Knowing When To Wean Your Baby Off Breastfeeding & Into Solid Foods
Knowing When To Wean Your Baby Off Breastfeeding & Into Solid Foods
The longer you nurse your baby, the more he will benefit from the immunological and nutritional benefits of breast milk. You and your baby will also benefit from that special feeling of closeness that breastfeeding provides. In most traditional cultures, babies are breastfed for at least two years, and sometimes for as long as five or six years. So don't be surprised if your baby is not ready to give up the breast until he is several years old. If you and your baby enjoy your nursing relationship, there is no harm in continuing for several years.
Unfortunately, Western society expects babies to be weaned early and considers six months to be a long time to nurse a baby. Some people are even shocked to hear of a toddler who is "still" nursing, not realizing that this has probably been the norm in human prehistory for millions of years.
When nursing is not a control pattern, toddlers will eventually lose interest and wean themselves, assuming they are receiving sufficient alternative food sources. But even when babies are taking in solid foods, it is rare for spontaneous weaning to occur before one year of age. If nursing has become a control pattern, however, toddlers are likely to continue nursing for a longer time and to strongly resist being weaned.
Nurse your baby for at least a year if possible. After that, you can continue to nurse as long as you are both enjoying it. It is not a good idea to continue nursing if you no longer find it pleasurable or are beginning to feel resentful. If you decide to initiate the weaning process before your baby loses interest in nursing, try to do it very gradually, while making sure your baby's needs for closeness and nourishment are met in other ways. A gradual weaning will be easier on you too, as it will minimize the possibility of painful breast engorgement and sudden hormone shifts.
If we speculate from an evolutionary point of view, we can find some clues to the age at which solid foods should be introduced. While our ancient ancestors were being carried around as babies by their mothers, they learned to grasp objects and bring them to their mouths, just as all babies do today. These prehistoric babies probably grabbed and ate whatever food their mothers happened to be eating. That was their introduction to solid foods.
By four or five months of age babies can grasp objects, and all normal babies put everything they can into their mouths for many months thereafter. Could this strong tendency be a remnant of times when babies had to fend for themselves more than they do now, because mothers knew nothing about nutrition? It would be nature's way of supplying babies with additional nourishment at an age when breast milk is no longer a sufficient food. Just as with the sucking instinct, the putting-in-the-mouth instinct may have had definite survival value. So if a baby's grasping ability indicates a possible readiness for solid foods, this would imply that such foods should not be introduced before four months of age.
There are several additional indications that babies are not ready for solids until they are at least several months old. A study of 57 infants showed that babies do not readily accept solid foods from a spoon until around three months of age. Salivary secretion (drooling) does not appear until three or four months of age, and teeth do not usually appear until around six months.
Introducing solid foods too early could be one factor leading to food allergies. Dairy products, wheat, eggs, and chicken are more likely to cause allergic symptoms in very young infants than in older babies. In one study, children who had been introduced to solid foods before 15 weeks of age were more likely to be overweight and have wheezing problems (asthma).
Another disadvantage of offering solids too early is that this decreases the intake of valuable milk by lessening the baby's appetite. Furthermore, some manufacturers of commercial baby foods add sugar and starch to their products, which tend to fill babies up on "empty" calories. Feeding such foods to infants under four months of age could be one factor leading to obesity.
By the time your baby is five or six months old, you can begin to look for indications of readiness for additional foods besides milk. Perhaps he will try to grab food that you yourself are eating, or indicate that he is still hungry after you nurse him, or want to nurse more frequently, but still seem unsatisfied.