5.5 month old BF baby needs more food: weening or formula?

[MissJoanHolloway]

Hello,

My little Gal is BF every two hours and she is nearly 6 months old.

Wondering if I should start weaning or introduce formula feed at night?

Any friendly advice gratefully received!

xx

hello i didn't mean to offend anyone by my comments but have felt very guilty about weaning before 6 months. i spoke to more than 1 health visitor before we started and they agreed my dd was ready. Her sleep and weight gain have improved and she loves her food. I only want the best for my children but its hard to follow guide lines when they keep changing. Also this is my 2nd child both bf and i have only just found out that centile charts are based on weight gain for ff babies, i found this a little odd as the government are trying to encourage bf.

but missjoan your baby does sound ready

mrsf - the standard centile charts are not really appropriate for babies beyond the age of four months or so, as they tend to show healthy bf babies as underweight, and they are not! From about that age breastfed babies typically slow down and become lighter than formula fed babies and this difference is very marked by the time the baby is aged 12 months.

Health visitors are (or should be) aware of this, and if they are not yet using the changed charts they should certainly not be advising weaning based on what a four-6 month old is doing on the charts (that's true whatever chart is used, but especially if the older chart is used, as it mostly still is).

Guidelines don't keep changing They changed in 2003 from '4-6 mths' to '6 mths' which is not a huge change at all, and the previous change before 4-6 mths was in the 1970s, I think. What does keep changing, sadly, is HVs' consistency of advice - totally the responsibility of the HVs, and nothing for mothers to feel guilty about!

Thanks everyone for taking the time to leave messages. Was DD1's birthday so was offline for a while.

I think I will try a bit of food this weekend as she does seem interested. I appreciate that this might not change her sleep pattern. I will check the links left in the messages.

mrsfossil - I appreciate how you can be made to feel badly about parenting choices, it is quite stressful often.

TAFKAtheUrbanDryad gosh - tandem! how impressive!

Thanks again everyone xxx

Just thought I would give an update for anyone searching for messages with same problem.

I ended up having an operation just after baby turned 6 months and so husband fed baby organic formula and I am doing complementary breastfeeding as well as weaning now. She is so much happier now that she is receiving more food.

In restrospect I feel like my baby was really hungry between 3-6 months and feel confident that I was not making enough milk. I was exhausted from feeding her every 2 hours which I feel did not improve my supply it just made me very run down.

I have since met many people who have/have had a similar problem and feel pressured into keeping their babies hungry because they feel they are not allowed to wean them or give them formula.

I am not sure I would wait the full six months next time.