Should infants be demand weaned?

When to introduce solids can be an emotionally charged subject for both health professionals and parents/carers. While most health professionals follow age recommendations from health authorities, such recommendations may not sit comfortably with a mother who feels her infant is giving her cues that he either needs solids earlier or later than recommended.  Just as demand feeding is now an accepted practice for giving milk feeds, is it now time to recognise and accept the concept of demand weaning?

Demand weaning does away with  age recommendations for introducing solids, relying soley on the infants behavioural  cues to tell a parent/ carer he needs foods other than milk.  Support for demand feeding has been put forward by Dr Martin Ward Platt in Perspectives of the journal  Archives of Disease in Childhood (1). He states:-

• Mothers know their baby best, listen to their cues and act according,often ignoring advice to the contrary from health professionals. 

• There is no magic age when solids should be introduced. Rigid developmental ages do not exist as every infant is different

• The WHO recommendation of exclusively breast feeding till six months is a 'one size fits all' approach based on limited evidence and does not fit infants from developed countries

• The 4, 6 month or between 4 to 6 month age of introducing solids should be regarded only as an optimal age, as they are arbitary numbers and have no developmental meaning.

• There is no harm in introducing solids earlier as parents have been doing this for years

• Infants know when they are ready for solids and will cue their parents accordingly- finishing feeds and looking for more food; waking in the night; taking an interest in foods the family are eating. There is no magic age for introducing solids.

He recommends further research in the area to find out how demand feeding is driven - what hormones are involved; neurodevelopment of the brain; nutrition. He feels strongly demand weaning should not be regarded as a 'naughty behaviour' but a future direction in infant feeding.

Reference.

Ward Platt MP. Demand weaning: infants' answer to professionals' dilemmas. Arch Dis Child 2009;94(2):79-80.