[Retired Tech]

Parents are putting their babies' health at risk by spoon-feeding them pureed food, according to a Unicef childcare expert.

Infants should be fed exclusively with breast milk or formula milk for the first six months of their lives then weaned straight on to solids.

Gill Rapley, the deputy director of Unicef's Baby Friendly Initiative, believes spoon-feeding babies with pureed food can stop them learning to chew and use their hands skilfully, as well as making them constipated and fussy about what they eat.

She said: "Sound scientific research and government advice now agree there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids. "

http://www.telegraph.../nbabies118.xml

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i could see that being true...how can you learn things like motor skills if someone's always jamming a spoon in your mouth....same as "baby talk"....speaking in nonsense doesn't help a child learn to speak...

[dsenette]

i could see that being true...how can you learn things like motor skills if someone's always jamming a spoon in your mouth....same as "baby talk"....speaking in nonsense doesn't help a child learn to speak...

[Kat]

Infants should be fed exclusively with breast milk or formula milk for the first six months of their lives then weaned straight on to solids.

I may not be an "Expert", or a doctor. However, I've raised a couple of babies in my time, and am helping with a granddaughter. I completely DISAGREE with the above part. NO two babies are the same. how the heck can you set one standard across the board? Some babies are ready for cereal and the like much earlier than others. I have always let the BABY decide when they're ready for cereal. It's quite easy to tell. You give them formula or breast milk increasingly often, and they still are not satisfied. That's the point where you know it's just not enough anymore. Why let your baby starve and be hungry constantly, just because some "Expert" said so??!! I've never understood that. I let my babies be the guide, and they are healthy and well adjusted. They learned motor skills just fine on time, etc and so on. OH! And they aren't and never were "overweight" either, like some other "Experts" claim can happen. Both of them have always been quite on the "petite" side of the scales.

[frantique]

Totally agree Kat. After bringing up four children with each of them completely different in what they would eat, when, etc. When I first started having babies I was told in hospital that the baby had to be fed four hourly. If the child woke before the four hours and cried I was supposed to wait until the four hours was up before feeding again. My first fed really well and often slept longer than four hours and then sometimes slept less then cried. I was advised to wake him at the fourth hour and feed him whether he wanted it or not. It all seemed so wrong to me so I took myself off to the library (no internet in those day) and did some research about feeding babies and discovered that the four hourly feeding came in when English hospitals changed their nursing staff shifts from eight hours to four hours. Each shift in the maternity ward was expected to feed the babies - hence four hourly feeding. Also discovered that Henry V111 liked to watch his wives give birth. Prior to this time women always gave birth in a birthing chair (kind of like a normal chair with a big hole in the seat). Well, ole Henry wanted to see more, so he insisted that his wives lie on a bed so he could get a better gander. It then became fashionable for women to give birth horizontally instead of vertically with some assistance from gravity.

[**Brian**]

Infants should be fed exclusively with breast milk or formula milk for the first six months of their lives then weaned straight on to solids.

I may not be an "Expert", or a doctor. However, I've raised a couple of babies in my time, and am helping with a granddaughter. I completely DISAGREE with the above part. NO two babies are the same. how the heck can you set one standard across the board? Some babies are ready for cereal and the like much earlier than others. I have always let the BABY decide when they're ready for cereal. It's quite easy to tell. You give them formula or breast milk increasingly often, and they still are not satisfied. That's the point where you know it's just not enough anymore. Why let your baby starve and be hungry constantly, just because some "Expert" said so??!! I've never understood that. I let my babies be the guide, and they are healthy and well adjusted. They learned motor skills just fine on time, etc and so on. OH! And they aren't and never were "overweight" either, like some other "Experts" claim can happen. Both of them have always been quite on the "petite" side of the scales.

Kat:

Infants should be fed exclusively with breast milk or formula milk for the first six months of their lives then weaned straight on to solids.

I also DISAGREE with the above statement - as you stated, some babies are ready for solids earlier, and some are not, and the only way you will know that is if you notice that the lil one is not getting enough from the formula/breatmilk is to monitor the situation - If a baby takes the food in, and you notice a reaction, then you know that theier system cannot handle it, and you keep making changes and trying solids and cereals on and off, and you will enetually find foods that the baby can tolerate - Of course, you will also find foods that you offer going IN, and sometimes right back OUT if they don't like it hheheeh

When my oldest Nephew was born, my brother Scottie was a new Dad, and he would read book after book after book, and he got into his head that if a book SAID Feed baby every 4.5 hours then he would stick like glue to the schedule. One day little Justin was crying because he was hungy - he was crying so hard that the poor guy was shaking. His wife said she thought Justin was hungry, and Scott said that he was fed an hour ago, and he should NOT be hungry again until some rediculous time, such as 1 hour and 15 minutes. My sister in law says to him "If you wanna explain to your son why he can't eat now, and you can deal with his crying, Go ahead and do it, but as long as I have to listen to him cry, that isn't happening, so get that boy a bottle, NOW!"

Needless to say, that was the problem, because he was hungry.

I don't think that "experts" really can guage the way some babies develop, because some develop faster then others. All the books in the world can guide you, but you have to be prepared to throw that (book knowledge) to the wind when it comes to raising kids - What I mean is that what works for some kids may not work for others, and You are right, Kat, you can't set standards like that, because all babies are different and sometimes you run on your instincts

That is why Books are great, but a MOTHER has instincts as well, and she has to allow the baby to set the pace and tell her what works and what doesn't

Brian

[bobmad]

My Matt (now 4) almost NEVER did cereal. He shutters when he sees us eating breakfast cereal. My Mindy (11 now) loved cereal but Gagged every time she touched a tortilla, It was hilarious.

All of my kids have been borderline obese. Mariah (14 now) was born at 8# 14oz, Mindy was 9# 10 oz, Matt was 6#11oz 1 month early. We had several nurses suggest we get Mindy and Matt on diets (after Matt got out of the NICU). Mindy rolled over 3 times in her first 12 hours of life. She looked like a 2 month old. Matt was (at about 4 months) in the 95th percentile for height, 97th for head circumference and 94th for weight. We were sternly warned that he was way too heavy. We asked if all 3 stats were in the same percentile range, how could one be bad and the other 2 be OK? They ignored this and moved on.

Nurses and doctors do not know everything. Some know a lot less than everything. My wife and I have had to fight with doctors (once almost literally) to get our kids looked after correctly.

My wife pushed to be seen one day late in her pregnancy with Matt. They said "well your having braxton-hicks contractions, go home" she said "No, something is wrong." After about 4 of these exchanges over 2 hours (and 3 nurses) one nurse said "OK Mom, we'll give you an ultra-sound so you can see everything is OK, then you go home". My wife said "OK, I guess so".

They did the ultra-sound, brought her back to Emergency room we'd been camped out in and said "The doctor is on his way, your baby will be delivered by C-section in about 30 minutes". That was at 3:30 AM. (we went to ER around 10 PM) After Matt was born, the doctor said that if Kim had listened to the first nurse and gone home, Matt wouldn't have lived to her next doctor appointment 2 days later.

A similar situation came when Matt was just over a month old. My wife, still paranoid from an early birth, watched my sons breathing VERY closely. One night she woke me to tell me that Matt wasn't breathing right and we needed to take him to the ER NOW. When we got there, they checked his oxygen saturation and found him to be at 97%. They said, "He's fine. You are just paranoid. Go home." My wife said "No. Something is wrong and I want him X-rayed NOW". So, they did and within 45 min he was in an ambulance heading to the children's hospital because they found he had a collapsed lung.

Parental instinct wins out over Dr's claims.