Weaning research/advice 4-6 months

[bruffin]

For those who are interested

ESPGHAN medical position paper

Eat Study

Infant feeding and allergy prevention

USA have just changed their guidelines back to 4-6 months and countries such as France Germany and Italy also have guidelines of 4-6 months
So can we please stop all this sscaremongering on weaning before 6 months.

i always thought it was a daft side issue in a country where only 20% of mums are BF at all at 6mo.

It looks like it's back to commonsense for once.

What are the benefits of weaning before 6 months though? Surely it makes sense to wait just in case, rather than start early because, what, you are looking forward to it?

i am quite circumspect in what i say, somewhere around 26 weeks is a good time.. and if the baby is showing the true signs of readiness and maturity at 23 or 21 weeks , then great

but i don't beleive many babies are ready physically at 12 weeks or 14 weeks or 16 weeks

NHS very clear no solids before 17 weeks.

i will have a look at the links later

I think putting an age on it isn't natural anyway. The child is ready for solid foods when they can pick them up and put them in there mouth and swallow. With us guiding them as to what they put in there mouths ofcourse!

If you read the links the benefits are less likelyhood of allergies. By leaving it to the last minute you are rushing weaning rather than introducing foods slowly.

The point is there has been huge scaremongering on these boards for years that the gut is not ready until earliest 4 months and latest 26 months.

This myth is completely dispelled in the first link,
"The available data suggest that both renal
function and gastrointestinal function are sufficiently
mature to metabolise nutrients from complementary
foods by the age of 4 months (12). With respect to
gastrointestinal function, it is known that exposure
to solids and the transition from a high-fat to a
high-carbohydrate diet is associated with hormonal
responses (eg, insulin, adrenal hormones) that result
in adaptation of digestive functions to the nature of the
ingested foods, by increasing the maturation rate of
some enzymatic functions and/or activities (13,14).
Thus, to a large degree gastrointestinal maturation is
driven by the foods ingested."

Not really, why would waiting until 6 months mean you are rushing weaning? Only if you listen to ridiculous health visitors who insist they should be on 3 meals a day by 6 months and 2 weeks!

It's perfectly possible to wait until 6 months and still introduce foods gradually. Nutrition from solid food isn't even really needed until around a year of age, by which time most babies want more food than milk anyway.

Anyway, one study doesn't "completely dispel" any theory.

Agree bertie

and not every child eats that much , weaning is tastes of food , gradually built up anyway. DD was 9 mths before she really ate any decend amount of solids, and was 2 before she ever said she was hungry

DS was weaned earlier and has a nut allergy

DD does not

so my little group dispels that research

i think knowing the signs of readiness and physical maturity will enable paarents to make an informed decision about weaning, be it at 23 weeks , 29 weeks or 21 weeks.

i think the main benefit for me was i was no longer spending 25% of my waking hours with a baby attached to my boob...

some babies eat huge amounts well before their 1st birthday...they just vary so much.

i think 'physical readiness' is open to fairly wide iterpretation too. I fyou want baby to feed itself.much later..if you are going to mouth-to-mouth feed, it becomes possible not long after birth.(and studies in Africa note that women do wean when babies is only a few weeks old, by this method)

Bertiebots you haven't read anyof the links have you.

The ESPGHAN link is a medical position paper of the peadiatricians, gaestontologists, hepatologists etc of europe and north america. It is not one study but a summery of many research papers.
The EAT sttudy is a long term study started because of the increase in allergy since the change in weaning guidelines to 6months+

I think 4-6 months makes sense as it takes into account the fact that all babies are different. I know very few people who waited until their babies were 6 months to start weaning as the babies were obv ready earlier. I started weaning ds1 at around 20 weeks & have just started weaning ds2 at 17 weeks. Weaning ds2 has been a revelation as it's made such a difference to his reflux problems & I now have a contented happy baby for the first time since he was born.

No, I haven't, I have skim read them when posted here before. I'm winding you up a little bit. I think that BLW is the way to go, not arbitrary guidelines. FWIW DS had his first solid food at 5 months but still doesn't eat great quantities at 18 months, so shoot me.

The whole point of the thread is that there has been a lot of bullying and scaremongering on these boards over the years concerning introducing solids and just reading the first link shows most of what is not even correct.

Hopefully mums can now relax and go with their instinct rather than waiting for an arbitary date.

there certainly has - including threads such as 'shall i report friend for giving her sub-six monther solids' which are blardy ridiculous

it just isn't clear cut.

Yes but when the instinct is "He's been waking a lot at night and my health visitor said it's ok" it's a bit more questionable than "My baby stole some carrot off my plate, should I have taken it off him?"

actually, mine were waking alot to feed, and weaning did help...though i don't give a toss what my HV says....

i don't think instinct comes into it though - gtting peed off with constant feeding is more tangible than that.

4 to 6 months make sense, but the problem is people will interpret it as 4 months/16 weeks, oh well 14 weeks or 12 weeks is much off that...

Maybe there should be more emphasis on reading your own baby's physical signs - if you have to prop the baby up, make puree almost liquid and battle against a thrust reflex then it's too early.

Agree with Missus84. People need to know the signs a baby is ready & the signs they're not in order to make the correct decision for their child. If a baby who has previously slept through starts waking because they're hungry I'd say it was reasonable to consider if they might be ready for more than milk. ds2 actually started drinking less milk as he just didn't seem to want it & since I've started weaning him he drinks more milk than ever as well as loving his food. Maybe he's just peculiar though, who knows.