weaning worries

hello

harry is exactley 15 weeks today and was 9lb when he was born. at first he was totally happy with breastmilk but had latching probs.(he drinks expressed breastmilk) then i gave him sma gold as top ups. the sma gold was lasting him about an hour and a half, and the breastmilk maybe an hour. the health visitor suggested moving him to stage 2 milk when he was approx 8 weeks old. now he is monstering 9 ounces in one sitting and still screaming for more and drinking a further 2 or 3 ounces of breast on top of that. i want to move him on to solids as i am sure he is ready. however the health visitor has said i shouldnt wean him until his 20th week, but i just dont think i can carry on feeding him like this for another five weeks. can i insist on weaning or should i follow h. visitors advice? he has his second ever baby clinic on monday and he hasnt been weighed since early december as they keep cancelling his appts. any advice greatful.xxx

Hi, you should do what you feel is best. when i had my first we were told to wean at 12 weeks and then when i had kayleigh i was told 6 mths! However like your Harry kayleigh was a hungry baby. She was 8lb 5 when she was born and by 6 weeks was on 2nd stage milk. I started weaning her at 12 weeks against the health visitors advice. Kayleigh is now 3 years old and loves her food. She has never had a problem and i think big babies need to be weand earlier than smaller ones. I gave Kayleigh baby rice with banana or a farley rusk as her first foods as they are quite filling but not full of flavour that may upset her belly.

Hope this helps, but at teh end of the day you are his mum and you know whats best.

Louise xx

hi Louise, what did you start her off on? i dont want to put too much pressure on his little system

Hi Kathy, i gave her farleys rusks with warmed milk as this makes it soft. She loved it and it didn't upset her belly. I tried her on babyrice too but she would only eat it if it was mixed with fruit as it is really bland.

Louise xx

I weaned my 2 children (now 2 & 4) at 12 weeks as that what age I was told to then. They were not keen on the baby rice or rusks so I started them on baby breakfast as they had abit more flavour. You can make as much or as little as you like if you buy the powder breakfast.

i tried harry with two spoons of apple and peach mush form cow and gate, but he didnt deem too fussed over it. i also got him some cottage pie and some chicken casserole and rice pudding to try him on next week.

Hi there
I never tried rusks with my babies – even though we had them as kids – because I thought they had salt or sugar in them. But presumably they don't these days?
Laura x

i bought harry some rusks to try but lee had eaten them before i could give him them and he is 26!

Hi Laura, they do reduced sugar ones, not sure about the salt content tho. One thing i do know like your hubby kathy is that they are yummy and both my girls liked them as biscuits and as a cerial. I used to add warm milk to the rusks and it made them all mushy. They are also good when babies have gastoenteritis as they have no milk or egg in them which can aggravate gastro. and they can be made up using warm water.

Louise xx

I agree with Louise, you should start weaning whenever you feel your baby is ready. I started my son on baby rice and rusks with milk when he was almost 4 months as he didn't drink enough milk, so i had the opposite problem to you! The most he would drink is about 4ounces, even when he should have been taking around 9! My cousins have just had babies though and apparently now they say wait until 6months to wean?! (my cousin is a nursery nurse and even she shunned the 6 months rule, she started her baby when he was 4 months.) So much has changed since i had my son and thats only 4 years ago! Im gonna have to relearn everything when i have this one in August!
Rusks are really yummy, If i still bought them now i know me and my partner would munch the lot!

If Harry doesnt seem interested, just keep trying with him, he may not have seem fussed because its something different and his mouth has to get used to taking food from a spoon and not sucking which is natural to babies.

Also, never give food from a bottle as there is an increased risk of choking!

Other than that, I'd say you know your baby better than anyone else and its up to you how to take care of him. Most HV's havent even had children themselves!

hi kathy,just to reitterate what the other mums are saying you wont harm harry by weaning early,as a neonatal nurse even i have felt a bit intimidated by health visitors speak!Babies are individuals .I have three kids all weaned at different stageswmy son was weaned at dare i say it 9 weeks!My middle daughter was born when the advice was 4 months but wouldnt wean then!And i started my youngest at 5 months.Health visitors have set advice to give and some feel so responsible they will not budge from this,but how can it be the same for all babes.A word of advice for all mums -health visitors are a good resource but only you are his mum!

i started to wean my daughter at 7 or 8 weeks (i know its very young but its what my mum did with me, and my aunties with my cousins and we are ok!), very watery baby rice off of a spoon in the evening, 1. to fill her up and make her sleep (it worked she has been sleeping through the night since) and 2. to get her used to eating from a spoon, after a few weeks of this i started to make it a bit thicker so it was more of a food than a liquid. i think baby rice is the best thing to wean a baby on as although it doesnt have a lot of taste, i think things like rusks give them a bit of a sweet tooth, also baby rice is great to add pureed fruit or veg to in small amounts to get baby used to new tastes with something they are familiar with. also if you have time i would say to make their food fresh as much as possible, and a wide variety of things so that you dont end up with a fussy baby!mind you it has made my daughter fussy in the way she will not eat a savoury jar, but i don't blame her they taste vile! i do think as well that making them fresh food with all the vitamins and goodness makes them learn faster, my daughter has been sitting and crawling for months and is now standing up and not even 8 months, and i have a friend with a child 2 weeks older who is jar fed and not quite mastered sitting!
hope this helps someone, as weaning can seem like quite a feat! especially when your baby is constantly hungry and your health visitor is telling you not to feed them! but you know your own baby, use your instincts x

hi evies mummy

i started giving him a little bit of rice and he absolutley monstered it. he doesnt seem keen on sweet.fruity stuff, definatley a savory fan.

he has veg we make him and he has jars. the onlt thing i am worried about is his stoolls have turned into real stools instead of just curry like ones. i am worried he is getting dehydrated from not having my breastmilk anymore, i have been giving him cooled boiled water with his feeds, but he isnt keen but he guzzles down heinz juice, but i am worried about it being too sweet for him and i dont want him to prefer juice to water. i give him the juice mainly to just help the food go down, as some of the jars really do like stodgy, i also find he still wants a bottle after a half pot of food, and i am worried i might be overfeeding him.xx

my daughter is the same, she loves savoury food, not too keen on sweet stuff except for mashed banana, thats gone in less than a minute!
dont be too worried about the changes in the nappies, it tends to happen when they first start having solids, evie got a bit like that so i gave her very diluted fresh squeezed orange juice with meals and it sorted it out quickly.
i was the same, i dont really like those baby juices as they seem too sweet and sugary, so i used to give evie a watery milk bottle with her food (say 5 oz of water with 3 scoops of milk) because i had the same worry that i would overfeed her, that way your not feeding them so much, but they get the milk they love.
you said he was quite a big baby, that might be why he needs more food, or maybe he just loves his grub like mine lol!
i wouldnt worry to much about overfeeding though, they soon let you know when theyre full, normally with a mouthful of food spat at you or all down their bib!
and its good your making some of the food yourself its so much better for them although it sometimes seem a task to do,so many people dont (i know some dont have the time) because in my opinion, if you want to shovel rubbish into your own body fair enough, but babies dont have a choice (not that i am some kind of health freak and dont enjoy my crisps lol).
a good way is to make a large batch and freeze in ice cube trays (flexible ones)which you can then pop into freezer bags.
Sorry just realised that was a very long message lol.
Jess x

hi

i was told bu my health visitor that i wasnt allowed to dilute the milks, she said just stick to the juice. i think he does just love his food, i have never seen the flexible ice trays to freeze the food, that sounds like a good idea, cos i have been cooking harrys food seperatley so it was salt free, but does seem like a massive faff everytime, so i might do it in bulk. i have only given him broccoli and bannana so far, should i start intergrating meats like chicken or potato pureed up with it or do you think he is too little? he is 20 weeks this week. there is so much conflicting advice i dont know what to right for doing wrong. he has had chicken casserole jars, but i dont want our food to be too rich so dont know wether to just keep it simple and stick to the veg for now. lol much more simpler than when they just drank milk lol

yeh i think mine told me not to dilute milk, but i tend to listen to my aunties and my mum more than my health visitor, or just trust my own instincts and because she loved food i didnt want her to eat too much without realising she was full. yeah the flexible ones are better, the first time i did it was with normal ones and they cracked when trying to get the cubes out, they sell them in tesco and places like that, i have even got a flexible freezer try with 7 sections for meals about the size of a jar, cant remember where from lol so thats helpful, but there is some good stuff around to make doing there food fresh easier. i didnt start giving evie meat for a few months, i started with jus one pureed veg, then another n then mixing them together, she had potato though quite young so im sure he would b fine like that, the only thing is that when you puree potato it goes a bit gluey, something to do with the starch i think. i know people always tell you different things, but i found quite a lot of the time, i knew when something was right for her. if you are stuck for ideas on what to feed him, more than happy to help you out x

Hi all, I've just started weaning (Krishan's 16 weeks) and it's a bit of an experience isn't it! Like you say Kathy, much easier when they just drink milk! I started on Thursday and have just given him a few spoonfuls of baby rice each day to get him used to the idea and he's taking to it quite well although I'm not sure that he's particularly impressed with the baby rice. He pulls a face with every mouthful, but then moves forward as if he wants more when I take the spoon away! I was thinking of trying him with a bit of mashed banana today and then gradually introducing more fruit and veg over the next few weeks. One thing that I'm worried about is him getting enough fluids. He hasn't been pooing very frequently and i've tried giving him water in case he needs more fluid and he just won't take it. I don't want to give him anything sugary, any other ideas?
Sarah x