Ped: "She should be getting most of her nutrition from solids now." - Page 2

[Critty]

DD (will be 7 months on Sunday) will not touch anything chunky or anything she has to put in her mouth with her hand, she prefers to spoon purees in herself. Since that is what she wants, that is what I am doing. I got a book on purees, and I noticed the calorie counts - sometimes it is 5 cal for 1/4 cup of veggies. There is NO WAY that is enough calories to sustain a baby/toddler - and my baby wouldn't even eat anything close to 1/4 cup. Keep doing what you're doing, you are beng a great mama

[Camile Rynd]

Please seek another ped

Originally Posted by Comtessa

DD is 7 months. Is there any reason to think that this ped knows what he's talking about? I was so proud to report this morning that she's still getting almost all her calories from BM. But ped shook his head gravely when I said so, and said "she should really be getting three solid meals a day, of all 4 food groups." !!! She only eats fruits/veggies and grains. Isn't that normal??

When I said we were vegetarian, so no meat (and she's too little for nuts and hasn't tried beans yet) he recommended iron supplements b/c she's "missing a food group." I didn't even think to bring up the question of dairy (the "third" of his "four food groups," I presume) really being appropriate for a 7-mo-old.

We introduced solids at 5.5 months, but she's only eating a few spoonfuls of baby food every day; more for fun and exploration than for nutritional benefit. Are we going way against the grain here?

ETA: And another thing. I thought the whole concept of "four food groups" was way outdated anyhow? I mean, a can of peaches is hardly interchangeable with a bowl of spinach, nutritionally speaking. Same with ice cream and nonfat yogurt... etc. Should I pay any attention to what this guy says?

Oh this sort of nonsense makes me furious!
Please seek out another Ped! He is dead wrong.
My ped said pretty much the same thing to me and it made me so neurotic about my LO and solids and whether or not he was eating enough! I found myself offering him food ANY time he was remotely fussy, and thinking that I was starving him! I think I even caused him to be a little freaked out about food because I was so worried about it.

Long story short, I got a new doctor who applauded what I was doing and who doesn't think anything of my 20 month old still preferring mothers milk to solid food. He assured me that every baby is different, and that some reach for food earlier than others. At 7 months my son wasn't even marginally interested in food and really didn't start eating regularly until he was 14 months. When he is teething, he still goes whole days without much more than breast milk, a little rice and some cucumbers.

Hope this helps.

[OperaDiva]

I don't even plan on introducing solids until 10-12 months! I'm sure that pedi would think I'm starving him, but my wonderful pedi told me it is a great idea for me to wait that long due to history of food allergies. Switch ASAP!

[Cherry Alive]

We love our pediatrician. He is uber supportive of us BFing as much as possible as long as possible. That said, I ignore him about how to feed solids. He was really pushing rice cereal, jarred baby food and purees—and totally had no clue as to what BLWing is. After a little thought, I decided just to pretend to listen to him and not explain what we were doing, because I already had such a negative response our LC (who was actually from a birthing center—disappointing). When we had told her about BLWing she acted like we were "crackpots" and refused to even look at our resources about it...just kept going on and on about rice cereal. So, I just didn't feel like dealing with another battle about food from the ped. I think he'd actually be open minded...it'd just take forever to show him the resources and convince him, and I am too lazy to feel like dealing with it right now.

Our DD is doing great. She's 9 months and mostly BFs. We started her on solids at 5.5 months. Would have waited a little longer, but she was drooling at and grabbing for our food so we thought it was a great time. Because she's always been on the small side, we do a combo of spoon-feeding and BLWing.

For lunch, she gets spoon-fed coconut-milk yogurt (she has dairy protein allergies which is why we don't do dairy). We love to feed her yogurt, bc it is very nutritional, gentle on the tummy and has gut-friendly cultures like acidophilous. For "dinner" we often give her part of what we are eating either in very easy to swallow bites or BLWing sized (large grabbable portions she has to bite small pieces off of). She doesn't eat that much for dinner...it's more for her to learn about food than nutrition. Of course there is plenty of BFing.

She eats fantastically! Even our mainstream parents are amazed at what a good eater she is. She isn't terribly picky, feeds herself wonderfully, and never puts up a huge fight about being spoon fed when she is spoon fed. Our main rule is to just follow her lead. We don't force solids on her, and we don't feed her things we won't eat ourselves (IOW- no yucky rice cereal). Meanwhile, I've been making a huge effort to learn to cook so our little family is eating healthy (tasty low-cal/low-fat meals with veggies/fruits). It's a lot of work as we used to be take-out nuts, but soooo worth it!

We hope to gently up her solids after her first birthday, and let her self-wean after that point (hopefully keep BFing until she's around 2), but until that point her main source of calories comes from breast milk.

[DangerMom]

Originally Posted by ktmama

Maybe you need to re-think your expectations of your ped (whoever he/she is). Doctors are good for giving health care interventions, not for advice or information on nutrition, sleep, parenting or anything else that isn't broken or diseased. If you're vaxing, then you need your doc, but if you aren't, I'd seriously reconsider the whole regular WBV thing. I know this isn't the advice you asked for, so it's just my $.02.

Totally agreed. After my son was born, I started to see doctors in a whole new light, primarily because they kept saying things I just didn't agree with and didn't feel was right (and sometimes I thought it was none of their business). I generally take the Smile, Nod, and Dismiss approach with peds. We have been lucky enough to finally find a great holistic osteopath/MD pediatrician now, though. Even with her, however, I sometimes find myself disagreeing.

You are doing such a wonderful thing for your little one by giving her your breastmilk as her primary source of nutrition. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[laurelg]

My DD is 11 months and still primarily BF. Your ped is looney, glad you'll be finding a new one.

I'm also with a PP on the WBV thing; we're not vaxing, so DD has been to the doctor exactly twice - once for a mandatory-per-my-midwife checkup at 6 days, and once for what I feared was viral conjunctivitis at like... 5 months?

For the latter, the doc diagnosed pinkeye and prescribed antibiotic eye ointment for conjunctivitis that was very clearly either viral or traumatic, NOT bacterial. Thaaaaanks.

Assuming I don't have to take her in for the diaper rash I'm working at getting rid of (thinking it's yeast), her next appointment isn't until we get in with a new doc at the beginning of March. I just don't see any reason to take her in to a germy doctor's office for WBVs when it's obvious she's meeting her milestones, I can check her height/weight, I don't want nor need the doc's "advice," and we're not vaxing.

[physmom]

Originally Posted by Comtessa

But ped shook his head gravely when I said so, and said "she should really be getting three solid meals a day, of all 4 food groups." !!!

....

When I said we were vegetarian, so no meat (and she's too little for nuts and hasn't tried beans yet) he recommended iron supplements b/c she's "missing a food group."

Ok, and 7months DD was refusing ALL solids. If we tried to feed her anything she'd throw it up almost immediately. Then all of a sudden at 9 months she'd eat maybe a couple of spoonfuls (she fed herself with a spoon) or suck on a piece of fruit. Now at a 11 months she STILL isn't getting most of her calories from solids. It's getting better but she's totally not there. Is my pediatrician worried? No! DD is doing phenomenally with her growth and meeting all her milestones early so clearly it's not harming her in any way whatsoever.

Seriously, though, I'd run for hills away from this pediatrician he seems very poorly informed. I can't even imagine a 7 month old getting the majority of their calories from solids, maybe if you were FFing? I don't have any experience there, but for the most part I'm .

[justKate]

Last week our family practice doctor who sees DD (10 mos.) told me that she doesn't see a value to BFing beyond 1 year because, "you know, then they have teeth." I'd like to see her come to my house and meet DD's nutritional needs with solids. I dare her.

Your doctor can it. If you like him, keep him and ignore it. If you don't, tell him to take a long walk off a short bridge.

to you. Sometimes doing the right thing seems wrong, but it isn't!

[Comtessa]

You've all made me feel SO much better about my approach to this doc. I took the "argue gently, then let it go" route with him, because he obviously wasn't even making logical sense. "She's probably still nursing at night," he said, "because she needs more solids during the day." Ummm... no, she's still nursing at night because she's hungry - and filling her up with low-calorie food during the day in place of high-calorie breastmilk is NOT likely to make her LESS hungry. Duh. And it isn't like I was complaining about her nursing at night - we cosleep, and her nursing barely wakes me up most of the time. He was the only one who seemed to think it was a problem.

if we were staying with him, I probably would have pushed the issue more, but I figured it wasn't worth it and I didn't care what his parenting advice was anyway as I don't need it!!! But I do feel bad for all the people who go to him for advice and don't know any better than to take it.

I'm going onto my tribal area right now to start looking for recs for a new ped! Thanks, mamas!

[writteninkursive]

Uh yeah... that's wrong. My oldest didn't even have a single tooth at 7 months. How the heck was she supposed to eat 3 solid meals a day??? We just do BM (or formula), with those dissolvable puffs at 7 months. I can just imagine a 7-month-old trying to chew up some steak.

[sapphire_chan]

Is she 2 years old? Then yes, she should be getting most of her nutrition from foods other than milks, barring illness making her need more nursing and reducing her appetite for other foods.

At 7 months? Nope. Not even close. "Until one, solids are for fun". Give her lots of textures and tastes and enjoy watching her explore them.

[sapphire_chan]

My 15 month old, who started solids right at 6 months with broccoli, and who will (with great effort since she has to do it all by pointing and grunting) request chicken for dinner, gets about 1/2 her calories from breastmilk. More than that some days, rarely a bit less, it's controlled by how exciting things are and how whether she nurses 2 times or 5 times at night. (Not that I know exactly how many times she nurses for sure, those are just the times where I'm aware of things because I have to flip her to the other side or adjust my blankets.)

[Ldavis24]

frankly it sounds like your ped is talking out of his a**....If you really like your ped and he has shown to be competent otherwise maybe just ignore it and don't willingly discuss food with him. I love my ped and I just completely disregarded his advice to start with rice cereal etc...

If you don't have a very good reason for keeping your ped, I would dump him fast! As a parting reason I would also print out some current info on BFing and solids!

[Pookietooth]

Nutrition is not really taught in medical school. I would ignore his recommendations. I do want to say though, that ds was anemic at one year (he ate very little at that point) and we did give him Floradix for iron (which brought him up to normal). Iron deficiency anemia is nothing to mess with. You can give him lots of green veggies and some prunes for the iron.

[Amandala]

I agree that you should get rid of this guy, or as Ldavis24 said, maybe just disregard his advice on nutrition if you really trust him on other subjects. (I have a very crunchy, BF-friendly, vax-delaying and selecting ped who still told me to give rice cereal and to turn him forward-facing in the car at 29 inches. ) Not just because of his attitude towards breastfeeding, but also because he seems to think that all infants are the same and whatever it says in the book is what you should be doing with your baby. A dangerous attitude. You and I and everyone who knows anything knows that everybaby is different.

I, for one, still provide breastmilk to my 10-month-old (today!) son as the main staple of his diet. He nurses right before bed and nap, he nurses right after waking up in the morning, and I usually nurse him right before he eats his solid foods. We dutifully started him on solids when he was 6 months old, but just a little bit now and then for fun. That was fine for him for a couple of months, then he suddenly took to food with wild abandon! Now in addition to all the nursing, he eats ridiculously huge portions of just barely mashed peas, sweet potatoes, several types of squash, spinach, green beans, lentils, and fresh fruit. Very teensy amounts of whole grains and oats. No meat, no milk other than mine.

Before I started letting him eat huge meals in addition to nursing, he was on the boob ALL DAY and he was a cranky basket case half the time and he wouldn't sleep. Copious amounts of food have helped with this, but I never let anyone tell me he doesn't still need the boob. And when he's sick or just going through some kind of a phase, sometimes he goes almost entirely back to the boob for days. He's 10 months old, 30 inches tall and 20 lbs!
Everybaby's different. You do what your baby needs!

[Juvysen]

I realized early on that doctors are useless for parenting choices. EBF vs. feeding solids before a year is definitely a parenting decision. Same with co-sleeping, early breastfeeding advice, blah blah blah. Those are parenting choices not medical choices, and doctors are supposed to be medical experts, not parenting experts.