i am a Bad Person. today i ahve given my 20 week old food. and it's pureed.

[TutterrysChocolateOrange]

i was going to wait

i was going to try blw

but am too exhausted and fed up

ds2 (5mo next week) is having nights from hell. hence so am i. last night he managed no more thna an hour at a time between midnight and 6am

gp has seen him - nothing obviously wrong

i could have stuck it out but i am like a zombie. i haven't slept properly since he was born and the last few nights have been truly horrendous

i know a bit o pureed pear is going to makje feck all difference at first but i had to try something

let him pick the damn thing up, tutter.

I 'managed' to wait until DS was 5.5 months and he took to food like the proverbial 'duck to water'. No reason for starting then, apart from being on holday the week before and didnt want to faff with food - just milk and bottles was bad enough in a caravan!

DS is not the best sleeper, and to be honest food has made very little difference - tried giving him loads of carbs at night to make him sleepy - he goes down well for 5 hours or so at 7pm, but wakes up almost on the dot of 3.30 am and 5am! Cheeky monkey can be wide awake then!

I also have DD who was weaned at 4 months (current advice 5 years ago), back in the days when it was ok to make up 24 hours worth of bottles!!!!!

Just go with the flow and what suits you - you have my sympathies on the lack of sleep - we are 10 months into it now!

oh well you will just have to live with the disappointment. pick something more controversial next time??

in response to the op, my DC are now 7,4 &2.

the "rules" have changed each time, so now I presume to take the whole thing as 'guidance' - it is not law, those "experts" obviously change their mind so often that you really should go with what your baby's needs are above anything else.
In 2000, the deal was that you were to wean the baby at between 3&4mo, so around 14 wks. mat leave was max 18 weeks, and i felt like the only mother on the planet bf-ing.
by the time we were on ds2, the mat leave was nearer 6mths, 'rules'(?) then said wean him at 4months+. two years ago you were told that you absolutely had to starve your child til 6 months as the government had started their bf campaign and decided that babies should be weaned at 6monts. C'mon that was two years ago - they must be about to change their minds soon.
Read it all, so that you are well informed, then do exactly what you want to do for your child. do not allow hv and government to pressure you.

If possible, wait til 6 months, of course, but some babies are hungry before that.

My DD was born prem so my h/v said I should measure everything against her gestational age i.e when she was 4months old she would really have been 2 months iyswim, so I waited til 6months. DS was about 20 weeks I think, and that was as long as I could keep him away from food, he wanted it and would grab it whislt I was bfing him as I ate my lunch.

IIRC, My hv said feeding before 16/17weeks was a problem as the babies body isn't ready for food yet by then, and that 6 months ids just a good benchmark so as to fit all babies in including those who maybe haven't developed as well.

Though when my friend announced as badge of pride that she as weaning her 10week old baby then went on a week or so later to say how she wouldn't stop crying, I did mention to her why babies were not meant to be fed so early. She just said 'thats what the HV said, but how does she know, it's my baby'

Gingerbreadgirl I had been looking for this everywhere and now I've found it. It's from an article by Diane Wiessinger (bf expert) about guilt:

Guilt is a concept that many women embrace automatically, even when they know that circumstances are truly beyond their control. (My mother has been known to aoplogize for the weather.)

Women's (nearly) automatic assumption of guilt is evident in their responses to this scenario: Suppose you have taken a class in aerodynamics. You have also seen pilots fly planes. Now, imagine that you are the passenger in a two-seat plane. The pilot has a heart attack, and it is up to you to fly the plane. You crash. Do you feel guilty?

The males I asked responded: "No, because I would have done my best." "No. I might feel really bad about the plane and the pilot, but I wouldn't feel guilty." "No. Planes are complicated to fly, even if you've seen someone do it."

What did the females say? "I wouldn't feel guilty about the plane, but I might about the pilot, because there was a slight chance that I could have managed to land the plane." "Yes, because I'm very hard on myself about my mistakes. Feeling bad and feeling guilty are all mixed up for me." "Yes, I mean, of course, I know I shouldn't but I probably would." "Did I kill someone else? If I didn't kill anyone else, then I don't feel guilty." Note the phrases "my mistakes", "I know I shouldn't", and "Did I kill anyone?" for an event over which these women would have had no control!

The mother who opts not to breastfeed, or who does not do so as long as she planned, is doing the best she can with the resources at hand. She may have had the standard "breast is best" spiel (the course in aerodynamics) and she may have seen a few mothers nursing at the mall (like watching the pilot on the plane's overhead screen). That is clearly not enough information or training. But she may still feel guilty. She's female.

Sorry I have posted that on completely the wrong thread.

Er, started weaning ds at a week before six months as he was grabbing food, did blw. However not until seven months did he really start showing a proper interest i.e. realising it was food, putting it in his mouth & chewing it, and at seven months the gagging stopped too.

So I think that for my ds, seven months was probably the right time to wean.

So if my ds is read past six months, I'm sure there must be babies on the other side of the six month line who are ready sooner.

Hope it works for you and he starts settling tutter.

FWIW, I followed the guidelines and weaned my older two at around 4 months (maybe slightly earlier!) and they are absolutely fine.

I weaned my twins under the new 6 mnth guidelines and one of them has a list of food intolerances that goes on forever!

I think you need to follow your instincts.

Mine really enjoyed tasting things (I started at 6 months), but didn't really eat until they were 8 or 9 months. Between 6 and 8 months, if they were hungry only milk would do. And solids made bog-all difference to their sleeping patterns, sadly.....

So in retrospect I could easily have weaned them at 8 months. I say easily... I'd have starved to death by then but ykwim.

It's interesting to me that a big study looking at infections showed that exclusive bf was still protective at 6 months, suggesting that some babies would benefit from being weaned after that time. But there's no way of knowing which babies those would be.

It'll be fascinating to see (I'm sure this will be discovered sooner or later) what the true range is for the right time to wean. From what I read here, I would guess that it's a wide range, but it's very hard to tell where the midpoint (average) would be.

Oh and I'm laughing at MerryXMoss's Diana Weissinger quote, "My mother has been known to apologize for the weather."

If people come to stay and it rains, I feel responsible and apologise like mad.