16week old baby girl, DP wants to give her solids

[MiamlaHasADaffodilBehindHerEar]

i'm posting on behalf of someone else, lets call her Sarah...

Her DP is pressuring her to start DD (16wks) on solids, Sarah doesn't want to. Wants to keep ebf but doesn't feel she can say no to DP

So ladies, what advice can you give her?

ps I was hoping she's start a thread herself but as she hasn't i thought i would. "Sarah", hope you don't mind

I'd suggest she gets her DP to read the WHO/NHS advice.

Then maybe ask him some questions such as, what benefit does he feel it will bring? Is he happy to expose their baby to the risks associated with early weaning? Does he really feel he knws better than the expert organisations who have looked carefully at research before making these recommendations?

And tbh, I'd suggest she looks hard at her relationship if she doesn't feel able to say no to her DP when he wants to do something that could damage their baby's health.

My DH mentioned several times that I should start weaning before 6 months. Based on what? She likes her Infacol. I threw some facts at him and resisted. Is it because Sarah's partner wants to participate? Well he can give some expressed milk, no?

She needs to arm herself with all of the relevant information and guidelines and make sure he is also aware of them.

I am a little alarmed that she is unable to say no to him.

Why does he want to introduce solids?

She needs to ask him why. Almost every reply he could give has a very good argument why his reason would be a load of rubbish

Being generous, I suspect he is concerned that their dd is (eg) waking a lot at night, bfing constantly in the evenings etc (ie typical 4mo) and he thinks food will help her sleep and give 'Sarah' a much-needed break

in which case perhaps the best thing he can do is find other ways to take the pressure off Sarah while she continues ebfing eg cook her dinner, do some houseowrk and take dd for an hour before the evening meltdown starts so Sarah can have a bath...

I'd suggest (possibly sweeping generalisation here) that the dp's mum could well be at the root of the pressure.

Agree with MrsBadger though there are lots of other things he can do to help Sarah ebf since that is her wish and best practice according to current medical advice.

The feeling she can't say no may simply relate to a feeling that dp is equally parent to dd so a flat-out no just isn't fair. OTOH, presenting some fairly simple bits of information may satisfy the dp that Sarah is right to want to continue ebf.

This isn't something I would give in on if I were Sarah, to be honest.

tribpot, you win the gold star, it is indeed DP's mum behind the pressure (sorry, forgot to mention it in OP)

i'm really really hoping Sarah finds this thread because i've got no other way of contacting her. We met in Superdrug yday in the baby section and she was asking my opinion on the various jars of food.

Thanks all for your support for her. I told her that she should visit here and ask herself but as she hadn't, thought this might help (even if she doesn't ever post)

It doesn't surprise me that dps mum is behind it. Probably saying 'i weaned him at 4 months and he's fine' They always think that it was better in their days. Well what does she think they did a few hundred years ago before we had 'govenment guidelines' telling us what to do and getting it wrong. It might be a bit hard for ther to do the blw but at least try and hold off for another 8 weeks.
I hope she can follow her instincs and tell dp and his mum to step back.

And remember if they think she is hungry then how is baby meant to get enough milk in her if her stomach is full of non-nutritious baby rice and pureed vegs.