Weaning at 4 months

[stressheaderic]

Would anyone here like to admit to it?

I have one DD, 18 weeks old (4mo + 1 wk). On the lower end of the weight scale at just 11lb 8oz, but following the 2nd centile steadily. Have been bombarded with the 'wait til 6 months' brigade for weeks now.

But - she's hungry. She's been downing her 8oz bottles in minutes, grabbing at our food, waking up unsettled in the night. So, this morning, I gave her some baby rice. And she wolfed down the whole bowlful, swallowed each little mouthful really well, filled her nappy, and then relaxed into the deepest, longest sleep she's had for ages.

I went with my instinct, and I was right. I thought I'd feel bad about it but I don't.
Did anyone else offer food 'early'? And how did you get on?

Och, takes more than that to offend me.

Plastic you 1st post was quite bad, this one is clever. And we do agree on everything, may be I just can't write it properly .
In RL most babies who stopped feeding during the night before the 4 months regression, and take to the bottle or nipple again, then will stop again waking up for food after weaning (they still wake up for other purposes though). I never ever suggested to replace milk with food on such tiny baby and never suggested to mums of unsettled baby at night, that weaning will change that. Sleeping and feeding are completely different things.
Sorry that you have such a bad time with the sleeping.

My first post was dispelling myths. Do you mean the hysteria post because although you weren't suggesting milk replace food etc, it is worth pointing out for the lurkers that there is room for interpretation in the following post:

"for most children weaning means they stop the milk at night ... it does depend how much they eat/drink during the day if it is little they will have to compensate with night feeds."

It is possible that somebody could read that, coupled with your earlier statement that weaning stops nightfeeds and think they're not feeding enough during the day when it's not as simple as that. That somehow the night feeds are their fault. I was clarifying, not criticising I promise.

There is some research to suggest that weaning makes sleep worse for a while too. It is best not to link the two at all, you are right.

And I don't have a poor sleeper. DD sleeps brilliantly thankfully. She did need night feeds longer than 6 months though. She's 3 now.

I understand! I agree it wasn't very clear (english is not my first language and I do have some disturbed nights, no more feeding though ). I should add that there is nothing the mum can do if she has a baby who feed at night, just follow your babie's lead. My mum generation will disagree with that, so try not to listen to your GM or mums or MIL....

I started weaning my DS at 18 weeks with baby rice only for a week. He certainly enjoyed it. I was on holiday on my home country and there, tough the guidances are similar to here, i.e. wait til 6 months, the type of food you give babies are different and more based on what our local diet is. So I believe weaning do vary according to our cultural eating habits too, hence there isnt realy "dos" and "don'ts". Having said that, I introduced a bit of everything and the only thing which didnt seem to go well was carrot and banana. Now Im back in UK and DS is 23 weeks, HV has not adviced me otherwise and encouraged me to bring the meals closer to family meal times. I have started breakfast (baby rice) 1 hour after his morning milk. Lunch(pureed vegetables) at around 12:30, fruit pureed in the afternoon, and a little bit of baby rice before bed. Of course he has milk in between, and is drinking a daily amount of around 700ml of formula milk. He weighs 16lbs and is a very healthy and happy baby.

stresshead I have come across this thread today and am appalled at peoples attitudes to your personal choice to wean early. I too have started my 18 week old son on fruit/veg in addition to his milk. He too has 5 x 8oz bottles of milk daily. He does not want more milk - I have to stuff it in him as it is. He is only on the 25th percentile so is not overeating (if anything he is too thin!) He is not dropping milk in exchange of fruit/veg it is in addition and seems to thoroughly enjoy it. I hear the 'advice' of 6 mths but as my HV said really it should be between 4-6 mths as you could miss the window of opportunity for them to learn to eat as they become far less pliable as they age. For many many years babies were weaned far far younger than 4 mths and in those days allergies/food problems were far less as alluded to in the EAT Study. Having been misadvised by paediatric consultants when DS was only weeks old to drop breastfeeding as he wasn't get big enough quick enough I take their advice with a pinch of salt. I am happy that he is getting additional vitamins on top of his formula that I have never really been comfortable with but was bullied into.

As long as you are happy with your decision who cares!

That 'pliability' thing is rubbish tbh - I've seen lots of friends dcs kick and arch away from spoons at 4-5 months and lots of others take quite happily straightaway to blw at a later age.

Yangymac, how old is your dc? You may not need to introduce formula. My sister went back to work ft and kept bf. She only needed to express one bottle to leave for him during the day but her ds is a year now and that midday feed is going so he just feeds morning evening and night.

PlasticCenturion - just re your reflux post - my daughter had bad reflux and a cow's milk protein intolerance - she would scream in pain, go red, take ages to feed, then vomit everywhere all the time. She still gained weight well but was being sick a lot and always soaked through.

I took her to a private paed as GP and HV just said she was gaining weight so was fine. Then, having tried gaviscon which didn't help, GP prescribed ranitadine, which also didn't help, the the private paed immediately diagnosed fairly severe reflux and the intolerance. He put her onto neocate milk (she was ff from 4 weeks due to problems btw) straight away - v expensive but GP changed prescription into NHS one - which is totally broken down so she could digest it easier...he then put her on omeprazole for the acid - adults take this for severe heartburn etc, and domperidone for the sick - it helps to tighten the sphincter at the top of the stomach and speeds up the passage of food through the stomach. TBh I didn't use this much as I felt she had enough meds and as long as she wasn't in pain from the acid I didn't mind that she was sick so much. So ranitadine won't help your dn being sick - it will help the acid. Domperidone migh help that.

Anyway I weaned her early at about 17 1/2 weeks and she is now 7 months - still sick sometimes but nowhere near as much although it took until she was about 6 months for the sick to lessen. Hope that helps anyone interested and sorry for massive post!

Just to update this thread I started, we are now 2 weeks into weaning and DD is still really enjoying baby rice, and this week, banana porridge. We feed her at about 6pm and she seems much more settled in the evening and at night, in fact she's sleeping for at least 12 hours straight.

It's been really interesting to read everyone's opinions but I stand by my choice to wean at 18 weeks.

DD was always a very sicky baby, vomitting many times a day, sometimes projectile, and often having to change clothes a few times. I just stuck a bib on her and got on with it, making sure I had a muslin over my shoulder everywhere I went with her. Never considered anything such as reflux, but glad now that I never went with Gaviscon and the like, as it has now all but stopped. Whether she has just grown out of it, or she can keep food down easier than milk, I'll never know.

Thank goodness someone who feels like I do. I started my DD on baby rice at 17wks. She loves it, it's her favourite meal of the day, infact I am thinking of introducing some veg and fruit soon. The ones who advocate don't wean until 6 months are probably also those who bombard you with 'breast is best'. Baby's mum knows best always!! Plus if you couldn't wean at 17 weeks how come they make things for babies at 4months?! Good luck with the weaning, I just love watching my DD take her food well from her spoon.

Wow, ignorance truly is bliss.

Tell you what, guys. Next time you take your car to the garage and the mechanic says "You need a new tyre - the tread on this one is really worn down and it may make you skid" say "Oh no, I don't think so. I'm not a mechanic but I know how to drive, and I feel instinctively that I'll be all right. Drivers know whats best for their cars, you know!"

Yes, because early weaning kills your baby. FFS, half of us wouldn't be alive if that was the case.

Talk about hysterical.

I'm pretty sure tribunalgoer's point was not that early weaning will kill your baby but instead that companies are happy to sell things that CAN harm, just to spin a profit.

you'd probably be fine driving on a bald tyre too - but there is a chance you wouldn't be. And no amount of instinct can tell you whether or not your baby is one of the small %age that may be harmed by early weaning. Most are fine - some are not. Why risk it?

PlasticCenturian's post was so brilliant too, did any of you later people actually bother to read the thread?

The next battleground post breast is best. Why do us women always attack each other, even at the delicate times of newborn baby rearing? So sad. Pretty sure men wouldn't be like this with each other if the biological roles were reversed.

This is the bottom line.

Apart from the case of very severe reflux (when the beby will presumably be under the care of a paediatrician) there are NO advantages to weaning before 6 months, and there IS the possibility in SOME babies of causeing damage to the gut and precipitation allergies. So why risk it?

And as for the "breast is best" thing - well it is. Some people choose not the breastfeed, a vanishingly small number of women can't, a larger number think they can't because they don't get the information and support they need, but it would be silly to deny the fact that human milk is the best food for a human baby. It's sad that some women seem to feel pressurized into bf when they don't want to - but there's a fine line between pressure and encouragement.

Arghh. Not denying any of that but people make their own decisions about their OWN babies. Why the need for everyone to be so nosy and judgey pants. Why can't we all accept that we will do different things with our babies and play nicely?

"Why can't we all accept that we will do different things with our babies and play nicely"

Well there are many answers to this question. But most pertinently, this is a public forum. People aren't being 'nosy and judgey pants', they're responding to information given. If the question is asked, then it is going to be answered/debated. And when on a public forum it's always best practice to give the best information available based upon bodies of research.

"Why can't we all accept that we will do different things with our babies and play nicely?"

Because it's just amazingly frustrating to see people congratulating themselves and others for doing something which might actually be damaging their baby!

This isn't like choosing whether to dress your baby in pink or colourful clothes. Wouldn't you feel like saying something if people were saying how great it is to give a baby alcohol or opium for example (used to be a common practice, to make babies sleep, but we've stopped doing it because it's a bad idea!)

My (lovely) MIL often says things like "we didn't have to read all those books in my day - we just got on with it and we all survived" and I think to myself, yes but just look at your daughter, she really suffers from allergies. (Quite possibly from the early weaning).

Who's being nosy and judgy pants?

If I came on here saying "Oh, I know there's all this modern guidance about using car seats, but I was never put in a car seat when I was a baby and I'm fine. So I have my baby on my lap in the car like my mum did and she's fine", the screen would exploe with the flaming I would get. But the chances are that my baby would be fine. It is INCREDIBLY unlikely that she would come to any harm at all. Thousands and thousands of babies travelled like that safely. But one or two didn't.

And if there is no need to take the risk tat your baby is one of the few who will be damaged by early weaning, why on earth would anyone take it?