Weaning: wait until 6 months? What's your opinion?

[phlossie]

When I was a baby the advice was to start weaning once baby had doubled her birth weight. When my ds was small, it was 17 weeks, now it's 6 months.

I was wondering when you thought was the 'right' time to start weaning?

I'm torn between waiting until my dd (now 20 weeks) needs the extra nutrition - ie, when iron levels start running low at 6 months, and starting now because she's showing the following signs:

• has more than doubled her birth weight
• has two teeth
• is rolling over
• can sit with support
• is showing more than a passing interest in what we're eating - she grabbed an asparagus spear off my plate last night and started gnawing on it! She was going for dh's cheese sandwich today. It seems a bit unfair to make her wait any longer!

has she lost her tongue thrust reflex? that is a big indicator as to whether she is ready for weaning.

i weaned at 5 months and 6 months...

if you follow the BLW principle, then once a child can pick up , chew and swallow food unaided, then they are ready... but i would be cautious about what food i would give at 5 months.. no gluten for example..

i personally have read more compelling information about not weaning until around 6 months... and would delay for that reason

babies show interest in everything, and mouth and bite a lot of things, not just food.

teeth is not a sign, nor is rolling over! some babies start weaning with no teeth!

BLW site

copied and pasted from

www.kellymom.com

Developmental signs that baby is ready for solids

Solids readiness depends on both the maturity of baby?s digestive tract and baby?s developmental readiness for solids. Although the maturity of baby?s digestive system is not something that we can readily observe, research indicates that 6 months appears to be ideal for avoiding the allergies and other health risks of too-early solids. After this point, different babies are ready for solids at different times -- developmental readiness for solids cannot be determined using a calendar. Most babies are developmentally ready for solids somewhere between 6 and 8 months.
Signs that indicate baby is developmentally ready for solids include:

• Baby can sit up well without support.
• Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.
• Baby is ready and willing to chew.
• Baby is developing a ?pincer? grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.
• Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

We often state that a sign of solids readiness is when baby exhibits a long-term increased demand to nurse (sometime around 6 months or later) that is unrelated to illness, teething pain, a change in routine or a growth spurt. However, it can be hard to judge whether baby?s increased nursing is related to readiness for solids. Many (if not most) 6-month-old babies are teething, growth spurting and experiencing many developmental changes that can lead to increased nursing ? sometimes all at once! Make sure you look at all the signs of solids readiness as a whole, because increased nursing alone is not likely to be an accurate guide to baby?s readiness.

That stuff about not following a calendar is exactly why I was wondering whether I should start earlier...
She's losing her tongue-thrust reflex, and she's certainly eager to participate in mealtimes, but she's not up to any of those other milestones.
I really like the sounds of BLW. Is that what you did, Lulumama? I started with shovelling in mushy stuff with my son, but naturally moved to finger foods when he was 6-7 months, which he gummed.
Just wondered if teeth, and rolling over, along with being 98th centile baby, meant she was developmentally advanced (what parent doesn't think her baby is super-advanced?!)

Fab link lulumama, thanks.

I remember this dilemma. I held off for another couple of weeks (maybe longer - memory going) and then let DD occassionally have pieces of steamed veg or raw fruit to hold and suck on. Didn't do purees because I didn't want to force food inside her before she was ready for it. She swallowed next to nothing until she got to 26 weeks when suddenly she learnt to bite, chew and swallow. I think she enjoyed the practising before then but I didn't count the food I was giving her as part of her diet, iyswim.

The GP and midwife have both suggested that as DD is a big baby (way past the 99.8th percentile for height) she would progress more quickly with her weaning but it's not really working out like that.

If you're worried about pushing your DD too soon, then I would say wait another couple of weeks and then let her have a play with some finger foods. And there is a whole list of foods to avoid before 6mo - wheat, citrus fruits. I'll try and find the whole list.

from babycentre

The Department of Health recommends that you avoid giving cow's milk or milk products (cheese, yogurt, fromage frais), fish and shellfish, soya beans, citrus fruit (including orange juice) or eggs, until your baby is six months old.

? If your family has a history of allergies, such as eczema, asthma or food allergies, your baby should avoid peanuts and sesame seeds up to the age of three years.

? The risk of developing coeliac disease is reduced by avoiding foods containing gluten, such as wheat, rye and barley-based foods. That includes bread, flour, pasta, some breakfast cereals and rusks until six months. Oats are best avoided until six months, too, in case they contain traces of gluten.

the BLW site is fab

watch out too if you buy anything commercially produced as few of them adhere to those guidlines but they claim they are ok for 4-6 months.

i did BLW by accident, after DD refused puree... i did not know it had a name as i was not a mumsnetter then ! have lovely pics of her with big florets of broccoli in her little fists! and eating a whole apple .....it took all the stress out of weaning for me.. no extra cooking, and no faff! worked well for us

hi ya my dd is 6 moths and i started to feed him at 15 weeks as he was a 9 poud baby born and now weighs 19.12 so he needid ood as the bob was not enought for him so it is up 2 u if u feed u baby b4 6 months dd is my 3rd and i fed my other 2 as well b4 6 months didnt do them any harm and they all love there food now so gd luck

Even if I didn't know the guidelines, it would just seem utterly counter-intuitive to wean ds2 (5 months) now. He can't sit up and has no pincer grip - even if I didn't know those signs I'd just feel he was too, well, little.

Yeah - when dd was 18 weeks I was astonished that I'd started weaning ds at that age - she seemed way too small. BLW definitely seems the way forward - esp as I can't be arsed with all the pureeing/freezing malarky .
Fair point about babies grabbing at everything too - just because dd makes a grab for The Guardian doesn't mean she's ready to learn to read!

the 'didn;t do them any harm argument', is a bit of a moot point, as the possible problems related to early weaning might not show up for years.

also, the weight of the baby is not an indication

frequent growth spurts can make you think that milk is not enoough, but a good milk feed is more filling, calorific and nutritious than food.

phlossie, let us know how you get on with BLW, the site is great and there is a really helpful forum too !

I think it won't do any harm to wait a few more weeks but it may possibly do harm to start early, so why not wait.

Would definitely recommend BLW though, hope you decide to give it a try

phlossie - I started DS at 22 weeks. He was doing all the developmental things listed and I chatted with my GP and started on Baby rice and simple fruit/ veg purees.

I have no idea how he and I would have gone til 26 weeks - bmilk simply wasnt satisfying him any longer and he started waking hourly in the nights having slept really well.

But if your baby is happy and settled; I would wait.