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The received wisdom on infant feeding has changed a great deal with time. In Queen Victoria’s reign, parents were advised not to introduce solid foods before nine months.

By the 1950s, however, some experts were recommending that babies start solids by four to six weeks, something we consider a crime against humanity now.

The World Health Organisation suggests breast-feeding exclusively for the first six months and continuing breast-feeding for two years. Other guidelines suggest babies should not be given solid food until four to six months.

But recently the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US released a study showing that many parents aren’t even waiting four months.

I was astonished to read that the prevalence of introducing solid food before four months in the US is 40%, four mothers out of 10.

What’s more, mothers who were feeding their babies formula were much more likely to introduce solid foods early than mothers who were exclusively breast-feeding.

Mothers claimed several reasons for doing this. Many said they thought their babies were old enough to have solid food. Others believed it would help their baby sleep.

Unfortunately, they are wrong. Research looking at whether baby cereal helps young babies sleep longer has shown no benefit.

Doctors and nutritionists are concerned young infants are too immature to handle solid foods and there may be links to weight problems later when babies are given solids too early.

Mothers are just doing what they feel is best for their baby and not really listening to experts. But one topic I hope mums will take heed of is the latest thinking on allergies, because doctors have back-pedalled on that score.

Until five years ago, most medical authorities told parents to avoid cow’s milk until their child was a year old, eggs until age two, and anything containing peanuts until age three.

The thinking was that if you expose a baby to these foods early in the first year there’s a tendency to develop allergies and they become an allergic person throughout their life.

Most allergologists now think this is wrong. They’re suggesting we should go back to the opposite approach of introducing these foods earlier when the baby’s body is more tolerant of potential allergens.

New recommendations, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, say the best way of preventing allergic disease is breast-feeding.

But they also recommend highly allergic foods be introduced in the second half of the first year.