Weaning

Now that Mini-MI is six months old, the stores of iron and other nutrients she built up in the womb are almost depleted and she needs more than she gets from my milk. It’s time she was weaned.

The World Health Organisation and the Department of Health recommend that babies be fed exclusively on breastmilk until 26 weeks (six months), and certainly shouldn’t be given any solid food in the first 17 weeks of life. The health visitor extolled to me the virtues of baby-led weaning, skipping the purees and going straight from breastmilk to finger foods at six months. Meanwhile the Animal has been giving her tastes of anything she showed an interest in since she was about three months old, and was very keen to start feeding her pureed solids as early as possible. He believed solid food would help her sleep through the night, and took any signs of distress within an hour or so after a feed as proof that she was hungry.

I had assumed (perhaps somewhat optimistically) that I would know Mini-MI was ready to eat solid food when she succeeded in picking some up off my plate, getting it in her mouth, and chewing it (gumming it, anyway). We wobbled along a line of uneasy compromise for a couple of months, occasionally spoon-feeding her with fruit purees or baby “cereal” (actually made from rice) while I read ingredients lists and rejected anything that seemed particularly likely to upset Mini-MI’s immature digestive system (gluten, meat, too much sugar or cow’s milk). She was a colicky baby, though the whole concept of colic offends my scientific sensibilities as it’s a condition defined purely by its signs with no understanding of its causes or processes, and I don’t want to be responsible for giving her a bellyache. Plus some food allergies can be caused by feeding an infant certain foods before its digestion has matured.

Someone should really let Cow & Gate know about that.  I received a direct mail package from them when Mini-MI was about three months old, with a free sample sachet of one of their baby cereals. The pamphlet on weaning they enclosed with the free sample was atrociously unethical. I mean so much so that I actually sat there saying “Cunts!” aloud over and over as I read through it. It piled on the pressure, telling me that my baby would be getting hungry soon and that I should watch out for the telltale signs… which, as it turns out, are things that Mini-MI does all the time and (to my knowledge) most babies her age and younger do:

• Baby chewing its hands? It’s hungry, give it solids.
• Baby ever unsettled after a feed, or wake up during the night? It’s hungry, give it solids.
• Baby able to hold its own head up, or sit up with or without support? It’s hungry, give it solids. (I swear I’m not making this up. Cow & Gate say that by not falling over when I prop her up in a sitting position,  my baby is telling me she’s ready for solid food.)
• Baby look like it’s interested in what you’re doing when you eat? It’s HUNGRY, give it SOLIDS. Dear gods, woman, your child is about to STARVE unless you give her some Cow & Gate!

Cow & Gate say that their smooth pureed foods are suitable for babies from four months of age. It’s written in large font on the front of every jar. The tiny print on the back concedes that the DoH say otherwise.  Not all the baby food manufacturers are so disingenuous; some are labelled “from 4-6 months onward”, or place more emphasis on speaking to your medical care provider before weaning.

Of course, the recommendations have changed over time. The nice lady who sold me my home insurance declared that in her day, babies were weaned at three months old and it never did them any harm.  I forced myself not to ask why it wasn’t her day anymore, and agreed that the human race on the whole appeared to have survived early weaning.  My mum, watching Mini-MI munch on a rice cake, commented that it seemed much easier to wait until babies can feed themselves.

So far, weaning has been pretty easy for us. Mini-MI will eat almost anything she’s offered, though she was a bit uncertain the first time we gave her some coarsely mashed carrot. She loves to gum on rice cakes and pieces of toast.  Last week at her great-grandma’s house she had a big strip of chicken breast to chew, and earlier today we had to get her to cough out a huge piece of baby biscuit that she’d managed to break off and choke on. Twice.

It can be a bit nerve-wracking at times to watch her tackle a piece of solid food, knowing that she can’t control the muscles with which she moves the food around her mouth and swallows.  Each time she chokes on something, while I tip her forward and pat her on the back until the food falls from her mouth, I consider what I would do if she carried on choking.  Time to sign up for an infant first aid course, maybe, though first aid courses always make me feel even less confident about administering first aid (because they remind me just how much there is to know, and how many things can go wrong).

Another thing that occasionally makes me feel a bit weird is the thought that Mini-MI, this tiny adorable creature who until recently needed me for everything, is already growing up. My breasts are no longer her source of sustenance and comfort.  I’m out at work most days, and I miss her like crazy.  When I come home to see her sweet sleeping face as she lies content in her daddy’s arms, though, I forget all of that immediately and rush to bask in her glorious warmth and baby scent, because nothing else really matters.

October 14, 2010 | Categories: Crash Test Baby | Tags: baby, food, health, marketing, Weaning | Leave A Comment »