Weaning - the Big Debate

Weaning can be a terrible time for new parents, worrying about how the future diet of their child depends on those first few months.  From the experience of myself and my friends, it appears that whatever happens in those early days of introducing foods has no bearing on the eating habits of your toddler and young child!  I spent hours cooking everything Annabel Karmel had to offer and my son ate everything.  The smugness had only just worn off when he started to become one of the fussiest eaters I know!  So don't stress too much in those early days if your child doesn't take well to food.  They won't starve and you could end up with a child who will eat anything!

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When I weaned my eldest daughter three years ago I followed the health visitor's advice at the time which was to introduce solids at around 17 weeks. The whole process went very smoothly, and so I must admit that when it came to weaning my second daughter I was a little apprehensive at the thought of waiting six months before introducing solids. However, the health visitor explained that it was now felt that the longer the baby was left before weaning the less likely they were to develop allergies. I thought it would probably be easier to just carry on breastfeeding exclusively until sixmonths, so I decided to go with this advice unless she started displaying any signs that she was ready to wean sooner.

I also decided not to listen to too many friends' differing opinions on this. I would wean my daughter when she was ready for food. Nor did I seek my mother's advice on the matter. Mum had problems breastfeeding my older brother. He was permanently hungry and restless, and Mum was told that this was because she 'wasn't producing enough milk'. She went on to have a particularly nasty bout of mastitis (presumably because she was producing enough milk, but my brother wasn't getting it), which only sought to strengthen a growing negative temper toward breastfeeding. She firmly believes that she was unable to produce milk and as a result I was bottle fed from the word go. I was a much calmer baby, probably because I wasn't hungry, and I'm sure this reinforced her notion that breastfeeding alone often isn't enough for a baby. A notion I find more than a little irritating. Needless to say we have different opinions on feeding young babies, so I tend not to even enter a discussion about it!

My second daughter's weight generally fluctuated between the 25th and 9th centiles. However, at around 18/19 weeks the rate at which she was gaining weight started to drop, whilst the number of feeds she was requiring a day started to increase. By 20 weeks her weight gain had dropped to around 2oz a week and she was now on the 2nd centile. Her feeds continued to increase and I felt like I was permanently feeding which left me feeling very tired, my eldest daughter very bored, and my house very messy. She was also now waking for a feed during the night, something she had stopped doing a couple of months previously. Classic weaning signs I felt, and I was right. I talked to the health visitor at her next weigh-in, who agreed that she was ready for food. I introduced her to baby rice that afternoon and haven't looked back. She was very quickly on three feeds a day (plus pudding!), and continues to thoroughly enjoy her food.

I'm certainly not advocating weaning before six months, I'm advocating weaning when your baby is ready after four months. All babies are different and it seems absurd to me that there are people who would frown upon a baby being weaned earlier than six months. Six months is simply a guideline and surely not weaning a baby who is ready for food simply because it is not yet six months old is wrong.

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Four things got me through this period: Annabel Karmel's book, feeding at the same time every day, flexible icecube trays from  Lakeland and my good friend who was weaning at the same time. I think I spoke to her every meal time! I would highly recommend introducing as many types of food as possible early on and dropping milk feeds when advised. If your child does not like something, try it again in a couple of weeks and keep trying.  Also, do not be put off by 'phases'. My daughter has gone through: refusing breakfast (now loves breakfast, especially porridge!); refusing milk (now loves a warm cup at bedtime); refusing meals she has always eaten (goes back to them a month or so later) etc etc!! Just persevere, try a different cup, bowl, plate, size of portion. In the end, they all eat when they are hungry. This stage seems like hell, but is quite short in hindsight!! 

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I weaned my daughter, who is my first child, at six months, following the guidelines. I am now expecting another child and I think I will start earlier this time. I found that by only just starting weaning at six months, my daughter was already too hungry to last on milk alone but was unable to eat enough solid food because she didn't know how. I had many nights of marathon breastfeeds, lasting one-two hours each time, until she got the hang of eating solids. With the next baby, I plan to start around four months.

I made my own food, rarely using jars, mainly because I was on a limited budget and found making my own stuff much cheaper, and also, strangely, I really couldn't stand the smell of jar food!

We went straight from breastfeeding to a beaker, as my daughter never accepted bottles, even though we tried and tried (I wanted a break!!). It was also hard to get her to drink from a beaker, and I found the range on the market completely confusing, and ended up wasting loads of money on beakers that leaked or she didn't get on with.

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I breastfed both my babies for at least a year and as a result felt confident in starting to introduce tastes of real food from four months. I knew they were getting all they needed from me but the new tastes were fun for them to learn about and gave me something colourful to do with my blender! I could think of them as education rather than nutrition, and so stick to foods they really loved. We started on fruit purees and baby rice, mixed with breast milk.

Both of them loved their early food experiences, although my daughter did get slightly constipated sometimes which may have meant she wasn't quite ready for that diet item. I just took it really slowly with her, and steered clear of things that bunged her up until her system matured enough to cope. As a result of starting at an age that is now considered early, both babies were happily eating three sloppy meals a day by six months.

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When I had Lily the advice was wean at four months with baby rice and purees made with expressed breastmilk (what a fiddle all that was!). Friends had intricate regimes for introducing a new food every three days - I just muddled through. With no microwave (and no freezer at the beginning) I needed to plan meals in advance and I found it really hard. Lily had more than her fair share of banana or avocado, as they were "emergency" standbys for when I had nothing pre-cooked and mushed!

By the time I had Lola the advice had shifted to "wait till six months". I was sceptical that she would be able to wait so long for solids but she did, easily. I read up about baby-led weaning, and the idea of offering "normal" food really appealed, as I am so disorganised. Beginning with broccoli spears, we simply offered Lola bits of our own meals and she loved it. We never pureed anything and we certainly didn't follow any plan for introducing stuff and it worked brilliantly.

Lola enjoyed joining in with our meals, we enjoyed sharing with her and she quickly proved that she loved eating! Now she is 16 months and eats anything except egg or mashed potato. Curry, kidney beans, lentil hotpot, porridge, granny smiths - Lola loves them all! She has never had a single jar of commercial baby food and eating outside of the house has never been a problem. She eats a bigger quantity than her (almost) five year old sister and, if anyone else is eating, she wants to join in. Now this could be just her personality or it could be baby-led weaning - I can't prove it either way. All I can say is that the whole process was easy and stress-free - even for a disorganised Mum like me!

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With my eldest son I weaned at four months as that was the recommended time to wean then.  With my younger son, I waited until six months and he had nothing but breastmilk up until then.  A few people told me that I'd never be able to make it to six months, as he was a big baby but I took the view that, if women can produce enough milk for twins or more, then one bigger-than-average baby should not be a problem!  There were times when it seemed he never stopped feeding but it always just turned out to be a growth spurt and things settled down after a few days.

With both children I made the vast majority of their weaning food myself, partly because it was cheaper but partly because I wanted to know what was in it!  However, son number 1 liked my cooking a bit too much and refused to eat from a jar if we were out for the day or travelling which was a real pain keeping homemade food cool. With son number two, I made a point of including a couple of jars a week in his diet so he was used to both types of food.  The empty jars from bought baby food are great for using to freeze homemade food as a baby gets bigger and starts to need several ice cubes of homemade food.
I didn't really bother to use follow on milk after 12 months as I felt it was a waste of money - children on a balanced diet can just have cows milk from that age and it's vastly cheaper.  However, I did keep the odd ready made carton in the cupboard, and used it if we were travelling as you don't need to keep it cold.

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I strongly believe that it is important to give your child the best start in life and therefore I think it is important that the child eats food prepared at home.  At the end of the day a jar of baby food has a long shelf life, so do you really want your child to be eating the preservatives and additives that make this possible?  I also believe that food should be organic where possible for the same reasons. As adults we know that eating ready meals is not a suitable diet so why give a 6 month old baby a 'ready meal'?

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I weaned both of my children early - 17 weeks. Neither of my children liked milk very much and my son suffered from severe gastric reflux, therefore benefited from being weaned early. I found that there is so much hype around weaning that it promotes unnecessary fear and anxiety. I believe my two children have been weaned well, but it's not all been plain sailing, and I think there are times that you just need to stick with and keep going no matter how painful it seems at the time.

My daughter was very prem., and I was meticulous about sterilising everything that went anywhere near her mouth. This included cooking utensils, pans etc. However, when I spoke to her neo-natal nurse, I was told that this wasn't necessary but to continue sterilising bottles. I sterilised bottles up to 12 months but from six months stopped hand washing them and put them into the dishwasher.

I made all my own food as I introduced herbs and mild spices that I believe give food flavour. I tasted some of the jarred food and found it very bland. I only use jarred food when we go out as it's easier to transport, store and dispose of. My 26 month old daughter now won't eat jarred food at all as she finds it too bland!

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My son was weaned very gradually from first tastes of baby rice and breastmilk at four and a half months to three small vegetarian 'meals' a day at six months and some meat by the time he was seven months. Since he was a big baby my mum and mother-in-law were a bit surprised that we didn't wean him more quickly, but he wasn't very interested in food until five months old, after which his appetite (and competence at eating!) increased pretty much daily.

We've never bought commercial baby food except for a small quantity of baby rice as it seems very wasteful in terms of packaging and also fairly expensive. In any case I enjoy cooking, and making several portions at a time and freezing them works very well. We buy organic fruit and veg whenever it's on special offer, otherwise not!

Until he was six months old I expressed breastmilk for cooking / mixing with cereal but (mostly due to expressing being inconvenient) he's had cow's milk in cooking ever since. At seven plus months he's still getting several breastfeeds a day so I don't think a bit of cow's milk is a problem (as we have no history of allergy).

Baby bowls/spoons go through the dishwasher or get washed in hot soapy water, but since he spends most of his time putting things in his mouth that haven't been dishwashed, it seems pointless getting too precious about sterilising (and he's never yet had a tummy upset).

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I waited until six months to wean Chloe as we have lots of allergies in our combined families and I wanted to minimise the risk of her developing any of these. My mother in law thought I was mad for waiting so long and wasn't shy about saying so - always saying things like "Look, she's watching you eat, she must be really hungry", etc etc. I just carried on and waited until my poor starving baby was six months old, at which point she was 19lb, so she'd obviously been suffering from being exclusively breastfed! I didn't bother sterilising dishes or anything as I figured that I didn't sterilise toys or rattles and they spent half their lives on the floor and I just gave her whatever we were having but pureed to begin with and was careful not to add salt when cooking.

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For both children I tried to wait till 6 months to wean. This was easier as they were on hungrier baby milk formula which does delay weaning somewhat. I made all my own food for first baby - he would be sick whenever he had a jar! Did the same for second baby but he has been a bit poorly and has gone off food. He will now only eat jarred baby food which is not very helpful when I have a freezer full of food ice cubes!! Both of my boys have been very slow to eat lumps. I again have tried not to worry about this.

I would point out though that people should not get hung up on weaning as I think I did quite well for my first child with variation etc. and different tastes and he still went through a 18 month period of refusing any food that I put in front of him except baked beans and yoghurt!!! Of course he ate everything at nursery during this time which made me feel really great!!!

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I waited until the recommended six months to wean my little boy. He showed no interest in food and no curiosity in what we were eating. Consequently weaning him initially was a nightmare and caused much anxiety and shouting. One meal a day was not enough to introduce him to food so within two weeks he was being given (not necessarily eating) two meals a day and we quickly progressed onto three. He finally got the hang of it and is now the easiest baby to feed and he'll eat anything. Patience and perseverance is most definitely required.

We were looking for a place to feed our son his lunch recently and realised a well known store had a café. I asked if it would be possible to put his dish in the microwave for 30 seconds so I could feed my now rather anxious son. The reply rather took me back "we're not allowed to as the microwave is used for food". I hadn't appreciated that the meal I had lovingly cooked and pureed for my son wasn't fit for human consumption!! I was quite disgusted.

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I was lucky enough to breast-feed my children for 10 and 12 months respectively so we needed very few bottles, only some used for the breast pump.  So we needed the steriliser very little.  By the time I weaned them onto solids at five months I didn't sterilise any bowls or spoons for either of them.  These utensils all have very smooth surfaces with no cracks, so a run in the dishwasher was plenty to get them clean.  As a biologist I'm aware that too much sterility is bad for a child's immune system.  When I finished breast-feeding the children I went straight from breast to an open doidy cup, far less hassle than bottles and the children learnt to drink from a cup very easily and early.  And no problems weaning them off a bottle at a later age.

 With regards to food, we didn't use commercial baby food at all - well, would you eat the stuff?!  Apart from the small amount of extra cooking required, I can only see numerous advantages to preparing your own baby food: cheaper, much, much healthier, simple to do, gets the child used to the real taste and texture of food and gets the child used to eating what the family eats.  And you know exactly what they are eating.

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Editor's note: World Health Organisation guidelines recommend that babies should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months. If you are thinking of introducing solid food earlier than that, we recommend you speak to your health visitor.

 

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