Weaning
[Note before: by weaning I mean the introduction of solid foods (complementary feeding) and not weaning off the breast].
There is sooo much advice when it comes to weaning, most of which is conflicting. Everyone has their own ideas about the best time to start weaning and the best way to do it. It's a minefield! From about four months old we were receiving mail from formula companies about getting ready to wean, and our health visitor advised us at just over five months that Isaac was ready to wean and we could start whenever we wanted. I spent a while looking into this, because I'd also been told you shouldn't wean until six months.
This advice comes from the World Health Organisation who say that complementary feeding should begin at six months as baby's gut is not ready for solid food before this time, but that this is the peak time of baby's development to introduce them to these new experiences, tastes and textures. The virgin gut theory theorizes that baby's gut is only mature enough to handle foods at six months, and that the gut bacteria can be protected by only exposing the gut to breastmilk until this age. However, this process clearly does not take place overnight; the gut lining is not going to close the day the baby turns six months. Most advice around weaning (including that currently given by the NHS) suggests you wait until baby is around 6 months. Many companies give the same signs that baby is ready to wean: baby can sit upright in their highchair and hold their own head straight, baby is able to and does take items to their own mouth, and baby shows an interest in food. These signs however can appear a long time before six months and should be taken with caution and consideration of the NHS and WHO guideline of beginning weaning at around six months.
(While I appreciate that every baby is different and develops at different paces I hate hearing health visitors give advice about weaning at 4 months and hate seeing packaging on baby food advertising its use from 4 months).
Once you've decided when to wean, there's still the minefield of how to wean. There are two main methods of weaning; traditional and baby-led. Traditional weaning is about starting with very smooth foods and increasing the amount of lumps you allow baby to eat until you reach solid foods. Baby-led weaning allows solid foods from the get go, but the main focus of baby-led weaning is letting your baby put the food in their own mouths and never putting it in for them (not spoon feeding). When my health visitor came to see me about weaning, she expressed a dislike of baby-led weaning, giving the impression that it was a fad that 'some of your friends might be doing'; the main reason she gave for disagreeing with this method of weaning was that 'they can never tell her how much baby was eating because most of the food ends up on the floor'. This really annoyed me for two reasons. Firstly because of the parallel this draws to breastfeeding and the problems it caused me in the early days of breastfeeding; my experience in neonates of constantly trying to measure how much milk baby may have had in his early breastfeeds, how long they lasted etc. caused me so much avoidable stress. Why are we so hung up on knowing how much baby is eating? Trust me, if he's hungry, he'll let me know! The second problem I have with this phrase is that it doesn't make an argument for traditional weaning; can you tell me how much mush ends up on the floor and how much baby eats? At least a stick of broccoli is easier to clean up than a spoonful of mush!
I chose a combination of traditional and baby-led, which a lot of people would argue means not doing either properly, but this is why it worked for us:
Isaac was very interested in foods, trying to steal ours and putting everything to his mouth. We waited till two weeks off six months then started weaning. BLW cannot be done before 6 months because of baby's reflex to suck and swallow foods increasing the risk of choking. So we followed HV advise feeding mashed veggies mixed with expressed milk until 6 months where we introduced more finger foods and reduced the mashed veg meals. We started with streamed veg; sticks of carrot, broccoli, cauliflower etc. Then we moved on to toast fingers, banana etc. A couple of weeks into BLW we found the confidence to 'give baby what you eat' and shared a chicken curry with Isaac. He loved the new tastes and experiences and had a go with all of the food we gave him, but struggled with getting certain foods into his mouth. Enter spoon: Isaac still lets us spoon feed him foods which are tricky for him to hold, especially if we let him touch and see the food on the spoon before putting it in his mouth.
I find BLW so good for these reasons:
-It teaches Isaac new skills; I've seen his motor control improve loads since starting weaning; manipulating foods with his fingers, grasping and control of his hand to mouth coordination.
-It equips him for the future; we don't have to wean him off baby food and onto proper food because he is eating it already
-We can eat out and there will be something on the menu he can eat
-We don't spend money on baby food
-I eat better because I try to make sure I prepare 3 healthy meals a day for both of us.
Isaac's lost patience for my blog writing now so we're off!
There is sooo much advice when it comes to weaning, most of which is conflicting. Everyone has their own ideas about the best time to start weaning and the best way to do it. It's a minefield! From about four months old we were receiving mail from formula companies about getting ready to wean, and our health visitor advised us at just over five months that Isaac was ready to wean and we could start whenever we wanted. I spent a while looking into this, because I'd also been told you shouldn't wean until six months.
This advice comes from the World Health Organisation who say that complementary feeding should begin at six months as baby's gut is not ready for solid food before this time, but that this is the peak time of baby's development to introduce them to these new experiences, tastes and textures. The virgin gut theory theorizes that baby's gut is only mature enough to handle foods at six months, and that the gut bacteria can be protected by only exposing the gut to breastmilk until this age. However, this process clearly does not take place overnight; the gut lining is not going to close the day the baby turns six months. Most advice around weaning (including that currently given by the NHS) suggests you wait until baby is around 6 months. Many companies give the same signs that baby is ready to wean: baby can sit upright in their highchair and hold their own head straight, baby is able to and does take items to their own mouth, and baby shows an interest in food. These signs however can appear a long time before six months and should be taken with caution and consideration of the NHS and WHO guideline of beginning weaning at around six months.
(While I appreciate that every baby is different and develops at different paces I hate hearing health visitors give advice about weaning at 4 months and hate seeing packaging on baby food advertising its use from 4 months).
Once you've decided when to wean, there's still the minefield of how to wean. There are two main methods of weaning; traditional and baby-led. Traditional weaning is about starting with very smooth foods and increasing the amount of lumps you allow baby to eat until you reach solid foods. Baby-led weaning allows solid foods from the get go, but the main focus of baby-led weaning is letting your baby put the food in their own mouths and never putting it in for them (not spoon feeding). When my health visitor came to see me about weaning, she expressed a dislike of baby-led weaning, giving the impression that it was a fad that 'some of your friends might be doing'; the main reason she gave for disagreeing with this method of weaning was that 'they can never tell her how much baby was eating because most of the food ends up on the floor'. This really annoyed me for two reasons. Firstly because of the parallel this draws to breastfeeding and the problems it caused me in the early days of breastfeeding; my experience in neonates of constantly trying to measure how much milk baby may have had in his early breastfeeds, how long they lasted etc. caused me so much avoidable stress. Why are we so hung up on knowing how much baby is eating? Trust me, if he's hungry, he'll let me know! The second problem I have with this phrase is that it doesn't make an argument for traditional weaning; can you tell me how much mush ends up on the floor and how much baby eats? At least a stick of broccoli is easier to clean up than a spoonful of mush!
I chose a combination of traditional and baby-led, which a lot of people would argue means not doing either properly, but this is why it worked for us:
Isaac was very interested in foods, trying to steal ours and putting everything to his mouth. We waited till two weeks off six months then started weaning. BLW cannot be done before 6 months because of baby's reflex to suck and swallow foods increasing the risk of choking. So we followed HV advise feeding mashed veggies mixed with expressed milk until 6 months where we introduced more finger foods and reduced the mashed veg meals. We started with streamed veg; sticks of carrot, broccoli, cauliflower etc. Then we moved on to toast fingers, banana etc. A couple of weeks into BLW we found the confidence to 'give baby what you eat' and shared a chicken curry with Isaac. He loved the new tastes and experiences and had a go with all of the food we gave him, but struggled with getting certain foods into his mouth. Enter spoon: Isaac still lets us spoon feed him foods which are tricky for him to hold, especially if we let him touch and see the food on the spoon before putting it in his mouth.
I find BLW so good for these reasons:
-It teaches Isaac new skills; I've seen his motor control improve loads since starting weaning; manipulating foods with his fingers, grasping and control of his hand to mouth coordination.
-It equips him for the future; we don't have to wean him off baby food and onto proper food because he is eating it already
-We can eat out and there will be something on the menu he can eat
-We don't spend money on baby food
-I eat better because I try to make sure I prepare 3 healthy meals a day for both of us.
Isaac's lost patience for my blog writing now so we're off!
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