Has anyone started their baby on homemade purée before reaching 4 months?

[Par155]

First time mum here!

my son will be 3 months in a few days.
He’s just recently finished a developmental leap and I have noticed the changes.

During the leap he went from 6 ounces to 4. Of course I got worried that he’d start losing weight (he was weighing just under a stone in weight during our 6-8 week health visitor appointment). I spoke to the health visitor about him reducing how much he drinks and was told all is fine as long as he’s still having wet nappies and pooing.

Over the last few days he’s started to drink more milk and we’re on 5 1/2 ounces. But this is him playing about with the last two ounces and me offering him more every few minutes. Sometimes he will drink it, a few sips here and there and play about with the teat in his mouth. Other times he’ll gag- which is quite funny because most of the time the teat hasn’t even reached his tongue before he starts gagging with a look of disgust on his face.

Since the leap he watches me eat and he’s moving his mouth around like he’s chewing with me. He’s very interested and I can tell that if he had more control of his hands he would have his hands in my plate stealing my food.

So to round it all up…

I’ve looked online and it says that you shouldn’t give your baby purée until they’re the min age of 4 months…

Has anyone given their baby purée before this? I would like to give him some home made purée or rusks broken down to a liquid sort of form, at say 3 and a half months old. Only because his interest in having a bottle seems to be declining and his interest in what I’m eating is increasing…to the point where it’s making me feel guilty!

So far the only advice for not giving your baby purée before this is child obesity…which is something I am not at all worried about because I plan on making his purée mostly veg to build up a good immune system.

any advice or opinions are welcome!

Ok, this post reads a bit 🤔🎣

But in the event it's not, if you're worried about weight there's more calories in milk than in pureed fruit and veg.

I weaned my first at 17 weeks back in the bad old days. It is so much harder to give a baby purées and milk feeds than just milk.

And as the PP said, there's usually less calories in fruit and veg than the milk so you'll effectively be putting him on a diet.

Nothing in your post suggest that he's ready for solids yet. Reducing quantities of milk is fairly normal and isn't listed as one of the signs of readiness. As long as he's getting 2.5 floz per pound in weight a day he'll be fine, if he isn't, can you offer feeds more often?

Having weaning at just a bit older I would seriously advise against it. Like I said it will take an age to prepare and offer the solids, it will make him take less milk which could impact on his growth and development, and my DS' sleep actually got a lot worse.

I'd have a real think about weaning this early. Even when the advice was 4 months, 3 months was very early to wean. Now the advice in the UK is 6 months, and has been for many years, 3 months seems risky.

I weaned at 17 weeks on the advice of the HV due to reflux. Would not have done so any earlier. We didn’t really have developmental ‘leaps’ back in the late noughties. Just babies that great and developed over time. Not sure what the rush is for you.

Introducing any form of solids before 4 months is actively bad for their gut not just to do with childhood obesity. Definitely consult your GP and ask them to explain why the guidelines are there before making a decision like this. 3 and a half months is absolutely tiny. All your DS needs is milk.

At that age, he's definitely not ready for food - in fact, giving him anything other than milk at this stage could harm him

Having done weaning at 4 months (it was recommended then) I'd say, leave it. It's messy, time consuming and, even if you have a good eater, fairly frustrating. So much easier to wait until they're 6/7 months and give them a piece of finger food (or in the case of dd2 be fed a chocolate button by big sister).

If you drink a glass of wine he will be interested in that as well. So is he ready for wine?

Rusks have no nutrional benefit.

Totally agree. Both of mine were fascinated with me using the washing machine too. They seem to have list that interest long ago

This is why I’ve asked for advice, no need to get snooty!

This makes a lot of sense.
Only reason I thought he might benefit from some purée was because he’s just losing interest in his milk. But of course I don’t want him to lose any weight and will definitely stick to feeding him milk only.

Also I feel a bit of guilt because when I’m eating he will sit and stare at me ever so quietly moving his mouth as if he’s chewing my food with me lol. Quite funny actually.

Also forgot to mention I’ve been offering him more milk between feeds to try and get him to drink a bit more. He will gag and act like the milk is the most disgusting thing ever and how dare I even offer him it lol. But again thank you for breaking it down, health visitor hasn’t been very helpful. But all the above makes sense. I’ll wait until he’s pushing 6 months to offer any purée moving forward.

I didn’t even consider how time consuming it might be actually.

Your best feeding on demand. As adults we get hungry at different times, sometimes hungry half an hour after a meal sometimes 6 hours after a meal, babies are the same.

Start feeding on demand without any pressure. You may find he wont feed alot then take 2 bottles within half an hour etc. Be led by him ❤