I work as the Breastfeeding Coordiantor in a WIC office, and here in my town
we are seeing an unusual amount of failure to thrive in older babies.
According to one pediatrician I spoke to this weekend, many of them are
breastfed older babies (the pediatrician is a lactation consultant).  I may
be helping her with some of these cases, and am wondering if any of the LCs
and/or dieticians have experience dealing with these clients.  The cases
where older babies (i.e. babies over 5-6 months of age, and often over 1
year old) refuse to eat solids and only want to nurse constantly.  These are
cases where the infants are "falling off" the growth charts.

After talking to my pediatrician friend, it seems to us that there is a
window of opportunity to begin the introduction of solids - a period of time
where the baby is openly displaying cues that he or she is ready, and the
parent ignores those cues for whatever reason - other kids, too busy,
emotional disturbance, misinformation, etc. It also seemed to us that if
this window is missed, a child could become a really picky eater.  I learned
a lot from our discussion, namely how important it is in the WIC office to
stress the importance of watching for these cues around the age of 6 months.


Of course, these viewpoints are open for debate, so.....Have any of you
dealt with cases such as these, or have any input on how to get the older
breastfed baby to take solids when they are being refused?  THANKS!!

Brenda Phipps, BS, IBCLC

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