After 6 months...

[little_O]

Talking to my MIL and she said that if a baby self weans after 6 months, that they need to be formula fed to a year.
I'd never considered/heard of this. What is the recommendation on this?
Obviously it's a while away for me, but I'd always figured if they have solids they can have other liquids. She said it is either bf, ff or water? Definitely no cows milk till after a year.

Enlighten me!

[Heaven]

Babies don't self wean at 6 months so nothing to worry about

[little_O]

But say they start dropping feeds at 8 months, what do you do?

[LuluHB]

What Heaven said but no, no cow's milk until at least 12 months.

They "drop" feeds because their tummies are bigger so each feed gives them a larger quantity of milk, so they need more but less often ITMS

[sloane]

and usually bf them first so they fill up on milk before solids!

but yeah just bf,formula or water till 12 months.

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[Heaven]

They only drop feeds as they start to eat more so it's all good

Don't worry, if you just feed them when they're hungry it all works out, they're pretty clever!

[BhoysGirl]

"Food is fun until they're one" - so yes, breastmilk, or ABM is the primary food source for the first 12 months.

If you've made it to 6 months successfully breastfeeding, unless you have some medical issue, there is no reason to expect that your body won't be able to continue to provide your baby's breastmilk needs. They can also drop feeds because they're getting too much in the way of solids first, so they're already full, and don't want as much BM. So milk first, then solids is the way to go.

[onthefly]

She's sort of right, yeah.
Babies need milk as their main source of nutrition for the first 12 months or so, then food takes over. Once they're eating in volume, they'll naturally start to take less milk - the weaning process begins with the introduction of complementary foods, and ends with their last breastfeed, whenever that might be. It's extremely unusual for a baby to self wean at under 12 months and there's generally some sort of reason for it when it does happen.
Breast milk contains exactly what infants need and formula is the best alternative if human milk is not available.

[little_O]

Ok so ideally you would bf for at least 12 months, not the advertised 6 months?
If for whatever reason you stop bfing before that you need to formula feed until 12 months. Not sure how I missed this all!

[HotI]

Ideally (and recommended by the WHO and many other organisations), a baby is exclusively breastfed (no other foods or drinks) to 6 months of age, and then breastfed (with the addition of family foods) to 2 years or beyond.

My initial goal (and i have heard other women with the same goal) was to reach 12 months of breastfeeding so that i could avoid formula. When we reached that goal, my baby was still my baby and breastfeeding was still going well and so i didn't see any reason to stop.

[PumpkinZulu]

It's exclusively breastfeed to 6 months (so nothing but breastmilk, no solids, no water), then food and breastmilk until 12+ months

[onthefly]

The 6 month thing is exclusive breastfeeding, yeah. before i had babies i didn't know all this, either

[Sagres]

Babies don't self wean at 6 months so nothing to worry about

Bahaha. That statement actually made me laugh out loud!
In the REAL WORLD babies can and do self wean at many different ages - including 6 months
Gosh my DD2 would have weaned at 4 months if I hadn't taken steps to solve the issue.

But yes, the idea is to BF until 12 months but if that doesn't happen you do what you can with food, formula, water etc. but not cows milk until 12 months
Another thing to add is that they will often be having yoghurt and cheese before 12 months so you can try and utilise those foods as a 'dairy' to throw in the mix until you introduce milk (be it cows milk or goats milk or rice milk or whatever).

[milka]

I bottle fed from day 1 and my baby started refusing bottles from about 9 months - meaning he would refuse his 11am feed for example, so I would replace this with a yoghurt or food. I introduced cows milk at 11 months for his night bottle and introduced it around 8 months in his morning cereal.

[HotI]

Sagres - if you don't offer anything but the breast, how can they wean at such an early age?

(this is a genuine qu, trying to understand cos i have heard both sides (babies don't wean vs my baby did wean)

[Heaven]

I agree with HotI. I don't really understand how a baby could wean then. Especially even before 6 months when they don't know there's any other food. If that's the only place their food comes from they don't know any different iykwim.

Breast refusal sometimes happens with young babies but I wouldn't call that self-weaning.

Glad you got a laugh anyway...

[onthefly]

It would be very unusual prior to the widespread use of formula and bottles - years back, before we had formula as we know it today, almost all babies that were not breastfed died.

Babies can go through refusal phases, even very serious breast refusal, particularly if there are feeding issues which make it more difficult for them. Offering bottles instead can compound the problem (as the baby may decide they prefer the bottle) - it's a pretty hard situation, though, especially if your baby is very young.
Other things that can precipitate early weaning include giving bottles of formula or being separated from your baby. It's not *exactly* baby-led weaning, but it can certainly appear that way.

[Maruschke]

Well... while it would be unusual for the baby to self wean prior to 6 months, plenty of women have had issues other than self weaning which cut their BF journey short before 6 months. If this is the case then you would have to find some other way to get milk to your baby, either donated BM or ABM. They still can't have cows milk til 12 months.