Weaning almost 7month old

[Madallie]

Just after some advise please. Sorry this is a bit long!

Dd will be 7months old in 10 days. I wanted to wait until the advised 6 months old until I started weaning dd. I had no reason to start earlier as dd has been putting on weight well and sleeping though the night also. I was going to start right at 6months but then dd had a tummy virus with diarrhoea etc for 2 weeks so I decided it was best to wait until this past,

Anyway I went to the hv this week for some advise about starting weaning and what foods to give, when etc and I was a bit confused by her reaction really. She basically said I better get a move on quickly with weaning now as dd is almost 7months old. I was a bit at this comment given the fact she isn't even yet 7 months and I had explained about why i hadn't started straight away at 6months. She then said I shouldn't give veg and fruit purees but should go straight for mashing up whatever dinners we are eating plus ginger foods.

So basically what i wanted to know is does it sound very late that I'm weaning? How much earlier could I have weaned if I'm trying to keep within the advised guidelines and also does it sound right about just going straight to finger foods and mushed whole dinners?

I feel really confused and a little bit like I've been denying my dd the food she should be having.

Any advise gratefully received.

Going straight to normal food is a good idea, fruit and veg are almost all carbs, and carbs are rarely in short supply and they also don't contain the least likely micro-nutrients a baby is going to be short on.

A 7 month old baby, is going to quickly learn the skills to eat regular food, and will be mature enough to digest them, so just feeding them what you're cooking anyway will make most sense, obviously just avoiding the most chokeable of foods unless prepared okay.

Don't worry about having denied her, just get on with feeding her.

Madallie I think the reason weaning is suggested at 6 months is because babies start needing more micronutrients and milk doesn't give that. I think iron is particularly important.
The HV should have explained a little better maybe. You will need to progress quicker through food groups to get to the iron rich and protein rich foods. If your BF you will need to start giving some vitamin drops (HV should have explained that) if you are formula feeding the follow on milk has the vitamins in them.
I think baby can pretty much eat what you eat as long as salt levels are very low and there is no added sugar. You might like to mash or lightly blitz the food to make it easier to swallow/chew. There are some good books out there - annabel karmel is quite popular or the baby led weaning books by Gill Rapley, i have a lovely book called feeding your baby day by day (Fiona Wilcox). You could order these or pick them up from your local library.

I really wouldn't worry about it. Babies' supplies of micronutrients do not suddenly drop off a cliff at 6 months. Formula has plenty of iron, and if you're breastfeeding, while the iron levels are lower, babies absorb a much higher percentage of the iron in breast milk than they do from other sources (clever stuff, breast milk!) so that's really unlikely to be a problem either.

It sounds to me like you did the completely sensible thing (wait till 6 months, then wait until she doesn't have an upset stomach!) and I can't see that you've denied her anything. Having said that, if she's nearly seven months, there's really no reason to puree veg to within an inch of its life: pureeing things to a very thin, smooth consistency is a hangover from when people weaned at 3-4 months when the baby couldn't cope with swallowing chunkier textures. If you wean at six months this simply isn't necessary and you can go straight to 'real' food.

Btw, don't worry if she takes a little while to start eating in any quantity: some guzzle down food straight away, others take a while to get going. She'll get there in her own time and she won't die of malnutrition while she's getting there as long as she has plenty of milk