Felicie's Blog

When Baby #2 was about 18 months old, a stranger asked – upon seeing me breastfeeding her – if I was feeding her any other food besides breastmilk. It really took me by surprise because my little nursling had been eating lots of different foods for about a year! I’m still not sure if this person was concerned or just curious, but either way it got me thinking about the issue of starting solids while breastfeeding.

Both of my little ones started showing interest in eating food around five months and I finally gave them their first taste at six months. I’d be rich if I had a dollar for every person who told me that I should start them on cereal earlier than that because then they would sleep better. I ignored them all and waited the six months recommended by Health Canada and the Canadian Pediatric Society.

I’m not sure why I was so adamant about waiting. I think it might have been that I was being told so many different things by different people that I lazily decided to side with the experts. Nonetheless, there is research to show an increased risk of allergies with starting solids earlier. As Jack Newman describes, there is no magic date when a baby is ready; he recommends looking for signs that the time has come. I remember finding it hard to wait with baby number one because it was such a big milestone; I couldn’t wait for her to reach it!

The six month mark was also when I found the topic of weaning came up a fair bit. I guess people figure that if the baby can eat other foods then he doesn’t need breastmilk anymore. It always confused me that anyone I know who weaned at six months started feeding formula to their baby right after. If the baby doesn’t need breastmilk anymore then why would he need formula?

I guess I’ve always seen the weaning process as more gradual. My babies would eat a little here and there, but their main source of nourishment continued to be mommy’s milk. That’s the pleasure of nursing past six months: you can be sure the baby is getting most of what he needs at the breast, everything else is just bonus! The older they got, the less they nursed and the more food they ate. My current little nursling is still in the process of weaning, she just isn’t going to do it overnight!

Call me a rebel (or just lazy!), but I just didn’t pay any attention to the so-called rules about starting solids. Sometimes I nursed the baby before she ate, sometime after. In fact, it’s rare even now for me to sit down to a meal with baby #2 and not nurse her at some point during the meal (while I’m frantically shovelling food into my mouth!).

I didn’t start veggies before fruits because fruits are sweeter. After all, as Jack Newman writes: “Breastmilk is far sweeter than fruit.”

I didn’t do the cereal thing to boost my baby’s iron levels. I just fed her cut up meat. I couldn’t see the sense in trying to feed the rest of my family healthy, real food and feeding the baby highly processed cereals. And who wants the extra work of making separate meals for baby and others?

Need another reason to keep nursing past six months? Formula fed babies don’t adjust to solid food as quickly as breastfed babies. They are missing out on the enzymes in breastmilk that help them to digest their first food. Also, they miss out on the different flavours that pass into a mother’s milk from the food she eats.

Any tips on starting solids with a breastfed baby?

Resources:

Feeding your baby: 6-12 months

Starting solid food

Feeding your baby in the first year

When should my baby start solids?