To ask when you gave your little ones their first taste of solids

[Foreverthinking]

I'm a little confused by advice I was given from the health visitor. She says not to introduce solids of any sort until 6mo

However clearly there are jars of baby food readily available in all shops which say from 4 months.

I have on occasion given a small amount of baby rice and also rusk crushed up and mixed in with milk formula. Baby loved it no problems and is 4 and a half months old.

When did you first introduced yours to solids of any sort?

Wait until physically ready. Tends to be when they are physically able to sit up unaided, guide food into mouth and lose tongue thrust reflex. Normally happens around 6 months.

My daughter is 27 weeks, we started solids at 20 weeks due to her lack of interest in milk. She’s got cows milk protein allergy and kept dropping percentiles. She went from 69th to 8th percentile. My mom suggested I give her solids. She started solids with me when I was 3 months as I had the same allergy and problem gaining weight. I had a few stays in the hospital for jaundice.

My daughter immediately took to solids and was on 3 meals within two weeks. She cant have anything with dairy or soy. But she’s gaining weight and thriving. With just 4 weeks of adding solids she gained 4 percentiles.

Just after 6 months.

We were around 5.5 months. I'd second others saying baby rice and rusks have no nutritional value - i.e. hardly any calories and rusks usually full of sugar. They were what people did back in the day but giving chunks of banana, cucumber, avocado, sweet potato etc is much better for them and easy. When you go for it I'd recommend reading a bit about baby led weaning - you don't need to get religious about it like some people do - but offering chunks of food to nibble on really did seem to help develop the interest in eating and self feeding from the start.

My older 3 I started offering solids around 6 months. With my 2nd, she had her first solids the day before she turned 6 months because big brother decided she wanted his vegetables . With my 3rd I began offering around 6 months but I don't think she ate much solids for a month or two after that, she was quite poorly for the first few years. I didn't spoonfeed at all with my older three.

For my youngest, it was at 3 months as he was part of a medical study (partially because of my third). It was a specific offering of foods until 6 months and then additional foods alongside the specifics for the first year or so. There isn't really much different between him and the others, though at the time I remember feeling like it was extra faff for very little apparent benefit at a tiring time. Everyone was happier when he could just grab and eat at will.

My MIL meticulously wrote down all of DH's food. He was having was having rusks in bottle at 6 days and baby food at 2 weeks by 2 months he was having jars of cottage pie and 'roast dinner' 😲

Can't say it has massively affected him though he occassionally gets a bloated stomach. The guidelines have obviously completely changed and with good scientific backing.

BLW at 6 months, for both. Although dd was t really that bothered until 8 months.

Guidance is six months but that is based mainly on WHO recommendations which include developing countries where food hygiene/safe water is more of an issue.

HVs tend to stick to this religiously. My first was physically ready by four months and had his first taste at four and a half months. He was sitting unaided etc etc and was very definitely interested in food. I couldn't have waited until six months for him. My second didn't show the same interest and happily waited until six months.

Definitely nothing before 16 weeks as their gut is still too permeable/leaky before then and this could lead to problems/allergies etc

6 months. It is the only guideline I am super strict on. There’s just too much good hard evidence out there to suggest that it’s really really important to hold off. So DD was 6 months and it was a fast and easy process. She’d conpletely bypassed the purée stage and was eating 3 meals a day within a few weeks.

My baby is very nearly 4 months now and it makes me chuckle when I think of weaning her basically now. She’s no where near ready, I’d literally be force feeding her.

Mashed banana the day she turned 6 months.

She ate better then than she will now she's 2.5 😭😭😭

DC1 3 months as per the guidelines at the time.
DC2 4 months as by then the guidelines had changed.
DC3 4 months

My DC were born in the early to mid 90s.

I was advised to wean mine at 4 months by a s by nurse. For some reason that was the advice for premmies (in general) nine years ago. I took the advice and he weaned well but to be honest he didn't need it. He was happy with just his milk.

I would try to wait till as close to six months as poss.

Just less than 4 months
PFB at 15 and a half weeks , with baby rice and mashed banana , and then lovely tins of baby food ( still remembers apricot porridge .. )
They both survived , and are healthy 20 something’s now

Ds was around 6 months maybe 5 and half months.

He had baby porridge first. Then puréed veggies. Sweet potato being a fave. He now has mostly whatever we’re eating whizzed up. He is on puréea and things at nursery. So far we haven’t found anything he won’t eat.

Cauliflower cheese was a bit disasterous though. He ate it. Enjoyed it. But it made his stomach go a bit funny.

When he was shopping signs of being ready at about 5.5 months. I'm not sure he actually ate anything until closer to 7 months. He just gummed it and played with it.

These threads never go well. Dd1 is 6 and we weaned at 18 weeks on GP advice due to poor weight gain. Dd2 at 23 weeks because she was ready.

DS1 wasn't interested until after 6 months or so and even then he went in fits and starts where he'd ignore food for a few days then start eating again. DS2 reached over and took a piece of filet steak from one of our plates at just under 6 months and DH and I just looked at one another, shrugged and assumed he must be ready for solids.

A friend of mine had her DS around the same time that I had DS2 and she was putting baby rice and rusks in his milk by 12 weeks. She maintained that it was the rice making him sleep through and that DS2 should be having solids at that stage too. I stuck to my guns and never really knew if I was right or wrong but 12 weeks seemed ridiculously early for a tiny baby to be eating anything other than milk.

All those who are absolutely convinced there’s concrete evidence for the 6month guideline - where is it???

This sums up a lot of big studies and does not seem to be conclusive at all:

www.nhs.uk/news/pregnancy-and-child/call-for-breastfeeding-advice-to-be-re-examined/

On iron deficiency, rates of coeliac disease and allergy there may even be a disadvantage to late weaning.

But as that article repeats several times - there are no randomised controlled trials so conclusions are very very hard to draw.

I fed all three of mine from 5months.

Baby rice (almost liquid to start with) at around 4 months as was recommended when all of mine were babies. Two liked it and were on more interesting sloppy food by about 5 months. The other was having none of this eating nonsense so he was about 5 months before I tried again. In hindsight I think he'd have happily waited until 6 months but he was on hungry baby formula top-ups by that point.

My kids are all absurdly healthy and slim almost adults who were never fussy eaters. So, anecdotally only, earlier than 6 months didn't cause them any problems.

6 months as I have coeliac disease so I wanted to stick to the recommendations to hopefully minimise the chance of DD inheriting it

20 weeks, 2009. I wouldn't specifically plan to introduce until 6 months but some babies are very insistent and clear that they want food. It was more difficult to keep food away from DS than to let him have some little bits to explore. As long as they are sitting upright and getting the food to their mouth themselves (ie not being held for them) it's believed that it's safe to start BLW. One theory is that if they are physically developed and coordinated enough to handle solids then they are likely to be internally developed enough to handle them too. This is NOT proven so you have to make your own judgement.

Of course you should not start any kind of solids before 17 weeks as this has been shown to be a risk - it was sometimes advised earlier in previous times but we know better now. As 17 weeks is about 4 months, this is why some baby food products state "From 4 months" - it's an absolute minimum, rather than a recommendation. 6 months is more what they think is better. You do have to follow your baby's lead to some extent - they aren't all going to be the same.

For the poster who asked, when I said no problems after trying rice / tusks i was referring to no immediate adverse effects, for example not struggling to eat it and no upset bowels after, obviously no crystal ball so can't possibly tell about future adverse effects but no immediate ones.

Really appreciate all the input :)

There's emerging evidence that waiting until 6 months might not be ideal from an allergies perspective. This piece sums up the pros and cons very well.

scienceofmom.com/2015/05/14/starting-solids-4-months-6-months-or-somewhere-in-between/

6 months with my first. I weaned him then because that's when the hv told me to. He was completely disinterested and he just wasn't ready. It was stressful and worrying and I wish I'd waited another month or so.

With my second I waited until he was ready which was just before 5 months. It was such a different experience than with ds1, I just sat him in his high chair with some chunks of soft fruit or steamed veg and let him get on with it.

We did BLW and first offered food at 6 months.

DD1 started eating significant amounts of food immediately and was e.g. eating an entire banana for breakfast by 7 months. As soon as she discovered food she stopped putting other things in her mouth and at 10 is still my best eater.

DD2 loved her milk and took longer to ramp up her solid intake but did eat small amounts fron the first week of eating. But really only started eating significant amounts from about a year and is my fussiest eater.

DS was 4 weeks early and we hummed and hawed about when to introduce solids because the advice really varies for premature babies. We decided to introduce food at 6 month but he showed no interest until 7 months (which would have been 6 months corrected). After that he was like DD1 and ate lots and liked everything. He had food allergies as an infant that he grew out of around 4, at which point he started being fussy about food . He currently eats very little meat and is very suspicious of green food. And hates cheese.