Hints and tips for weaning (merged)

LittleTinker

DevilsAdvocate1 wrote: »

My nephew was weaned at 12 weeks with small bit of baby rice, and had a major reaction to it which we now know was asthma. My SIL has been told that early weaning is a likely cause. He is 13 now and looks pale, is small for his age and his asthma is severe.

I weaned my son at 16 weeks and he ended up being admitted to hospital with constipation. I was told to go back to milk only and try it again in a few weeks. I did this 3 times and it was only when he was 22 weeks that he finally took to it without any problems.

The same thing happened to my cousins daughter.

So I would urge caution if you are to introduce solids. I've never understood how they are able to help with getting the baby to sleep more or eat less as solids have less calories in them and don't have difficult fats to be digested. It certainly didn't help any of mine to sleep.

The reason the advice changes was due to a large study which took place over several years. If we were to go back 100 years, babies were weaned at nearer 1 year old, so 6 months is early compared to then.

That happened to your children and would most likely have happened to them whether you gave them solids or not.

30/40/50 years ago it was normal to begin weaning anytime after 6 weeks.
Rusk would go into the bottle with the milk and the baby would be given a rusk or some baby rice for breakfast.

I never gave any of mine any tinned or jars of baby food (Urgh! Processed foods, no thanks!) ever! and they were given everything that we ate from 8 weeks onwards.

I was not alone. All Mums did this and babies were not ill or taken into hospital with various ailments......asthma is not caused by weaning a baby onto solid foods.

It was normal back then to do things this way............it is now said to be the norm to wait till baby is 6 months. Why? Because of a study carried out that says babies can get ill if they were weaned before then. And who carries out these surveys? Most often its the baby milk companies who fund them when you start to look.

6 months old to wean a baby is late in my opinion. All my babies were fully weaned and sleeping through by this stage, as were many others.

jackieglasgow

Like other posters, I have an almost 11 year old and an 8 year old, and they were both weaned at four months. That was th advice then, just because the advice has been reviewed since then doesn't mean our kids have all suddenly gotten sick or have digestive systems which don't work properly. Your Health Visitor knows you better than we do, and would always try to give you the best advice she can.

OrkneyStar

alleycat` wrote: »

Hi Orkney,

I picked your post out as your response was exactly what i was expecting back.
It wasn't a shot at you in the slightestbut it was a microcosm of people doing as their told by "scientfic experts" and not trusting themselves.

I also wasn't suggesting you thought the op was bad by bottle feeding.
What i was suggesting was that the "science" behind the 6 month weaning was brought in to coincide with "breast is best" (maybe i'm just a cynic?).
Personally i think breast probably is best but again that is only an opinion.
Most science is nothing more than that as people set out to establish something and find what they want to find.

As another poster has said on here if the scientists tell you that all the "6 month mums" were harming their children by early weaning in another 15 years time and it should be 9 to 12 months i imagine Your response would be, load of old toot, it never did my child any harm.

As with all things you'll get mums with horror storys and mums with success storys.

If the baby wants to try the food they will and if they don't want it then that also isn't a bad result either.

OP If you want a genuine second opinion ask a doctor or a food expert but i suspect in your own mind/heart you already know what you want to do.

*sigh*
I did write a longer reply but then thought I cannot be bothered, really life is too short.
All the very best OP- please let us know what you do and what helps for bubs x

strawberrypud

I've decided to give it another week at least which will take her to 15 weeks old and then maybe start with a little baby rice if she is still as hungry. I'm waiting in case it is a growth spurt (but I don't think so) and also because she was born at 36 weeks.

I should have said (sorry) that she can't have hungry baby milk. She's on cow and gate comfort baby milk for her colic/reflux/digestive discomfort and I spoke to cow and gate and they said hungry is at the opposite end of the spectrum and would make these probs worse.

The problem with the comfort milk is that although it is thickened milk it is partially digested so I don't think it stays in her tummy for long.

I'd be willing to put some baby rice in her milk if someone can tell me how much to put in etc

OrkneyStar

strawberrypud wrote: »

I've decided to give it another week at least which will take her to 15 weeks old and then maybe start with a little baby rice if she is still as hungry. I'm waiting in case it is a growth spurt (but I don't think so) and also because she was born at 36 weeks.

I should have said (sorry) that she can't have hungry baby milk. She's on cow and gate comfort baby milk for her colic/reflux/digestive discomfort and I spoke to cow and gate and they said hungry is at the opposite end of the spectrum and would make these probs worse.

The problem with the comfort milk is that although it is thickened milk it is partially digested so I don't think it stays in her tummy for long.

I'd be willing to put some baby rice in her milk if someone can tell me how much to put in etc

How do you think she will manage with a spoon ? I ask this as it is not advised to put anything other than milk in the bottle, apparently, as it is a choke risk (well more so than ordinary milk!). From what I remember weaning DS it was very very little rice to milk, almost still like slightly thicker milk, but others will have more concrete advice! x

jackieglasgow

That's exactly what I did, it was like extra thick milk, not even yoghurt consistency, sucked off a spoon. Both boys thoroughly enjoyed trying it.

alleycat`

OrkneyStar wrote: »

How do you think she will manage with a spoon ? I ask this as it is not advised to put anything other than milk in the bottle, apparently, as it is a choke risk (well more so than ordinary milk!). From what I remember weaning DS it was very very little rice to milk, almost still like slightly thicker milk, but others will have more concrete advice! x

As i said previously i wasn't trying to have a go.
In this instance i'd say you are spot on that using a split nipple and baby rice in a bottle would be a choke hazard.

Strawberrypud - have a look at a packet in boots or asda or where ever.
Basically thin it out a bit more if you are concerned but it would be just mix it in a small bowl with a spoon and see how you go.

Fitzio

With regards to weaning guidelines, my understanding is that you are recommended to ideally wait until 6 months, but you could do so earlier after discussion with your HV. However, it is not recommended to do it earlier than 17 weeks as the gut has not fully formed. I would hazard a guess that a bit of baby rice would not do much harm if given earlier than 17 weeks, but there has to be guidelines in place for less responsible people who would perhaps lack judgement and would feed a very young baby much heavier adult food etc.

My friend is a paediatric dietician and she advises me that the 6 month guideline has been derived by the World Health Organisation, so it is the standard worldwide. It’s set at 6 months mainly to encourage people in underdeveloped countries to prolong breastfeeding as poor hygiene and sanitisation could lead to babies who are not being breastfed to be more susceptible to infections and bugs, through poor hygiene/lack of sterilisation.

Over the years, the guidance has changed, but it does change for a reason. Whilst most children who were weaned when 3 or 4 months was the standard are absolutely fine it doesn’t mean that things can’t be improved upon as we learn more and more. Once upon a time, smoking was thought to be fine, but things change.

OP, I think you should do whatever you feel comfortable with, and if you don’t feel comfortable with it, speak to your HV and ask what else she would suggest. I am not sure about putting baby rice in the bottle either. It’s not recommended, but I am not sure that it’s to do with choking – I thought it was more that it could be filling baby up with empty calories, and therefore they may not get enough milk over the day as their little tummies are too full (clearly not in your case if baby is getting too much milk, but just in general).

Good luck with whatever you decide. x

VK-2008

oh my gdness! soo much too think about! currently ttc first child. just been noseying through diff threads, i think what i have took from this is go with what baby wants.
my friends have told me a lot of hv are contradicting what they say so this looks like its going to be fun whn i get to this stage. i think i will stick to my mums good advice when i get round to it.

smithyjules

Hi all, my personal opinion is that weaning (how, when, what etc) is hugely about personal choice, circumstances and the individual child.

I have two children aged 3 1/2 and 13 weeks. I am also a qualified, experienced child care practitioner.

My two children have been very different. My DD from about 7 weeks would only take about 2 oz of milk and would refuse any more for at least 3 hours. I persisted with the milk until 10 weeks with little weight gain and then began with baby rice with lots of milk to make it almost fluid. This went down a treat and shortly after i started adding a cube of pur!ed fruit/veg to the rice still adding the milk so she didn't loose out there. By 12 weeks she was having 3 small "meals" a day and still having those 2 oz bottles inbetween and started putting on weight steadily. We moved onto BLW as soon as she was ready. She was petite when born and as a baby (but never skinny IYSWIM) and now has a fantastic appetite for anything! She is adventurous with new foods too. She still doesn't like milk very much tho so has lots of cheese sauces, HM rice pudding and yoghurt.

My DS was the opposite...a milk monster (according to DD!), was on hungry baby milk by 3 weeks and still guzzling away at every opportunity. At 10 weeks I did exactly the same as I did with DD, he is thriving and his milk is now down to 6/7 oz every 4 hours.

I didn't and won't introduce wheat/gluten until about 5 months as often allergies/intolerances can be to these products. How often do you hear/know of someone with an allergy/intolerance to apple/pear/carrot/rice??

I also have many friends who waited til 6 months and have had sucess too so I think you should just play it by ear. You know your baby OP. The only thing with rice/baby cereals is that they take a bit of getting used to making up!Use very little cereal to lots of milk and leave it for a min or two as often it will go fairly solid again (often a cause of constipation). When is settles to a nice smooth consistency it's done! I have many times added too much milk then a bit more powder then a bit more milk and so on until i have a rice mountain lol!good fun tho.

Best of luck OP and all having fun with weaning x