Weaning advice needed - I stewed my first plum!

[treewithtriplets]

Hi all,

Am hoping for some advice from some more seasoned/less terrified mums than I. I have 22wk (15wk corrected) triplets and want to start weaning the two bigger ones - they're showing the signs of readiness so I'm confident about starting them now. I've just stewed a plum and want to see if I've done it right! So here's what I did:

Ripe plum, peeled with clean knife, cut into pieces, into clean pan, added a little freshly boiled water, boiled until pieces disintegrated, mashed a bit more with fork, put into sterilised bowl, now sitting on the side covered to cool.

Questions: was it ok to boil in metal pan? Puree now seems a bit stringy, is it ok to just avoid stringy bits? Is plum an ok first food to try or too tart for tummies? Ok to leave it in side to cool so I can serve at room temp or should I refrigerate then bring out 30mins before serving to take chill off?

I know they may well just not like the taste, not bothered about that. Just want to check I'm not being dangerous in any way!

Thank you in advance for advising the neurotic idiot woman!

[ClaimedByMe]

I always started with vegetables, carrots, potatoes, things that mashed easily, your method sounds fine, pot sounds fine, you will give up on sterilised bowls soon too much faff.

No idea about the taste of stewed plum but you don't sound like you've done anything dangerous, it's safe enough to give freshly cooked and cooled or warmed up from the fridge.

[treewithtriplets]

Thank you for replying! I think you're right about sterilising bowls, my Milton bucket is already filled to bursting with bottles and teats so the bowls are the final straw! Really glad to hear you think the method's ok. I will be trying veg in the next few days, it's literally just that the plums are the only fruit/veg I have in the house today and I suddenly got the mojo for stewing.

Will try shovelling some into mouths later and see where we get to!

[Daffolil]

At such a young age you could always wait a while, the current guidance is to wait until the baby can sit unaided and bring objects to their mouth. If they can do this, put some pieces of uncooked plumb on their highchair tray and let them get stuck in. Plenty of people will say they introduce solids earlier than this and their dcs are fine, but the nhs website is clear about the benefits of waiting .

[BlueThursday]

I'm currently using the book "200 recipes for feeding your baby" it's great and was only £5 from the book people

[qumquat]

Agree with Daffolil. For your own workload as much as anything I would wait till 6 months, then you don't need to stew any fruit just give raw.

[treewithtriplets]

Thanks for replies everyone! Bliss guidance on weaning prems seems to be basically 'NHS/Govt guidelines are for term babies and don't apply to prems, it might take longer to wean prems so you could start a bit before 6mths if baby seems ready' so that's what I'm going with.

As it turned out, babies were not at all keen on stewed plum (can't blame them, was sour as buggery) so hardly ate any! On to steamed carrots tomorrow. Will try giving them as finger food first, as suggested! See where we get with that!

[GlitterTwinkleToes]

22wk = 5 months old?

I started my prem on solids when she was just over five months old, took a good few weeks mind. She only had little tasters to begin with she kept eyeballing my food fruit, veg, which has already been mentioned

[Littlef00t]

Broccoli, carrots and peppers were popular with dd when weaning. We did blw though.