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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Iron Levels

2 replies

mhbirv · 17/12/2020 13:55

Hi,

I'm new here so this is first post. Hope it works!

I have an 8.5 month old boy. We started weaning just before 6 months and it went great for about a month when he started refusing pretty much everything except soft fruit and tiny portions of porridge. I haven't actively tried to reduce his breastfeeds as everything I've read suggested that he would be pretty good at self regulating. His weight gain has been really good throughout.

Yesterday I spoke to the health visitor and she was very worried about whether he was getting enough iron. He's been having a multivitamin with iron but now that I've looked more closely I see this only has about 25% of the recommended daily iron intake.

I'm going to try reducing breastfeeds and today he has been much better. However, I suffer from anxiety and have now spent far too much time reading about the long term effects of low iron between 6-12 months and possible links with long term cognitive and motor development. I feel awful that I might have made a mistake in our approach to weaning that could cause him problems later on.

I guess I'm really looking for reassurance from others who have had little eaters or any advice about whether I should be getting his iron levels checked?

Sorry for such a long post. Thanks for reading to the end if you've made it!

OP posts:
Fivemoreminutes1 · 18/12/2020 05:12

I fed mine fortified baby cereal and you can get fortified baby porridge. They also had chunks of tofu as finger food or sometimes blitzed into purées. Egg is also quite good for iron and if he doesn’t like boiled eggs, try it scrambled or baked in frittatas/omelettes.

JingleJohnsJulie · 18/12/2020 07:41

Really don't worry. The iron in your BM is far more easily absorbed than almost any other thing you can give him but you're right in that adding a few iron rich foods won't hurt.

Have a read of this on Kellymom about BFing and iron Smile

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