but if that's what it is you'll get through it. Don't hold off food if you really believe that's what he needs - sorry I think I called him her earlier - and yes BLW is a good way to go because if he is sucking it, he's probably getting a bit of food in anyway.

I started (unconventionally enough) on spag bol (yes I know, everyone says plain flavours but she prefers to get really messy). You might find that baby rice cakes go down well because they melt in the mouth, or well cooked veggies are always popular - potato with a bit of cheese grated on top is a fave in our house (I like it too!)

Also, if he is teething, give him something like a carrot stick - keep and eye on him obviously - to bite down on. DD loved frozen slices of bagel or alternatively toast when she was getting some teeth through.

You are his mum though, you sound like you've got your head screwed on and you are finding a way through. You certainly shouldn't feel a failure no matter what you choose to do. My DD is a very hungry baby and that's just her though - it's go bugger all to do with how much food she gets, there is always the yearning for more .

Oh and check out my pics if you want to see what you are letting yourself in for if you do BLW!

Three weeks - hmm that's interesting, hadn't occurred to me that they could last that long, so that's really helpful. He is a very happy healthy baby, and an old man on the bus said he had sensible eyes the other day so I am sure we will work it out together. For now, I'll cut out the bottle I was giving him, give him a mix of mush and soft veggies and see what happens

And I do know what you mean Christmas, so much pressure to get it right

Oooh - whomovedmychoc - just did look at your pics and pmsl. Hilarious and sooooo cute

see, i just don't feel a pressure to get it 'right', i never have. the only 'pressure' i feel is not to kill dd by doing something preternaturally stupid. such as expecting her to eat dried yak meat without me mushing it up in my mouth a little first...

i've seen a few people say that it takes two or three grimola weeks to get through a growth spurt, catnip. so you're deffo not alone on that one.

Aitch - are your knickers on too tight? Rising to arguments on mush! Although I wouldn't fancy eating something my mum had masticated

Thanks Catnip, DD is very sweet - although not today, today she has been stolen and replaced by the kid from the Exorcist!

ach, no, knickers are fine, it's just that 'yer granny would've chewed it' argument rather joues sur me nerfs. so unlikely that someone would've pre-chewed a banana, there were forks and fingers in pre-industrial times as well, y'know. or they would have given the food to the baby to let it decide whether it could eat it.
of course they would have pre-chewed things that were too tough for a child to eat, presumably, but what food do we give kids nowadays that is actually too tough?
and let's call tiktok over to see what she has to say about there not being enough iron in breastmilk... it's one of her absolute favourites.

My granny would have taken her teeth out and gummed it. Yes, where is TikTok, I haven't heard this particular argument and I'd like to.....

Cooeeeeeehhhhhh - TikTok, are you about?????

it goes something like 'it goes down gradually while the child gets better at eating, it's not a switch that gets flicked at 6 months and there's no more'...

I've put the call out....let's hope she's around

I think it's rubbish anyway. Esp if the alternative is pickled yak or whatever.

lol.

i don't know where Tictok is but she will agree than bm has enough iron at 6 months. the quantity of the iron is small compared to that in formula.

the iron is however all bioavailable to the baby. ie close to 100% of iron in breastmilk is absorbed by the infant.

formula on the other hand has loads in comparison but only a comparatively small percentage gets absorbed by the gut. Hence why formula with extra iron is such a gimmick.

good ole kellymom

"At what point does baby need nutrition from solids that cannot be provided by breastmilk alone?
Medical research tells us that exclusive breastfeeding allows babies to thrive for the first 6 months and often beyond. In the words of the World Health Organization,

?Breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants? A recent review of evidence has shown that, on a population basis, exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months is the optimal way of feeding infants.?

Breastmilk should make up the majority of baby?s nutrition through the end of the first year. At some point toward the end of the first year, most babies will gradually begin to need more iron and zinc than that provided by breastmilk alone - at that point, additional nutrients can be obtained from small amounts of solids.

Some babies thrive on breastmilk alone until 12 months or later - as long as your baby is continuing to gain weight and grow as he should, your milk is meeting his needs well. "