Is HV right?

[loopyloo82]

Just wondered what people thought, as I have received conflicting advice.
My
dd is 18 weeks and ebf. Her birth weight was 6lb 10, around 25th percentile, but she quickly moved up to 98th. I had her weighed yesterday and she is now 19lb6, off the weight chart.

I am quite happy with that but hv said I will probably not make 6 months without weaning her, will probably need to start around Christmas (when she will be 5 months). At the moment, she doesn't breastfeed loads during the day, but has been waking every 2 hours in the night for feeds, and last night it was every hour - she was more or less feeding constantly from 1.30 till 7 (we are co-sleeping).

My understanding was that weaning would not make much difference as she would still be getting her calories mainly from milk, but my hv has confused me by saying that as she is a big baby she may need weaning early. What do you think? I don't want to wean early unless necessary, but must admit I am struggling with constant night wakings and can't encourage her to feed more in the day - too nosy!

HV is wrong. You are obviously making fresh cream with that amazing weight gain. DD went through a patch like this as she suddenly got more interested in the world during the day she was too nosey to fee properly so made up for it during the night. Can you try and get atleast one feed during the day in in a dark quiet room? I found it made a big difference to the night feeds. Once she got used to the fact that all the interesting stuff was always there it was easier to feed during the day.

Your hv is talking shite. You may, possibly find that as a big baby she reaches her milestones earlier and can sit unaided quicker than a smaller baby but that is by no means a given.

True signs of readiness for weaning are:

• Loss of tongue thrust reflex
• Baby able to sit unaided
• Baby able to pick up food, move food to mouth, put food in mouth, chew and swallow (they can do this without teeth surprisingly efficiently!)

Size of baby is irrelevant.

Ps - I bet she's a gorgeous little butter ball, isn't she?

DS was big, (not as big as yours) but needed weaning at 4 months. HE was sitting up and snatching food off my plate, so we decided to start him on some rice.

If you do have to wean early, just express milk and mix it with rice. That way they are still getting all the good nutritious breast milk and feel a bit fuller because of the rice. This way we managed to hold off all other food until 6 months.

DS was pretty huge and bf was his main food source 'til about 8 months.
We offered food from 6 months (BLW, which I would highly recommend) but he didn't really get into it until he had good sitting balance.

He thrived on milk until he was ready.

I understand that the guidelines clearly state 6 months as recommended age for weaning so think your HV needs to justify her advice with some evidence.

I was invited to a HV led weaning talk when he was about 4 months and it was the biggest load of anecdotal rubbish IMHO, it was basically instructions on how to use a blender and a load of Annabel Karmel mush recipes. Complete waste of NHS resources I thought, if people need to know how to use a blender they can read the instruction manual!

I would advise to keep going with the bf, sounds like you're doing a great job

Food is fun until they're one, as they say.

Gracie - both my kids were grabbing at books at 4 months, but i didn't feel the need to teach them phonics. Small babies grab at stuff, it's what they do. At 4 months the baby's gut may be
closed but it may not be. An exclusively bf baby still has a virgin gut and if food was introduced before the gut matures it could do serious harm.

It was the advice I was given, and it didn't harm him at all. Giving him a bit of rice with expressed milk before bed certainly seemed better than allowing him to snatch whatever he could from someone else's plate and cram it in his mouth.

He was constantly hungry (some people suggested I top up with formula, but we chose not to) eating for nearly 45 minutes off each boob and then going back to the first one again, screaming if he hadn't fed in the last 30 minutes.

It hasn't done him any harm, and he was a much happier baby when we did it. We have also never had any problems with him rejecting a food, any allergies...etc...

Just think OP needs to know that babies are weaned at different time. My niece didn't have anything but milk until she was 10mo. It's different for different babies. I just don't think you should feel like you 'failed' if you can't hang on until the magic 6 months.

Most of our parents weaned us at 3 mo as that was the medical advice in the 80s and I certainly didn't die from it.

PMSL at the phonics comment by the way.

I'm not medically trained but I have to say - I think your HV is wrong. I can't see any reason why a baby's size should affect the age they are weaned. Size is just height and weight - it has nothing to do with how developed a child's digestive system is.

I do agree with Mrs Mattie by the way. I'm sure my sons weight had nothing to do with how ready he was for weaning (I knew bigger babies that weren't) children just develop differently.

He was also walking at 8 months. I reckon the MW let him cook for too long before inducing me

Weight is not an indicator for weaning. As for weaning at 5 months most HV's are stuck between a rock and a hard place as the DOH say 6 months and then muddy the waters by stating "not before the end of the 17th week" hence rather a lot of confusion about what we should be advising to do. Many parents do wean before the advised 6 months so I suspect the "not before the end of the 17th week" thing is aimed at those parents but I have parents who wean even earlier than this - one is a mother of 10 who weaned her first at 12 weeks as was the advice at the time and who has followed suit with all the others. No way is she waiting with her latest either - she's already told me so.

Personally I advise parents to wait until their babies can sit up and discuss BLW. I used this with my DS who is now nearly 7 and we bypassed the puree stage completely. His BLW started at 5 months when he was on my lap and grabbed a roast potato off my plate. He crammed it into his mouth (most of it went on the floor and all down me and him). However, real weaning was nearly 8 months when he was getting it where it was supposed to be.

PS - you are evidently producing double cream - well done.

Gracie - if your baby was grabbing food off your plate and managing to eat it then I would say he was ready for solids. Otherwise he was just grabbing like babies do.

I'm glad that your ds hasn't seemed to show any ill-effects from being weaned "early" (although, I think technically, "early" is before 16 weeks as the gut may mature any time beyond that) but things like IBS and Chron's disease won't show up till adulthood. Not that I'm saying your ds has any of these things, but it's made a more likely possibility by introducing solid food too early.

Btw, just grabbing food from parents is how most primates are introduced to solids. No other mammal that I can think of Moulinexes food for their young. I get a lot of my parenting from chimps.

Thanks everyone - I've only been out for a couple of hours and had so many replies already, all of which confirm what I had thought and confirm my instincts too.

DD is sitting up unaided (just!) and grabbing things, but as people have said, that doesn't mean she needs solid food. She seems happy, so I can't see the point of rushing it - just wanted to check after HV's advice.

As for BLW, we did have a weaning talk by our HV ( a different one) and we watched a video that promoted BLW and I thought it looked interesting - but the HV running the talk suggested that the best is a combination - to give purees and offer finger food. Do you think that undermines the BLW?

Thanks again everyone

p..TAFKA, she is an adorable little buddha (with a voice to match her size - she is practising a range of shrieks as I type!)- 'bouncing' is the word the old ladies seem to use!

Once DS was past 6 months we introduced foods that he could hold, albeit soft ones, and mash with his gums fairly easily (boiled carrot sticks, rusks, etc...) and allowed him to eat as much or little as he could manage. We did give him purees to dip in, which he thought were fantastic, but I don't think this undermined BLW.

loopy - I did "strict" BLW with ds, with the result that he was still exclusively bf at 8 months ! In desperation I tried purees but it made not a jot of difference tbh. He ate when he was good and ready and not before!

Dd started solids at 5.5 months by grabbing a chip off my plate and eating it! She's 9 months now and we do a mix of spoon feeding and BLW - basically she gets spoon fed anything messy or runny, like casserole or yoghurt. I've never made a purée for her though!