I’m going to put a very short disclaimer here about medical reasons to wean early. If you’ve been told by a GP, paediatrician etc to wean early for conditions such as reflux, I’m not going to comment. You need to rely on your health professional (if you’ve been told you need to wean because you have a “hungry” or “big” baby, please get a second opinion)

When to Wean?
Traditionally, people have been told to wean when their baby wakes more often for milk (that would be the 4 month growth spurt), and when they are showing more interest in your food (just at the time when they’re showing more interest in everything, coincidentally)

The real signs of readiness for weaning are:
– being able to sit with minimal aid (e.g. hold themselves up straight in high chair to support chewing (chomping/gumming initially)/swallowing of food
– ability to put food in their mouth (often grabbing from a plate!)
– loss of tongue thrust reflex (they don’t push food out of their mouths automatically)

Whether you are puree feeding, or following Baby Led Weaning, the same signs of readiness apply. Rowan showed these at 23 weeks, so he was given food.

Why not wean earlier?
Some time between 17 and 26 weeks, the lining in your baby’s gut seals, making it able to properly digest solid foods. If you feed your baby solids before 26 weeks – or before they are showing the signs given, that are generally believed to happen at the same time as gut maturity, you are risking issues with digestive conditions and allergies later in life. I’m not a doctor or a scientist. I can’t explain how these things work, but you can read a bit more about why to wait here. Kellymom is a highly respected site for breastfeeding resources where articles are supported by medical and other references. Please note that even though that list is very breastfeeding focussed, the non-breastfeeding-related reasons are still very important and valid.
So basically, if you wean before 17 weeks, your baby’s gut will not be ready to digest the food you’re giving it. If you wean sometime before 26 weeks, you’re taking a risk (as I did) that it might not be ready.

If you do decide to wean before 26 weeks, you’re weighing up risks against benefits. Whatever you may be getting out of weaning early (apart from a hell of a lot of extra work, especially if you’re pureeing a la Annabel Karmel and her weird and wonderful recipe book) has to be balanced against the problems that you child may experience later in life. Often the response on mumsnet to people saying “well I weaned mine at X weeks and they were fine” (as an argument to convince someone else to do the same) is to say that you never know what health problems your child will have until they’ve got to the end of their lives!

If people have weaned early (between 17-26 weeks), then there’s nothing to feel guilty about – you were following the advice you had been given, and you never know what will influence your child’s health in the future. Once it has passed, its just another of those parental decisions that you took in good faith – you just keep on doing the best for your child, like we all do.

Of course, if you’re trying to shovel baby rice into a tiny (maybe 12 week old) baby because you think it will help the poor thing sleep better, I am going to stick my neck out here and say that unless you are truly ignorant of the weaning guidelines, I have neither respect nor sympathy for you.

The general idea of baby led weaning is that they always feed themselves – initially using their hands.  Its like the finger foods bit of the weaning guide you get – but they eat everything that way. It can take a while for babies to get the hang of it, but they’ll do it when they’re ready, and all they need up until the age of 1 is milk, so they can take their time about it!

People worry about the choking thing, but from what I have read, if you are sensible about how you give your child food, and never leave them alone to eat, you will be fine.  They have an excellent gag reflex, and a bit of a pat on the back will help them fix everything else.

There are a load of good resources around to help you if you’re interested in Baby Led Weaning (known as BLW):

• The BLW blog, run by a couple of mums who wanted to document their experiences
• and the associated BLW forums
• BLW guidelines
• General advice on what it is safe to feed babies

In about 7 weeks we’ll be starting off on this adventure, so I’ll be posting plenty about it!