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Weaning

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

Original poster

HV advise on weaning...what does everyone think?

4 replies

hollyboosmum · 14/04/2008 21:47

My dd is coming up to 5 months old and is relly interested in food and is feeding every 2 hours on Milk and taking a lot. SHe has started to wake in the night and i felt she needed something more.
I spoke to the health visitor about this and got the following answer. She stated under no circumstances that weaning should begin before 4 months but after that you are ok to start on simple foods. She also said that the research that has been done (which made them move the guidelines to 6 months) was based on children in third world countries and that it is better for them to have milk for 6 months but not always the case for western babies. She also thought it was a lot to ask of a 6 month old baby to go through wening very quickly...is soft stuff to lumpy in the space of weeks whereas before when you started them at 4 months they got adjusted to the food better and this resulted in less faddy eaters as the children get older..... just wondered what peoples thoughts on this were?

OP posts:
Original poster
hollyboosmum · 14/04/2008 21:48

My dd is coming up to 5 months old and is relly interested in food and is feeding every 2 hours on Milk and taking a lot. SHe has started to wake in the night and i felt she needed something more.
I spoke to the health visitor about this and got the following answer. She stated under no circumstances that weaning should begin before 4 months but after that you are ok to start on simple foods. She also said that the research that has been done (which made them move the guidelines to 6 months) was based on children in third world countries and that it is better for them to have milk for 6 months but not always the case for western babies. She also thought it was a lot to ask of a 6 month old baby to go through wening very quickly...is soft stuff to lumpy in the space of weeks whereas before when you started them at 4 months they got adjusted to the food better and this resulted in less faddy eaters as the children get older..... just wondered what peoples thoughts on this were?

OP posts:
Sidge · 14/04/2008 21:52

I disagree with her.

I agree that you should never give solid food to a baby under 4 months, but she is very misguided about the rest. There is no evidence to suggest that delaying solids to 6 months means that they have to wean any quicker. At 6 months you don't have to give purees at all! You can skip that whole stage if you like. Or you can start with vile pap baby rice if you want to.

FWIW DD1 was weaned at 4 mths and is the fussiest eater ever. DD3 was weaned at 5.5 mths and eats anything and everything!

LittleMissBliss · 14/04/2008 21:59

My ds is 5 months and is feeding every 2 hours day and night, has been for 5 weeks. Two hv advised me to wean ds early as he shows interest in food. I strongly wanted to go down the blw route. So skipped the mush! Ds just sucks and nibbles on banana, rusks, roast veggie sticks.

it's very wasteful but i'm happier ds feeding himself, than feeding him myself. This way i know he's ready for the food.

LittleMissBliss · 14/04/2008 22:02

p.s I've been doing this for a week or so and he's still feeding as much as ever still going two hourly at night. So hasn't helped on that front and it's a pain preparing the food (remebering for me- postnatal scatter brain) wish i'd stuck to just bf for another 4 weeks to be honest.

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