How do u start? Help needed.

[lewsmummy]

In the next few weeks i'll be starting to think about weaning my ds how exactly do you do it, How long to give baby rice, how many times a day, when to introduce other foods etc. and anything else anyone wants to add.

[nothercules]

Well, for one thing, have you ever tasted baby rice? Tastes and looks like wall paper paste. I avoided it altogether and started with banana, sweet potatoe, carrots etc. Nice chunky bits for them to hold on to.

[Furball]

I've copied this from another site

Some ideas are - soft pear
eating apple
potato or parsnip
cauliflower
carrot
sweet potato
green peas
broccoli
mashed ripe banana
mashed ripe avocado

It’s usually best to offer one taste at a time. It will help you to identify the culprit if your baby has a reaction to a new food, such as a rash or a tummy ache.

Home made baby foods
It’s easy to make your own baby foods by cooking and pureeing food. Babies only need very small amounts to begin with, but you can freeze teaspoons of puree in ice cube trays and just defrost enough for one meal at a time. Remember to:

Peel the skin from fruit and vegetables
Steam or cook in a little boiling water to keep as many vitamins as possible
Bake potatoes and eating apples in their skins and then scoop out the cooked flesh for the puree
Don’t add salt (it makes babies thirsty and may cause dehydration) and pepper
Push the cooked food through a sieve or blend in a small blender
Mix the food with some of the cooking water or some breast or formula milk to get a smooth texture
As he gets used to ‘solids’ you can gradually make the puree less runny and then mash instead of sieve the food

Just start with one meal a day, may lunchtime and offer on a rounded spoon. You may find he only has 1 spoon, you may find he'll eat more.

[nothercules]

I have to disagree with some of that post. Unless you have allergies in the family I dont see the benefit of introducing one food at a time. Why go through all that sieving and pureeing? Just give them big chunks to hold in their hands.

[lewsmummy]

One meal with formula or instead of?

[nothercules]

Not sure of this. Some say before, some say after.

[YellowFeathers]

Hiya Lewsmummy
Can't believe hes that old already

I used to give dd a cube of mush either before or after a bottle. Eventually I made up bigger and less feeds so that I could drop a feed IYSWIM.

Have to admit I didn't start dd on finger pieces for a while after but that was because she couldn't manage them. Your ds might be different.

[lewsmummy]

How old was your dd when u weaned yellowfeathers?

[expatinscotland]

I started DD2 w/a breastmilk 'slushy' - froze EBM till it was slushy - and fed it to her off a spoon. Just to see how she took to it.

She loved it!

She is 6 calendar months in less than a fortnight, however.

[lewsmummy]

ds will be 4 month on june 9th and June 8th works out at 17 week. He already weighs in at 17lb 10.5oz. he was sleeping thru but now waking in night for feeds and not going as long inbetwen feeds in day so i think he's getting ready for food but just unsure when to start and how

[nothercules]

Oh, put some red food colouring in it, expat, and feed her it in public!

[nothercules]

Oh, ignore my advice then.

[YellowFeathers]

She was 16 weeks exactly but that was when the recomendation was weaning at 4 months (well that was what HV told me)

I did start her on baby rice though for a week at lunch time and then went on to food.
I know when this next one arrives and we get to this stage I'm just going with baby led weaning I think and introduce more finger foods.
Like I said it all depends on how your ds goes with it.

[SenoraPostrophe]

the one food at a time thing is so you can identify which foods your child reacts to - they may not have an allergy. and more to the point, you'll identify which foods they hate more easily. it saves a lot of frustration! (dd for example did react to pear - terrible wind, so I just left that for a couple of months).

If your ds is only 4 months, I'd stick to v bland foods at first because his system is so immature - that is why people say to use baby rice. But do bear in mind that the idea that solids make your baby sleep through is a myth!

[Chandra]

Something to avoid in the first months (or to avoid for longer if you have allergies in the family -hayfever, eczema, etc-. Although, if allergies are present you will need to know the guidelines more accurately):

• Kiwis, eggs, cows milk, fish, glutten, and nuts.

[expatinscotland]

can't do that, north! there are nasty E's in food colouring :o. could mix in some pureed strawberries, tho!

gonna do an apple/pear puree tonight to freeze.

[CorrieDale]

I don't suppose this will be appreciated, but I'd check the guidelines really carefully before I started my baby on solids early (i.e. before 6 months). \link{http://www.breastfeeding.nhs.uk/pdfs/FINAL_QA.pdf\This} gives more information about the signs of readiness for weaning, namely : "if an infant is showing signs of being ready to start solid foods before six months, for example, sitting up, taking an interest in what the rest of the family is eating, picking up, and tasting finger foods then they should be encouraged." This applies to formula fed babies as well as breast-fed ones.

FWIW, the not sleeping through thing is a red herring - at 4 months, babies' vision seriously improves and they're also making huge development strides, so it's no wonder they tend to sleep more badly! There are countless threads on MN along the lines of "my baby's 16 weeks and is sleeping really badly" - I should know - I did one of them! DS slept really badly from week 17 to week 23. It started to improve before we put him on solids, and when he went on them at 6 months, his sleep got worse again.

That said, he's your baby and it's your choice. But I thought you'd want all the info before making your choice because HVs are notoriously crap at giving weaning advice!

[Smellen]

There are loads of other threads under this section, discussing the current advice on when to start weaning - current DoH guidelines are 6 months. If you wait that long, you probably can get away with a shorter period of pureeing everything you give your DS. However, a lot of HVs advise weaning earlier and it is a matter of hot debate on MN whether they are correct to do so.

FWIW, in the end we weaned DS at 20 wks - started on the first day with carrot puree, then the next day he had the same and a bit of pear in the afternoon. For the next 3 weeks he had 2 'meals' a day, and then moved onto 3. It seemed to take him about 10 days to get the gist of swallowing and taking things from a spoon, but then he suddenly seemed to 'switch on' to food and really enjoys it.

Portion wise, we are led by his cues - they basically won't open their mouths if they don't want to eat! At 6 months, a meal usually consists of between 3-6 ice-cube portions of veg, and a pear / half of a banana / a pot of Organix fruit puree. Now he can take bananas and very ripe pears mashed with a fork. If the pear is VERY ripe indeed, he'll eat it solid, with supervision!

We kept him on just fruit and veg until 6 months, when we introduced some lentils and chicken stock for protein. Most veg are fine, but avoid peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and aubergine till 9 months, as apparently these are related to 'deadly nightshade' and contain a few toxins (according to nutritionist Lucy Burney).

We have decided to keep him off dairy and gluten for a year as there is a history of asthma on one side of the family. Gluten free alternatives like millet and rice pasta are good to make his diet more varied.

HTH. Good luck.

[CorrieDale]

Just to add to what Smellen says, if you wait till six months, you can get away without purees at all! We started DS on well cooked broccoli florets and carrot sticks at 6 months. It's called baby led weaning and there are, oooh, hundreds of threads about it on MN! At 11 months, he eats just what we do - even lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and mild curry (though not all in one meal!)

[Smellen]

PS wanted to add that in our experience, weaning did make a big difference to DS's sleeping. He suddenly would take daytime naps, and dropped the 3am feed within about a week (with a brief return to it when he had a cold a few weeks later). FYI he is breastfed apart from 5oz of formula mid-morning, and weighed about 17lb when we started the weaning.

HTH.

[tjcc]

I did the one food at a time - had some wind/tummy issues early morning if ds had protein at eve feed at first so did just at lunch until about 9months plus so far everything eaten (except banana, avocado unless mixed with sardine and cauliflower!) I used and still sometimes use baby rice to bulk up fruit purees- volumme eaten can vary quite a lot seem to have 1 very hungry day followed by a couple of light days- I found good book is by Susanne Oliver " what do I feed my baby"

[suzi2]

We started DS on solids at 6 months but still introduced things one thing at a time. But we missed the puree stage altogether and as it happens, we seem to have missed spoon feeding altogether as DS likes to feed himself.

FWIW my DS was a total nightmare between 4 & 5 months but started sleeping well again a few weeks before he started solids so it was most certainly a developmental wakening/grumpiness. Starting solids actually made his sleep worse for a few weeks.

If your aim is to encourage sleep (which I personally don't think introducing solids does) then I wouldn't worry about variety of foods and introduce them very very slowly. Oh, and the 'rule' I was told is that to give one meal for 2 wks, then add another meal for 2 wks, then increase those meals for 4wks and finally introduce a third meal. Introducing them too fast could put your baby off its milk which is the most important form of nutrition for the first year