Weaning Babies

Hello there! If you are reading this I should warn you that I get angry and opinionated about a lot of things, especially when it comes to children. I can be very diplomatic at times, but I do hold on strongly to my own ideas. I will change my opinion if I am shown to be wrong, but there are so many areas of motherhood where you can’t be wrong, simply different in your opinions and ideas from others. That is what I want to get across to undermined, harassed and unconfident mothers everywhere.

The problem is all these books and government guidelines. We turn to them for help and advice, and yet they so often say this is the way it MUST be done or you will irrepairably damage your child’s health/emotional wellbeing forever. In my own opinion this is extremely damaging and undermining to mothers (and fathers of course), which has got to be far worse for any child than any minor “mistakes” that mother might make. We are paralysed by fear and indecision when we read these books, leaflets and newspaper articles on the latest fads in child-rearing. How is that helpful?

 Let’s face it, the human race has been around for a long time. How have we got so far? Well, it’s certainly not due to the governments latest recommendations. A good example here is weaning. It is the ultimate example, really, of faddishness.

 When I had my first child, who is nearly 17, the recommended weaning age was 12 weeks. By number 2 this had been increased to 16 weeks (he’s 9) and when number 3 came along (now 6) it was 18 weeks (2 weeks makes a difference??). My youngest is just 13 months and the recommended age for weaning had been put up to 6 months!!!!!!!!!  Absolutely ridiculous. Now the health visitors are saying that a great many children should be started on the weaning process at around 4-5 months, as 6 months is often too late. So there has been some backtracking. I do feel sorry, though, for all those first time mothers who were being told to hold off until 6 months and had to cope with very hungry, sleepless and unhappy babies for several months as a result. I, of course, ignored the guidlines for every single one of my children, having had the wonderful input of my own mother at an early stage.

 My mother remembered a study that had been done when she was a midwifery assistant in the late 60s. A group of babies was fed on breast milk. A second group was fed on formula. The third group was fed on a normal balanced diet, liquidised so that it could be fed by bottle. “Steak and chips” as my mum put it. This is newborn babies we are talking about here, not babies of weaning age (whatever age that is).  This is interesting because the latest theories are that babies are unable to digest anything but milk. So the “steak and chips” babies should have all been extremely malnourished, right? Wrong. They thrived. They did just as well as the formula babies, equally as well as the breast-fed babies. All of the babies thrived, or at least no more babies had problems with health, growth, etc in any of the groups.

 This means that really babies can be fed anything from any age. Physically they can’t cope with lumps, they haven’t developed a chewing mechanism. Foods too thick can cause them problems. But it is consistency that is vital to babies, and of course balance of nutrients. Calories per fluid ounce. Not what the actual food is.

 The actual ages that I weaned at were: child 1 – 6 weeks, child 2 – 12 weeks, child 3 – 16 weeks, child 4 – 10 weeks. This was based on their behaviour, although with hindsight the 6 weeks was probably a wee bit on the early side. Mind you, it didn’t do her any harm, and the 2 who were weaned earliest both eat a far greater variety of food than the 2 I weaned later.

 From my own observation of my children and other children I know, babies start to dribble at around 11 weeks. Most people, myself included, have thought this is the child’s first tooth coming through. The dribbling has inevitably stopped within a few weeks (2-6 generally), with no tooth to show for it. My own theory is that this is the digestive system coming on line, as it were, with the production of saliva. Baby doesn’t know how to swallow it at first, hence all the dribbling. When he learns to swallow, it stops, at least until the teeth really do start to show up (sore mouth, hurts to swallow). That is the point at which to start weaning. When the baby has that swallowing mechanism in place as shown by a lack of the copious dribble that showed the beginnings of the more mature digestive system. This varies between about 10 and 18 weeks. Each child is individual, but this is a very visible cue for weaning.

 Of course this is my own opinion, not scientifically studied, with no statistical backing whatsoever. Merely based on my own observations of quite a few babies and thinking about what it could mean, since the teething idea was obviously wrong. Nature tends to give us the information we need. Not that I’m an earth mother or anything. This just seems to make sense.

 That’s a good start I think. More next week I hope. Take care and remember to trust yourself. You know your baby best.

Vague xx

       Disclaimer: This is all my own opinion, not a recommendation of what you should do. You should take advice from reliable sources, including your health visitor, as to how to bring up your child; I am simply offering different advice. You must make your own decisions.