Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Weaning

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

Original poster

HV putting fear of god into me...please help!

32 replies

hadwinefeelingfine · 30/05/2008 08:50

Hi, I need some advice please, badly!
My DD is nearly 7 months now and all over the place with her food and I wasnt particularly worried UNTIL I spoke to the HV yesterday.
DD loved her food and was happily eating most things plus breastmilk then suddenly started to refuse food.
I tried her with a jar and she wolfed it down so I figured that she just didnt like my cooking so I abandoned the home cooked foods (which,by the way,were the Annabel Karmel recipies and I liked them!)and started on the jars. Now she is refusing everything.
I thought, oh well as long as shes taking her milk I wont force it and phoned the HV just to get some reassurance.
!!!
Now I feel like I'm doing everything wrong!
HV said that DD HAS to be having three solid meals a day because she can't get all she needs from my milk anymore and has given me a list of all the food groups she has to have in a day.
It is incredibly intimidating and now I'm so stressed out about it all. I have no one to ask as my friends babies all ate whatever was put in front of them,my mum cant remember and my gran wanted to give DD a bit of whisky in her milk so I dont think I'd better ask her!
Has anyone else experienced this?
Sorry, long one!

OP posts:
itwasntme · 30/05/2008 08:52

Have you tried her on finger foods? Some babies just don't like mush

Piffle · 30/05/2008 08:52

ignore her
full of shite...
3 meal here were not achieved till nearly 1 yr!

Would she take fingers foods? Teething makes eating habits go awry a bit.

itwasntme · 30/05/2008 08:52

Oh,and the health visitor is talking out of her arse.

hunkermunker · 30/05/2008 08:53

Your HV is a lunatic.

Plenty of babies don't eat much at all till they're over one.

Breastmilk is superb stuff and your DD is getting oodles from it - stupid HV. Ask her for reference to current research to show that she's not getting all she needs from your milk. I suspect she'll bleat on about iron a bit.

Also, look at Aitch's site for more ideas.

lulumama · 30/05/2008 08:54

breastmilk can absolutely meet her needs..

my DD is almost 3 and mostly has on 2 meals a day and milk.

offer fingerfoods, a la www.babyledweaning.com and rest assured that at not even 7 months, your milk and some food will be quite enough

LIZS · 30/05/2008 08:54

She needs a balanced diet of solids (including potein , iron ,vitamins) but her main source of nutrition is milk up to a year. For now weaning is more about exploring flavours and textures. She is still pretty young though and may be teething.

PortAndLemon · 30/05/2008 08:54

She's talking twaddle and scaremongering. Back off a bit and try again gently, but without stressing. Do you think your DD might be happier to try finger foods?

lizziemun · 30/05/2008 08:56

Ignore, as it is the job of HV to put the fear of god into all new parents .

FWIW DD1 didn't eat 3meals a day until she was 1 and she loved her milk now dd2 is 8.5mths and is already on 3 meals a day but fights me giving her milk because she doesn't like it.

So my advice is you are doing great going at the pace you and your dd are happy with. Yes you could try BLW (see aitches site) finger food.

hullygully · 30/05/2008 08:57

Complete crap. Babies all over the world exist on limited food groups and somehow manage to grow up. Don't know of many Waitroses in the African bush. Agree with the others, just give her a whole load of different finger foods and let her experiment. Also they often go off food for a bit if they're poorly or teething.

hercules1 · 30/05/2008 09:10

You dont have to see hvs. Your one is clueless so best avoided.

NorthernLurker · 30/05/2008 09:16

another vote here for ignoring the hv, trying some finger food and keeping up with the milk! Dd1 and dd3 weren't on 3 meals a day until well after nine months here. I think dd2 was a little earlier but (poor negelected child) I find myself unable to remember anything about her babyhood! I did get a bit of flak from my hv about dd1 only having breakfast and tea but nothing with dd3 - 'cos i never went near them. Dd1 and dd3 have almost the same birthday so it is very easy to compare their weights in the red book. Dd1 was 1/2 a pound heavier at birth but otherwise their weights have been very nearly the same right through the first year - which is interesting - to me at least

hullygully · 30/05/2008 09:18

And my dd had nothing but bm until she was one (despite my best attempts, had to go cold turkey at that point) and is now 9 and thriving..

edam · 30/05/2008 09:21

I think your best tactic is not to go near this woefully ill-informed HV at all. How on earth does the daft woman think that b/m, which she knows perfectly well is the ideal food for a baby, switches into not-good-enough overnight on when your baby turns six months old? She's an eejit. And DON'T let her start telling you your dd won't get enough iron from b/m - that was based on a complete misunderstanding. Iron in b/m is far more easily absorbed than in formula or food.

nervousal · 30/05/2008 09:26

Dear god - my DD is 4 and its still a struggle to get her to eat 3 meals a day. I agree withthe above - offer her finger foods and little snacks during the day - she won't starve herself

CombustibleLemon · 30/05/2008 10:22

Can I please add complain about the HV to what everyone else has posted. It probably won't make you feel any better but, if you complain, it might stop her from making another mother feel like you did.

Original poster
hadwinefeelingfine · 30/05/2008 11:23

Thanks for all your advice, I have decided to ignore the hitlerHV and carry on with what I have been doing.
DD hasnt quite got the grasp of finger food yet(see what I did there?!) but I intend to keep trying.
This all came about because I read in a book( the authur of said book will remain nameless )that by 7 months you could probably stop the late feed and establish a bedtime. I must admit this did appeal!
DD has milk at 10.30ish at the mo.Do they have to be having three meals a day before you try this?
Mumsnet is great by the way, 15 replys in less than an hour...and no-one complaining about my spelling!!

OP posts:
lizziemun · 30/05/2008 15:54

It depends on whether you are bothered about night feeds.

I never stopped night feeds as i wasn't bothered (I could make a bottle and feed dd1 and be back in bed with in 10mins) for dd1 and she still woke for a feed at 3am until she was 2years old, she still ate during the day but she needed that fed at 3am.

Now with dd2 since she was 9weeks she has a feed between 10.30pm and 11pm and then sleeps through until 6am to 7am. But she has much less then dd1. DD1 would drink 5 9oz bottles a day as well as eating 3 meals a day, but dd2 only has about 20oz on a good day and eats 3 good size meals a day.

Oh that reminds me someone once told me that a baby stomach is about the size of their fist.

eelherder · 30/05/2008 16:11

spooky - i was just going to ask a similar question. Mine because SAHD has embraced BLW with gusto and especially the mantra "its just for fun until they're one" - which he appears to take to mean if he can't be ars*d feeding solids she can have milk instead - and if she only ate when he ate, she wouldn't eat at all! - i am being a little harsh, she does get at least two meals plus snacks a day. guess i don't get to beat him up after all. Damn.

NotABanana · 30/05/2008 16:15

Things like this make me so cross. When you need some guidance you should be able to trust the "professionals." Your baby does not have to have 3 solid meals a day. Assuming baby is on milk only until 6 months that is a very short space of time to jump to 3 meals.

I would abandon the jars as your cooking is so much nicer and better and just take it steady. Maybe have a couple of days where you just offer milk and then start again. My daughter had trouble getting the hang of real food and I am sure she was about 8 months when I bought a stick blender and went right back to basics. She soon picked it up again. No BLW then.

bossybritches · 30/05/2008 17:00

smacks hand against forehead

God help all the mothers seen by that HV who don't have the MN voice of reason!!

flack · 30/05/2008 17:14

You can get vitamin drops to make up for possible iron deficiency until whenever she takes to solids (for some very cheap price at chemist's, HV should have told you about these, anyway, they're recommended for all breastfed babies, anyway).

NotABanana · 30/05/2008 19:29

really?

Doobydoo · 30/05/2008 19:31

Agree with Northern Lurker.Damn hvs[well some of them]My ds prefers finger foods.Please try not to stress.I know its hard but here is the best place to be for this sort of thing.xx

WriggleJiggle · 30/05/2008 20:34

Your HV is mad! dd2 went mad for food at 6 months. Then after a couple of weeks I think the novelty of it wore off, and she went back to (just about) exclusive bfing. A few weeks later and she's back on the finger food again.

Just go with what ever your dd wants.

Some days dd eats all day, sometimes she drinks all day, somedays she goes for hours without food or milk. There's no pattern to it at all, which I guess is just like my eating habbits .

How do you hink your dd is doing? Is she bright eyed, bushey tailed and happy?

Tinkjon · 30/05/2008 23:37

Find another HV immediately. Milk is all they need until they are a year old.