Getting a bit fed up of people making rude comments about waiting til 6 months to wean - anyone else had this?

[chequersandroastedchestnuts]

I'm not weaning DD til 6 months and if anyone asks why I just say it's because I have asthma and want to be on the safe side. I really try not to get into discussions about early weaning.

Anyway, I'm finding that friends who wean early can be really rude about waiting til 6 months - it's 'ridiculous' apparently, will set you up for a fussy eater etc etc.

I just find it really rude when I'm keeping my mouth shut over practices like weaning onto rusks at 12 weeks that I have to put up with listening to this kind of stuff.

Each to their own and all that but if I can keep my mouth shut on someone else's weaning decisions why can't they do the same for me? It seems to be socially acceptable to knock 6 month weaning in a way it wouldn't be to kock other things.

Sorry, just letting off a bit of steam, but has anyone else had this?

Ok, this is good to know, thanks - didn't realise it was as common as it is.

You're lucky the comments are coming from friends who you can ignore. My comments came from HV who insisted I wean my LO at 5 months and more or less accused me of not giving her enough solids and introduce chicken and lamb at 5 and a half months
Stupidly, I thought the HV knew what she was talking about caved in and had a terrible time weaning my DD until I spoke to another HV and turned to BLW.

BTW - My Mum and SIL also started going on about weaning DD when she was 3 months. I just ignored SIL and was just rude back to my Mum about it, telling her that's probably why I'm so small

I am already starting to get the questions about weaning and my baby is 5 months. DC2 was fine starting at 6 months and so I intend to do the same with DC3. I know of only 1 or 2 others who have done it at 6 months or later. A friend asked me the other day when I was weaning - her baby is the same age as mine and I was expecting her to say she had started on the baby rice. I just said something vague like "oh, I'm going to see how long we can go without" so as not to offend her or her decision. Was pleasantly surprised when she said she was waiting until 6 months. I am so used to everyone else starting earlier that I avoid the subject so that people don't think I am being judgemental about them starting earlier (which I am not, I couldn't care less!).

OP - Ah man, I hate people like that. I hang out with three friends that have all had babies at the same time as me and we've already taken totally different paths with how we feed, two exclusively use formula, one does formula top-ups and I have been really lucky and haven't hit any problems with bfing so am exclusively bf'ing. All three are weaning early because they are going back to work at 6 months and I think they're all doing purees and one is doing a bit of finger foods mixed in, where as I am really lucky and won't be going back for quite a while so I have no rush to wean and will be trying BLW. None of them would be turning their nose up at my choice.

You'd think seeing as they're your mates that they'd just be supportive wouldn't you rather than judgemental! And why is it always worse with family, just because we're related it does not mean that you have free rein to pass judgement!

lollipopmother At the risk of sounding judgemental WHY are they weaning early? They all give formula so THEY don't have to be there!

I exc. BF for 6 months & still BF now at almost 10 months, i also waited until 6 months to begin weaning and almost everybody i know thinks i'm a loon.
my SIL hates particularly seems to feel very annoyed by my behaviour.

Good for you. I waited til 6 months with all three of mine and got SO many undermining comments. So I'm saying - congratulations! You are doing totally the right thing for your baby. Well done.

Remember feeling a bit 'odd one out' with my NCT group when they were all competitively spoon feeding gloop. I also stopped going to the BF support group at the local clinic when DS was 4 months due to all the talk of early weaning - including a ruddy great display board put up by the HVs about how you can wait until 6 months, but here's how to do it from 17 weeks

i got lots of stick with ds2 because of waiting till 6 months and the fact hes vegetarian.boo hiss.apparently i was denying my child .hes 3 in 16 days and has turned out alright.

tell them all to wee wee off!

I had comments from friends on both my decision to prolong Bfing and to try to hold out on weaning to 6 months (although actually started at 21 weeks with tiny amounts of baby rice). As others have said, people perceive an implied criticism of their actions if you choose to do something differently. You are doing the right thing for you based on the information available, and informed choices, whatever they are, are always the best ones.

So far the only person who has expressed surprise at waiting till 6 months is MIL, who enquired if DS had started solids at 11 weeks . She's had the grace to laugh about it since though.

Of my NCT group, two started weaning earlier but are quite defensive about it so it's not something we discuss much. (I do know one was told to by her HV......)

As I now have to hose down DS, myself, the floor, the ceiling, and pick bits of mince out my hair several times a day, I can't imagine wanting to start any earlier than you have to frankly.

"has anyone else had this"

well no, the opposite if anything, on MN I haven't posted before on the fact that I started before 6 months in case I got flamed as every one on here seems to have waited.

What i'm trying to say in response to your OP is that if I had waited until 6 months then I would have had the "moral high ground"(ifswim) as you are actually going with the recommended guidelines then i'm very surprised to find you get that reaction in real life.

If people are rude it's probably because they might feel some guilt at not having waited til 6 months (I know I do).

I got it from around 4 months, mostly from SIL. Her DS is five months older than mine, so she will always have more parenting experience than me. I imagine she was hoping we'd be able to share the motherhood experience, but as I bf, cloth nappy and BLW at 26 weeks, there isn't much we can talk about! Even the fact I prefer not to dress him in too much blue, if I express my opinion it's like I'm criticising her choices.
I don't think I'll try and make Mum friends til he's at least three.
It's clear the HVs are only paying lip service to the 26 weeks guidelines as well, so it's no surprise that people wean early.

xx

I must be lucky - my HV is all for waiting till 6 months and I have heard her point out the problems that can be caused by early weaning.
However loads of the mums at the clinic still ignore her and wean early.

Yes, my HV hasn't tried to push me into starting earlier either - I do get on quite well with her though.

I think it is mental that people are telling you that it is weird to wait until 6 months. My baby is 1 week off 6 months and I started weaning her last week .. but only with giving her tastes of food, she is still mainly on milk. Besides why do people think they have the right to say something negative about your decision?!?! you should do what feels right for you and for your baby!

'But surely he's too big to survive on just milk' is my particular favourite.

Look I have one of the country's largest children for his age - he's not only tall but big - biiig big. People generally assume he is around nine months old and he's only four. And so yes I constantly have people asking what I'm feeding him and insisting I must be feeding him something other than breastmilk (plutonium perhaps? )

But the fact is breastmilk actually has a higher content than the vast majority of solid foods gram for gram and if my son can last till six months, any other bugger can.

I can understand why some mums decide to wean earlier, you do get a tremendous amount of pressure to encourage your baby to grow up quicker (as if that's possible ). But the funny thing is, I learned with DD, whatever you do, they develop in their own sweet time and you should attempt to enjoy the first stage of their life, and cultivate selective hearing in the company of those who would mock your decisions.

Sorry to hijack your thread chequers (and in answer to your question, yes, loads of rude comments and pressure to wean - drives me insane! I am also intending to wean at 26 wks - 1 week to go ).

However, I really wanted to ask starlight a question as I'm confused by her comment:

"They all give formula so THEY don't have to be there!"

I'm very hormonal and am clearly reading this wrong, but you are surely not suggesting that women who ff do it because they can't be arsed to feed their own babies and would rather someone else carried out this tiresome chore?

I'm sure I'm wrong but that is how your post came across and I'm just wondering what you meant by it?

Hana, it's kind of self-evident that anyone can feed a baby if they're bottle fed (ff or EBM for that matter), it was the way it was said IYSWIM - just interested in the comment, esp as the sentence started off "at the risk of sounding judgemental . . . " .

Oh, and thank you, btw . Period from hell .

I believe that everybody is different - and different weaning methods and timings suit different babies. I weaned both of mine earlier than 6 months for various reasons, despite a family history of allergies and I am confident that it was the right decision. I have a family member who insisted on following the guidelines to the letter and waiting until 6 months to wean. Problem was, her baby was losing weight massively by that stage and was in distress (which cleared up as soon as she started him on solids), so it's maybe not surprising that people started to be a little free with their comments on the matter. Perhaps she should have supplemented with formula instead, I don't know. However, if your infant is thriving on whatever regimen you have them on, why give a stuff what anyone else says? A healthy bouncing baby is all the proof that you need that you're doing the right thing. Have confidence in your parenting abilities and ignore people who try to undermine you! (Easier said than done, I know, but trust me, the timing of weaning is just one of the first in a very, very long list of things that will seem contentious )

starlight, thanks for the answer - clarified your thinking.

I just think most people in RL don't understand the guidelines which is a shame. They think the govt only changed the guidelines because when they said 4mths people were weaning at 10 weeks so now they say 6mths in the hope people will wait till at least 4mths. I have also heard people say 'it's because they don;t want you to introduce meat before 6mths but fruit and veg is OK'. People also believe that once a baby starts waking in the night it is ready for solids. It is just the way people have been brought up. No one in RL (eg HVs) explains why the guidelines say 6mths (we are lucky to have MN to tell us) so it is not surprising that people don't agree with it. When I said I was waiting my mum and sister looked at me like I'd grown another head and the look on their faces was 'yeah, we'll see'. In the end I did wean at 22 weeks cos my twins were cluster feeding to such an extent that I couldn't cope with exclusively BFing them anymore. But I took that decision taking all the necessary info into account and not cos I was desperate to show how grown up my babies were.

I agree, wait as long as you can cos BFing is much easier!

Oh, and I always found that when I explained the reason for waiting (ie because there are holes in the gut which don't close till 17-26 weeks) people were surprised (cos they didn't know that was the reason) and, really, how can they not agree then?