Candidate for early weaning?

[stephie_corin]

By early weaning, I mean 4 ish months.

My son is a whopping 8.5kg (almost 19 pounds) at three months and has almost doubled his birth weight. He is exclusively breastfed but I have read that bigger babies can be candidates for solids before six months.

I plan to discuss this with our peadiatrician but just wondering if anyone has experience with this?

Thanks!

Steph x

 

[stephie_corin]

Ps I'm aware of the other thread and don't want this to be a six month vs four month debate, just curious about other mothers experience with big babies.

 

[Bunnikins]

Wow he IS a big boy ! I had my girl weighed at 5 months and she was just over 19lb and i thought SHE was big!

I dunno if its to do with size or not really. I expect its more to do with how hungry they are but i expect a bigger baby will be more hungry. My girl is on the larger side on the 91st centile, and was always very hungry and started showing signs she was ready for food from around 4 months. She could also sit up at this stage (and i think that was cos she was heavier too).

In my experience my "big" baby was ready. She is now 6 months and is on 3 meals a day which she wolfs down and i honestly cant imagine her being on just milk at this age (which she WOULD be if i'd stuck to the guidelines). She is also still on 6 bottles a day.

I would say to look for signs they are ready though rather than just go by size alone..

 

[stephie_corin]

Thanks B! Interestingly my big boy was 17 days late. I noticed your LO was late too! Really appreciate your experience

 

[albs]

DS was 4.35kg when he was born, 8.2kg at 3 months and 10kg now but we waited until almost 6 months. You know your baby best but I don't think that being big makes them ready for solids earlier. The guidelines are 6 months for all babies, not just little ones. Loss of tongue thrust, sitting unaided etc are much better indicators than size. DS loves his food now and dinnertime is great fun!

 

[stephie_corin]

Thanks Albs, I'll definitely look for signs of food readiness... Have you introduced foods quickly (quantity and types of food) at 6 months or did you take it fairly slowly...?

 

[albs]

i suppose we started fairly quickly. we started at 5 1/2 months as he could sit unaided, and to be honest i wasn't sure about the tongue thrust thing then! we spent a couple of weeks just giving him bits of soft fruit/veg maybe once or twice a day. mostly he just squished them in his hands and sucked on them.
at 6 months we started offering 2 or 3 meals a day but since we're doing blw he's in control of how much he eats. he's had the occasional meal where he's just played with it and thrown it around but mostly he has a red hot go at eating.
he probably just sucked and played for another 2 weeks with only a little actually getting eaten (just enough to give him toxic gas!). then he suddenly worked out how to bite and chew, and spent several days filling his mouth but not always swallowing!
now he's great at the whole lot. he has his favourites (chilli con carne with rice, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, cucumber, apple) and things he's less keen on (porridge) but i have to say the whole thing has been really positive and stress free!

 

[Casey3]

Our LO had over doubled his birth weight by 4 months (born 7lbs5oz and was over 16lbs by 4months) but I don't believe that weight has anything to do with weaning If he's EBF, milk is really all he needs for a little while longer He may be ready a little before 6 months but 4 months is too early IMO.

 

[Twister]

I don't think size has much to do with it, it's the signs of readiness which other posters have mentioned that you need to look for. Breast milk and formula have more nutrients and calories than a lot of foods anyway and is easily absorbed by their digestive systems so I don't see how starting foods early because of size would do anything apart from fill them up on empty calories so to speak.

 

[stephie_corin]

Thanks very much for the advice everyone, I appreciate it.

 

[Noodlebear]

Blimey my 6 month old is still just under 14lb! Haha. Agree with PP though, I starting weaning Lucas at 23 weeks (so a tad early) and he's pretty small so I wouldn't say size alone was something to go on x