Battle with my mum over weaning (BLW) and breast feeding (long!)

[Bumperlicious]

Sorry to combine topics but this is all interlinked!

DD is 17 weeks now, and I expected this conversation to happen fairly soon but it is still bothering me and I need advice.

DD has started waking early in the morning again (a combination of her age I think and the fact that we are putting her to bed earlier and no longer waking her for a feed at 10.30). My mum insists that I should give her baby rice. She tells me that this will guarantee that she goes though the night. I don't want to, though I can't really explain why.

I also want to do baby led weaning. This didn't go down well with my mum. She seems to think that breast milk is not going to sustain her till 6 months, also that babies need purees to learn to chew.

Of course her babies never went through a funny stage (of fussy feeding and waking more frequently) at 4 months. And we were weaned at 4 months so it's ok, no baby ever came to any harm by being weaned at 4 months.

On a slight tangent to this topic (I might post this in breast and bottle feeding too) my mum (who doesn't agree with me bfing and tells me at every opportunity to put DD on formula) thinks that if I give DD formula she will also go through the night, and won't be fussy, and I am "making a rod for me own back" by demand feeding dd. DD need to be able to detatch from me, and babies "like a routine"

Sorry this is so long, in a nutshell, what I want to know is:

1. Reasons that I can give my mum why I don't want to give DD baby rice (the fact that it is my choice is not good enough)

2. Good reasons to pursue BLW, that my mum will appreciate

3. that if I put DD on formula/baby rice she won't necessarily "go through the night" (until recently she slept 11-7, and now sleeping 9-5ish, which I think is not bad for 4 months)

4. that I am doing the right thing by demand feeding DD still

5. that 4 months is commonly acknowledged to be a growth spurt/fussy stage

TBH, me and DH agree that it is our choice, and it is none of my mum's business, but she is taking it very personally that I am not doing things her way, so I need a defense (I'm so sick of having to defend my decisions!). Please help!

If she won't believe you how about giving her some literature to read this might sway her on the bf.

And they mention not weaning until 6 months on the link to complimentary feeding too.

She needs to understand that advice has changed since her day and that, although you respect her, you and your dh want to raise your baby the way you are most comfortable with and that means sticking by the modern recommended practices.

Sorry, I get so cross with this - SHE IS YOUR CHILD!!!! and your mother has no bloody right to criticise your choices .

Tell her that the Dept of Health and the World Health Organisation both agree that 6m is the earlier to start weaning - I assume your mother isn't a doctor, why does she think she knows better?

And isn't it true that baby rice actually has less calories than breastmilk anyway?

How the hell do you chew a puree???

Sorry, I know this isn't constructive, I just feel so cross on your behalf! Good luck, and do what YOU think is best for YOUR child.

If your mum's anything like my MIL, she won't believe the even the most thorough and up to date research. So how about a little white lie? We got some pressure from MIL to wean early as DD was a crap sleeper. So we pretended that she had started sleeping better all of a sudden, so she was obviously full on milk! I know it's a bit of a cop out, but I prefer an easy life when it comes to the relatives .

(Oh, and DD was formula fed, and a worse sleeper than most of the BF babes we know.)

lordy, bumper - what a pain! and good on you for sticking to your guns.

I've started to write logical replies to this about 3 times, but the thing is this:

Your rational, informed, adult, intelligent decision is, in fact, good enough reason not to give your dd baby rice. The DoH, the World Health Org, UNICEF, have all studied this closely (you know, using science and doctors and stuff) and decided that breast is best and all a baby needs up to 6m. You know this and it is no mystery why you want best for your dd. Simple as that. (This is very easy for me to say because lord knows I've never tried it with mine. ) Good luck!

or fib the other way - say you offered her baby rice last wweek and she was sick / furious / slept really badly

Well that is the thing isn't it. You shouldn't have to lie to your mum because she should be supportive but I will second BarryScott and suggest that if it is causing that much distress just lie and tell her everything is fine(however that said, my mum knows when I am lying)

i agree lying is the best option but I am a crap liar!

Thank for the positive responses. It's difficult with your first as you have nothing to compare with in terms of what's normal. Only my mum's decidedly rose tinted view of how she managed 25 years ago!

i know in her heart that she just wants things to be easy for me and wants to give me the benefit of her experience (she didn't have a good relationship with her mum) but she needs to trust me a bit and realise that not only are things different now but i am different to her.

Yes, LL this was my face at the chewing puree comment!

Hi, this is my first post on mumsnet!

My dd is 16 weeks and is formula fed. She still wakes through the night once or twice so giving your dd formula is no guarantee she will sleep through! Your dd sleeps for longer than mine does. She also is demand fed and only has a very vague pattern to when she eats, particularly at night, where there has been no pattern at all to when she wakes. Sometimes she can also be fussy and is clearly hungry but won't have any milk! So going onto formula may not be the fantastic thing your mum makes it out to be.

I was thinking of weaning before six months as dd is a hungry baby, in part to see if we could a get a full night's sleep! However having read into it abit more and spoken to friends, it seems that giving babies baby rice etc doesn't mean they will instantly sleep through and obviously there are the health benefits of waiting until six months. I'm now going to wait until six months and also try BLW.

I guess you've probably seen the website www.babyledweaning.com, which has loads of useful stuff on about BLW. There is also this site which goes into the theory behind it and has some stuff on about chewing. Sorry if you've already seen these.

Hope this helps
x

you don't need to lie as such, just say 'oh fine' to all questions. how's the baby sleeping..oh fine. and change the subject. she'll soon get the idea that it's not up for discussion, hopefully! and remember, when your baby is tucking into a full sunday dinner, not mashed or pureed, at 7 months old, she'll be proud as anything and won't give a stuff you didn't do purees (smile)

The thing is by you saying no to all her suggestions you are kind of saying that everything she did was wrong. it's a button pusher for mums .

1. just go ahah ahah change of subject

2. I doubt there are any. My MIL visibly shudders at the mess but tries to ignore it. You could try calling it finger food.

3. 9 till 5 my dd1 slept through at 17 months dd2 has yet to do so both demand fed and blw. Babies do it when they are ready. I am still feeding at least twice in the night at 14 months. (and I don't care - I just don't moan about it in case I am offered unwanted help/advice)

4. Yes you are. It is what babies need. It is a good thing for them to control their own appetite.

5. It is you know it is.

People need something to blame and fiddle with, big baby on the bottle, small baby, on the bottle, not sleeping - on the bottle, Bottles are easier to control and quantify. They allow people to feel as though they are controling things to imrpove the situation.

in a nutshell, stop justifying your choices, do what you want and make listening noises to her suggestions then let them pour out your other ear. She is never going to say
"yes you are right I take on board the current guidelines, how misguided was I, I who raised healthy children it must have been a fluke."

1. Because every sane health professional who values their job would tell you not to do it!

You are more likely to choke on liquid than solid and if solid is washed down with liquid it makes baby more likely to choke.

You're breastfeeding and can't implant rice into your boobs (if you're not bottle feeding, I realise I'm making assumptions).

She's going through a growth spurt and needs all the milk she can get.

2. She will be appreciating Nanny's dinners a lot sooner and it's so cute to see a 6 month old feed themselves (show her Aitch's blog and the photos on there). Not sure there's much you can say to convince people, it's against "common sense" and is a real leap of faith to do, when she sees her eating it will probably make a difference.

How about "My baby, my time. You had yours, now leave me to mine!"

3. She's going through a growth spurt and needs all the milk she can get. You produce more prolactin at night so that's when the best milk is available. When she's got past this she will fit back into her own routine.

4. Demand feeding teaches a baby to trust their own appetite, to know when they are hungry and when they are full. These are important skills that will carry on through life.

Don't know what to say on 5).

There are several roads you can take with your mother:

"My child, my way. You had your time now allow me to have mine"

"Yes Mum, of course we will Mum."

Good advice in all the other posts. Had all this and more mainly with PIL
though. "When are you going to put that baby on normal milk?" being the one I found the most amusing. My response? "Human milk is NORMAL for humans thats why we make it, Cows milk is NORMAL for cows thats why they make it".

Also had the "Rod for your own back" statement, my response? "Well its my back so don t worry about it".

I am fairly up front so I would just be very no nonsense about my choices, without much explanation but a bit of information on where to look if they do want to be better informed ie internet, magazine article etc. Breast feed YOUR baby and enjoy it. I have just put DD to bed aged 14 months for the first time without a BF and I am feeling a bit tearful about it so I was glad to get my teeth into this post . Enjoy your breastfeeding it will be over before you know it and don t let anyone else make you question yourself.

I can't add anything to the advice that's been posted except to say I understand your frustration! I had the same thing with my eldest ds, now 3yrs old. my MIL and the HV were both insisting I start solids at 4 months and I knew ds was doing fine on breast feeding. They kept on at me so I lied, I told MIL I was giving food and tried to be vague and changed the subject if she asked too many questions. Every time I went to the clinic HV would ask what ds was eating and I'd make up something interesting to tell her.
Ds was putting on weight and happy with just breast till 7 months when he started helping himself to food off our plate, I didn't know about baby led weaning then, just thought he was different to other babies!

my sympathies... to be honest i'd look into the future and if you think that she might be one of those mums who will tell you what to do all the time (potty training, feeding, bfing, sleeping, discipline, whatever) then you might just need to put the hard word on her.

gently, kindly, but definitely tell her that you are in charge, that you're going to stick by the most modern advice and it would be for the best if she let you get on with it because it's only causing tension at the moment.

i had to have a similar chat with my mum, in the nicest way, just to remind her that she was the grandma, and her job was to provide cuddles and love and sneaky chocoate biscuits. My job and your job is to be the mum, to do what we think is best for our children.

PS btw re blw, if you were weaned at 4 months you'd likely all have been on finger food by 6 - so why would your kid be any less capable?

hello b-licious! "DD needs to be able to detach from me".... WRONG! Glad you're not listening to your well-meaning mum. Infancy is such a short precious time, why do we need to hurry them onto independence?..Spend the rest of our lives wishing they would call/visit more often...Research(I read from Dr Sears) shows that the more attached a baby is, the more confident and independent it becomes as a child. If you force a baby to be 'independent' or detached, that is not a natural independence, it is one that is forced upon the baby before the baby is ready for it and this can also destroy their trust in us. I also think it is a cultural problem we have in the west...thinking that babies should sleep through the night THEY SHOULDN'T! they aren't designed to, and seem only do so occasionally if nature is interfered with.