Is my 4mo ready for weaning?

[soph28]

She is my 3rd and I can't really be bothered. BF is going really well and was hoping to wait till 6mo BUT...she won't BF if there is any food around/we are eating- she cries and tries to reach for the food. If it is within reach she grabs it- she can grab and hold bits of bread, vegetables, biscuits and take them to her mouth and suck them. If I take it away from her she screams. She has grabbed dd1's spouty cup and drank water from it.

Her head control is brilliant and she can roll both ways. She can sit and support herself with her hands for a minute or so.

Should I wait or just go with it?

(she is 4.5 months)

eek! dd has always refused anything with egg. she still does at 3.5yo. it turns out every bloody brand of fish fingers in the supermarket has egg in the batter. the ones I have read anyway. But M&S lemon sole goujons don't. >

Foxy- I know that she's not dairy intolerant because she was weaned later, my point was that just because a child is weaned later doesn't mean they will avoid allergies IFYSWIM?

DeJavous - if you re read my post you will see I was not advisisng soph to do anything other than avoid gluten, and to follow her gut instincts. (I'd presumed she was already aware of the guildlines.)

Intentional pun, or not, Lynette?

Lynette, I have re-read and it still seems to me that you are advising early weaning:

LynetteScavo on Tue 23-Sep-08 21:49:24
Personally, I would (and did)

LynetteScavo on Tue 23-Sep-08 21:50:07
Let her have the food, that is.

LynetteScavo on Tue 23-Sep-08 22:12:52
I agree she wants to be involved - and involved with the eating!! I remember DS2 desperatl;y clinging on to a plate with all his might so he could have some brocoli.

I'd hold off the gluten (biscuits and bread), but I think you should go with your gut instinct on this one.

soph, the effects of early vs late weaning are impossible to quantify in a single child.

A child who was weaned at or after six months may well still develop allergies/intolerances, but there's no way of knowing if they would have been worse or more extensive if weaning was done earlier.

We do know that there is a lower instance of allergies in babies weaned around six months than in babies weaned earlier. I don't have the research material to hand, but you should be able to find some good links by searching in the archives.

This is an interesting thread If you don't follow latest research or guidelines wrt baby feeding (in particular weaning)

OK, my gut instinct based on my observation of all the babies and children of my acquaintance and my own up bringing and that of my sibling and my dp and his siblings that my baby will be perfectly safe in the car withut a car seat. So I'll just follow my follow my instinct, shall I? After all, for all we know, the'll say next week that strapping them into cars is damaging.

Oh, and I think it's just a matter of opinion about smoking around babies is damaging - my dad smoked like a chimney, and my brothers and I didn't suffer any ill effects. So I'll follow my instincts on that one too, shall I?

After all, I know my baby better than anyone - and I know what's best for him.

Soph, I advise you to follow the current guidlines.

With DS1 I did not follow the guidlines which were in place. I ignored the HV when she advised me to start weaning jsut before he was 16 weeks, as I wasn't ready,(litterally I had no baby rice ) and I didn't think he was ready. I held off gluten with him for almost a year, which amazed the other new mums I knew, but I just wanted to be cautious.

With DS2 the guidlines had changed, and I just as the HV's would have advised me weaning him, they were obliged to advise me to hold out - which I tried to do. The trouble is I'm the kind of mum who sits her babys on her lap during meals, and he started swipping carrots, etc. Maybe I should have left him on a mat on the floor or something. -He is still very sociable, adn a "foodie"

DD just wasn't interested in food untill around 6 months, so there was no issue with her.

If I have another baby like DS2, and having read the government advice, I will let him have some broccol of my plate.I doesn't mean I'm advising you to do the same though Soph28

I also would do my upmost to make sure my DC's had breast milk over formula, but I'm soooooo not opening up that can of worms.

So, has she had a Gregg's Sausage Roll yet Soph?

Sigh. We are in Spain and our pediatric nurse advised us to start solids at 4 months, as does all the propaganda in the local clinic.

DS will be four months next week and I have been really looking forward to it! Until reading this and related threads

I want to read the original research but find it difficult to track down - I see plenty of talking-down PDF booklets and summary-type guidelines. The WHO website has thousands of tiny studies and many links to their 2002-era publications are broken.

A lot of the articles I have read today about delaying solids talk a lot about BF and emphasise not quitting BF too early.
We are FF (did try hard, wracked with guilt, etc) - should that make a difference?