Can someone please explain weaning to me?

[daisywaisydoo]

I sort of get it but not really at the same time! I understand it's going from milk to solids, but I just don't get how to do it.

How do I start weaning? And if she eats solids or starts too how much milk should she still be having? I feel clueless!!

Hi - check the weaning section in feed the world as there's tons of info and help there.

But just try giving her little tastes of food when you're eating and don't worry about cutting down on milk to begin with. Over time as she gradually starts to take more in you can start to work towards structuring the day around meals. But it will take several months. I actually ended up feeling like i was either feeding her food or bf all day long - i lost loads of weight as i only managed to eat toast myself for several weeks i was so busy trying to feed her up

I agree. It's a gradual process. For some reason I felt like it you'd be all done & dusted in a month, which is rubbish!

We were ff & he was on 4 hourly feeds of about 8oz at the time. So we started with tastes of things after one feed, then 2 then 3, giving breakfast, lunch & tea. Then, as he grew bigger & got hungrier the volume of the solids increased. After that, meal by meal, over the weeks, after about 4 weeks I think, I swapped milk first to solids first. After that's established the milk intake drops & you eventually drop milk feeds down to one in the morning & one at night. Then you transfer from bottle, to sippy cup, to open cup. And before ou know it a year and a half of your life has passed & you have a child & not a baby!

Next time I'll chill out about it a bit. 'Food for fun till they're one' is a pretty good mantra. Don't put yourself under pressure & compare your kid to others. Mine was still not able to cope with texture like mushed up weetabix when others his age were happily chomping on raw carrot!

Thank you Jaffakake you explained it so well :)

Especially about still having a bottle in the morning and one at night, that was things I was confused about! My daughter is having 8oz every 4hrs so similar to your situation!

I tried her with a taste of baby rice, she hated it. Tried a couple of spoonfulls of a fruity Ella's Kitchen pouch and she loved it!

Just stared our' dd two week's ago hates rice loves porridge, just make it
nice and smooth lessen the formula a few Oz's , try snack baby yogurt,
small amount of dinners and puddings with much reduced formula, increasing the solid amounts each week, again reducing formula, we give her a late bottle at night just too be assured her fluid intake is not compromised. is doing great will eat anything . now finishes off with a few Oz's of formula, has water in-between if thirsty , is aged 6m 2weeks. has breakfast, snack, dinner, tea, late bottle. water if needed in between feeds.

The two things that stick in my mind are food is fun until they are one, and they need to try something 15 times before they know they don't like it.

I found annabel karmel's weaning schedule really useful, it's at the beginning of her recipe book. Just make some purees and keep in freezer to start with so you can quickly have some food ready. I found the puree stage was short and ds moved quickly to 'real' food. I found it quite fun as it gave me more to do with ds!

Around my area I think it's Surestart do free weaning courses. Maybe something like that is run in your area as well? I went on it when DS1 was about 5 months. It was just a few hours and very helpful. I've seen leaflets around at the GPs, health centre, children's centre etc. Definitely worth looking into and a really good opportunity to get to ask questions face to face. The course I went to was mainly baby-led-weaning focussed but I guess it might vary depending on area.

Also have a look at this link with NHS guidelines: www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/Pages/solid-foods-weaning.aspx