Can I give a six month old finger food?

[dinny]

DS six months old last week - have managed to breastfeed exclusively up till now and really feel he is now ready for some solids. My question is can I give him finger food or do I need to go through the stages of weaning ie. baby rice, purees etc? Any advice/experiences would be fab. Thanks.

mm my ds was having finger food at that age but he had been weaned. maybe try something like bread or toast at first as its relatively soft

I'd start with baby rice and pureed veg .. but you can work up to finger food very quickly (in a matter of weeks)

your DS needs to get used to taking food in a different form to milk and needs to have one thing at a time

You can try low-choking-risk finger foods... like very soft-cooked brocoli, pieces of cooked parnsip, carrot... it's messy, though, I warn you! I went for mashed stuff, myself... and the occasional pizza crust.

wow, well done Dinny on getting to 6 mths on bf alone. I think that you can certainly move through the stages of weanign more quickly now (one of the advantages of leaving it till now) as a 6mo can have most of the food a grown up would eat (in terms of cows? milk to cook with, gluten etc).
But I would still introduce foods gradually so you can see if he has any reactions or likes/disikes them. Also finger food might be a bit much all at once? Try him with some soft bits of banana or other fruit, maybe soft bread or similar.

if you do decide to wean your ds before offering finger food untill you do you can give her things like sticks of celery and raw carrots to suck on, that way she will start to learn the hand to mouth routine as well as trying out new tastes, once she starts to try and bite through them she should be ready for the softer finger food

thanks, everyone!

Went to buy some Aptamil ready-made cartons today to warm and mix with baby rice. Think that ok? I feel I should use breastmilk but really don't think I have time to express what with toddler dd and ds distracting me!

sorry i mean him not her

Hi Dinny! How are you and your lovely babies, hun? How's your dad? Congrats on bfeeding exclusively for 6 months!

In answer to your question, yes you can give finger foods! Just make sure that your DS can sit well, fully upright and you're with him. DS used to gag on finger foods, but never choked. He started with (struggling to remember...was 5 whole months ago!)...bits of toast, cheese (lil moo organic cheese sticks, you can get them in most supermarkets - they do Cheddar and red Leicester now), grapes (I held them, he bit bits off - wouldn't have let him have them that young - and won't let him have them whole till he's much older - he has them cut up now), breadsticks and rice cakes (baby organix ones - they say nine months on the box, but DS was happily munching them from just over 6 months). He also had broccoli, carrots, pieces of chicken and beef (LOVES chicken and once growled when I tried to take the beef away from him!).

I think there's less risk of them choking on solid food than leaning back having puree spooned into their mouths at four months old.

DS now feeds himself beautifully - although he will take the lazy option of opening his mouth when I offer him something - sometimes I will hold it for him to peck at, other times I'll tell him he has to hold it.

He's had mush spooned into him too - he'll eat pretty much anything, so he's easy to feed! Grated carrot and houmous sandwiches go down pretty well atm too! He also likes the non-sulphured organic apricots from M&S (if he can eat them before I get there...!).

I've written an essay (with far too many !!! marks...)! Email me if you get a mo - is yours working now? I've a recent pic of DS I'll email you later - and let's sort out meeting up in town soon xxxxxx

Ooh, forgot to say - unless DS is allergic, you can just use full-fat cow's milk to mix things with, no need to bother with formula. Don't feel you have to give baby rice to begin with either - it's like glue!

Thanks for all that, hunkermunker, my DS2 will be starting solids in just over two weeks, and I'm hoping to skip purees, more or less. He can sit up properly, pretty well, already, and he can certainly grab things and put them in his mouth - mostly magazines so far.

I'm almost looking forward to it, only I'm too tired.

S'OK Just don't want anyone to do more work than they have to with weaning their baby!

And what is it about magazines?! DS would eat all my books if I let him...

You may find that DS has his own ideas. We were all set to start DD on baby rice. She, on the other hand, was determined to start with Cheerios. She indulged us about the baby rice for about 3 spoonfuls. As she got more and more hysterical about it, over the next week we tried other appropriate first foods -- mashed avocado and banana, both of which she thinks are poisonous to this day (she's just over a year). Finally, in desperation, I let her play with some Cheerios. It took several minutes for her to successfully get one into her mouth and leave it there, and then she gagged on it, and reached for number 2 while still gagging on number 1... After that she did let us spoon feed her for a while.

I try not to create plans for these things any more. I was planning to gently move her away from bottles at a year, but at 10.5 months she decided they were evil. And so on, and so on, and so on...

No need to mix baby rice with formula, just use water and or puree. A breastfed baby will take on board the right amount of milk anyway.

Thanks for all these ideas - only two years since I weaned dd and have forgotten everything! Will whizz up some pear and baby rice to start with today - bye bye easy days of boob alone!
Lockets - have just had a nightmare night with both. Soo tired.
Hunkermunker, yes email should be working. Who did you mean we should meet up with in town, who lives in SE London? Have just registered dd and ds with the nursery at WW!

Our kids started solids by grabbing food from our plates, so yes, I think finger food is fine. Anything to miss out on puréeing.

Ameriscot, that seems to be DS2's plan right now, but I'm being cautious and waiting until 6 months, which isn't long now.

I think one of my friends just doesn't bother with the allergy worry at that point. I mean, I think she keeps an eye on her kids, but I don't think she's careful about introducing things. I'm somewhat tempted to do that, myself, as we don't seem to have any food allergies in our families, and giving DS2 everything (including nuts and seafood) relatively quickly would make my life a lot easier. Even just giving everything but nuts and seafood would be easier than the whole "introduce a new food, wait three days" dance I did last time.

(Sorry, dinny, for grabbing your thread - it's pretty much what I'd been meaning to post.)

Will email you, Dinny.

And NQC, we have food allergies, eczema and hayfever in our family (well, me...!) and I didn't bother with the introduce a food a week as I figured that it was the most ridiculous way to introduce food to a baby - completely artificial! To begin with, I was careful about not giving him lots of different things at once (but never just one thing and leave it for three days - I'd have gone mental doing it that way!), but after a couple of weeks, he pretty much just had whatever I was having (not nuts or seafood other than fish, but only cos I wouldn't have those!).

He's been totally fine so far - I think that one reason they say you should be SOOOO careful is because they were advising you to begin at 4 months - another very good reason why you shouldn't bother starting till six months IMO!

Ah, I do have mild excema and asthma myself, but that's it. I think I'll be carefull and aware of introducing gluten, dairy and egg, and maybe wait a bit on nuts and seafood. It's just tricky, as DS1 is mad for seafood at the moment - we had lovely fresh mussels for tea, earlier this week.

so can I just give ds whatever we are having? like a bit of toast when dd having it for brekkie or some pasta in tomato sauce to play with at supper??? that's what I'd love to do but am scared!

dinny, that's what a friend of mine did, and what I plan to do. As long as the food has nothing he's not already had, and as long as it's not salty (beware hidden salt in prepared foods, olives, cheese, etc etc), why not?

Try soft carrot and broccoli.

NQC, but he's never had bread before. Could I just give him toast?