Re: How to wean your baby from a mothers point of view

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

(a long and eminently sensible post, mostly snipped but with this point that I wanted to respond to)
I might not always follow the recommendations, but I would
ask very pointedly what the benefit is in *not* following the
recommendations. Unless there's a good reason arguing *for*
the need to give a particular child solids early, I don't see
the point in taking the risk, no matter how small it might be,
simply because you never get to know in advance if you're at
a tipping point where a little quantitative difference might
make a large qualitative difference for a specific individual.

Totally agree with this (and, incidentally, even if there was *no* difference between four months and six months from a health point of view I'd still think six months was better for practical reasons - giving finger foods to a baby who can sit up has got to be easier than faffing around with those silly purées!) What I object to is not the basic recommendation that six months appears to be better than four, but the amount of emphasis placed on it, which seems out of proportion to the actual level of evidence. The message that comes across isn't "It looks as though there are some overall advantages in doing things this way and it will be beneficial to the health of some babies, so better to wait if you can," but an unqualified "You should do things this way. It will be harmful to your baby if you don't."

When I realised I wouldn't be able to keep Jamie exclusively breastfed for six months, I felt terrible - what awful harm was I doing to my baby by not being able to pump enough milk at work? Fortunately, I have access to the information on which the guidelines are based and the know-how to interpret it correctly, so I read up on the actual evidence and was left feeling much better (apart from feeling angry that I'd been sent on that guilt trip on such very limited actual evidence). But lots of women in this situation don't have that. How many women are left feeling guilty either because they can't live up to the standard that's been set or because they brought up a baby under the old guidelines and then had the rules switched on them and are now being left with the message that the way they did things was all wrong? This is why it makes me twitchy when I see people putting what seems to be to be a disproportionate amount of weight on the existing evidence. Just because there's evidence of benefit doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep our perspective over it.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

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