I plan to do BLW at 6 months and have just bought Gill Rapley's book but haven't read it yet so I'm hoping somebody can help me here (please).

Yesterday I asked hubby to get some formula from the supermarket and he came back with a jar of baby juice too. He was all excited because I'd said I wanted to wean at 6 months but he'd seen the 'suitable from 4 months' thing on the label and thought they'd invented something new that I didn't know about! He bought it as a treat for Leyla. I explained to him about how they didn't change the law about labelling when they changed the guidelines for weaning so he understands now why I want to wait until 6 months, but I can see that he still really really wants to give her the juice at 4 months (in a few weeks).

I'm definitely not going to start weaning until 6 months, but do you think it would do any harm to give her the one jar of juice at 4 months? I think she'd probably spit it out anyway as she hates anything other than milk (even nice tasting medicines/folic acid come straight back out) but I can see it would make OH really happy to let her try. Also, I make all of the baby decisions and I want to encourage input from OH. I'd feel really mean to just say NO to the juice.

What would you do?

When i first started giving ava juice, i got the ready to drink stuff, but stilll diulted it x that why you can still have your LO having less of the Juice and something nice to drink and your OH not feeling like hes done something wrong for buying it? x x

I personally would not give it, it has alot of sugar (even the 100% juice has alot of natural sugar) and it's just not that great for them. Here the recommendation is no juice under 6mo for sure, but most recommend not until around a year and even then not much if any at all, and always watered down by atleast half

I wasnt planning to give juice to Connah but MIL gave him some and he pulled a face and spat it out...he preferes his water
But the reason i wasnt planning on giving it is because of how much sugar is in it and also they just dont need it,water id fine with meals.

If you do want to give your LO the juice i would water it down first x

I wouldn't give it. My OH keeps wanting to give Ruby juice for some unknown reason but she's not having it. It's unnecessary, fills them up with empty calories and rots their teeth if given from a bottle. The only time I would consider giving a tiny bit of watered down orange juice would be to help a specific problem like constipation...

I guess if it was a one off to save your OH from a broken heart then I'd let him give it Thing is though, if it's given once and your LO likes it, a precedent is set and it's difficult to walk your way back from it. Unless he's happy with it being a one and only time for now, I'd leave it.

I agree with the others I'm afraid.. I really wouldn't offer it unless you have no other choice (ie, refuses water and you're worried about dehydration / fluid intake. And even then, I'd water it down - I think 1 part juice to 10 parts water is recommended on many baby sites).

Thanks everybody. It has a long expiry date so I'll just keep it till she's older, like a year old. OH will just have to cry I suppose if I gave in 'just this once' who knows where it would lead?

I would not give it either,Rosie still has not had juice and I dont plan to give her it for a long time, If she has not had it she wont miss it & I dont want to introduce her to sugary juice when she is fine drinking water x

ANy fluid other formula or breastmilk is not recommended until at least 6-7 months since the kidneys are not developed enough to cope with the extra fluid. Also, a 4 month old needs the fluid to contain the calories that are in Formula or BM.