weaning - what comes after pureed food?

[HotBrickOfJizz]

I know the thread title makes me sound pretty clueless, I'm just a bit anxious about it I suppose. DS is 6 months old and has always had a huge appetite. I started weaning early at 4 months as he was drinking sometimes in excess of 49oz of hungry baby milk from 7am til 7pm. At first it was just tastes but for some time he has been settled into what I think is a good routine and it seems to work well for him. He still has as much milk and three meals each day. His feeding routine is very much lead by him and he seems to want his milk/food at the same times every day (which suits me). Current feeding pattern is - 7am a 9oz bottle and baby porridge, 9am a 6oz bottle, 12pm pureed fruit and 6oz bottle, 3pm 6oz bottle, 5pm pureed veg and 6oz bottle, bath, quiet time, bottle then bed at 7pm. I realise that it sounds like a LOT but he never leaves any milk or any of his pureed food and in fact cries when the fruit is all gone (though as the portion is quite big I really wouldn't want to give him any more than he already has. I don't think its because he is hungry, more that he likes the taste as he doesn't do this after eating his veg) I'm not necessarily planning to immediately make any changes to his routine but I am starting to think about what comes next. I know that there are different foods he could now start trying and that soon I should start pureeing the food less and less... But I suppose I just want a bit of hand holding! I did speak to his health visitor about his feeding pattern etc but she simply told me off for weaning him early and gave no advice other than I should only give him 'tiny tiny tastes' of pureed food. Sorry, he's past that now and seems fine and he would no doubt be pretty angry if I reduced his food intake now. Any advice would be gratefully received!

That does seem a lot of food..

Anyway, in answer to your question. Now he is 6 months he can eat pretty much anything. Just no honey or large nuts/ grapes etc he could choke on

Try higher healthy fat foods and dairy now. These along with carbs will help his hunger

Try letting him feed things himself, this will a) let him get used to it b) eating slower might help him realise when he is full
A baby feeding them self is more likely to stop when full

Easy things like chunks of avocado, banana, bread ( not too much due to salt) he can feed himself. As well as pretty much anything you eat

If he's just been on veg/ fruit puréed so far that's not really filling hence he eats lots. Think of it like diet food, if you were on a diet would you eat a load of carrots or drink lots of milk? Milk is def higher calories for him which is what's needed at this age

As I said he can now have ' proper meals', whether you want to purée or just let him attempt whole is up to you. Fish pie is usually well received

Can I really just give him a chunk of food? I can't imagine giving him food that isn't mashed or pureed, maybe I'm being really precious, but I haven't given him anything lumpy yet. I do want him to be able to try something different, so far he has only had - pureed mango, apple, melon, banana, nectarine as his fruit portions. For veg portions he has combinations of pureed potato, sweet potato, carrot, peas, brocolli with baby gravy. He does like yoghurt too. I haven't given him anything other than this so far. Is there anything I could introduce, for instance, tomorrow?

Also, I would like for him to be able to feed himself but he is not at this stage! He would just wave the spoon around then throw it. Or should I just let him loose with it so he can learn? He does try to grab the spoon but then again he grabs everything. He does grab his bottle and open his mouth but can't lift it to his mouth properly.

Why not try some softish finger foods?

Bread crusts/Toast?

Banana chunks?

Rice cakes?

I would add some protein into his puree's and make them more lumpy rather than smooth, plus it will help fill him up abit more.

He will get the hang of it in no time :)

You can give him chicken and white fish now too. We purée some chicken with veg for our six month old dd and she loves it. A good tip our health visitor gave us for fish is to use fish fingers just take the breadcrumb coating off. That mixed with veg makes a good meal. Do you give him water with his meals? As sometimes he might be a bit thirsty. We give dd water with hers and she enjoys drinking out of her own cup.

We found some cooked carrot cut into sticks is a good finger food.

Yes you can give purée/ mashed/ or just as it is.

Just as it is is usually referred to as blw ( baby led weaning), you can read up on this site if that interests you

But continuing as you are, try adding meat/ fish to the vegetables

You can aways give him a chunk of whatever your having for him to experience with either whilst your preparing or when your eating. I usually gave a spoon to them and one for myself and let them play/ practice maybe whilst feeding porridge

If he experiments with regular unmasked food it also gives you a chance to eat yourself. Just don't cut up small as they are more likely to stuff he whole piece in compared to giving half a banana where they can just gum/ suck off the right amount

Thanks for the advice. I gave DS a toast finger this morning, which he loved, he held it himself and shoved almost the entire piece of toast into his mouth. He managed to gum a big chunk of toast from the finger and I panicked but he chewed and swallowed it fine! Then I tried him with half a banana and he managed to gum off a huge chunk, I panicked again and just held the banana for him so he could suck at it. Am I being precious, is he fine to have chunks of soft food in his mouth? Making roast today so I will puree a portion for him with chicken. Is he ok to have the gravy we are having? Its chicken juices, oxo, flour?

Yes he is fine with chunks :) also maybe read up online to reassure yourself first aid but choking is different than gagging. Gagging is all part of his reflexes controlling what should and shouldn't go down and is a good thing, choking obv isn't.

The only problem with oxo is the salt content. If you look in boots/ some supermarkets in the baby section you should find baby stock cubes. I generally use these until around a year.

When cooking just try using no salt and more herbs for example to flavour and then you only need to cook once for you all to eat same thing.

Otherwise yes he is fine with lumps. You sound like your doing fine. Just watch him as you obv are, babies gag on even milk sometimes as I'm sure you know so you don't need to panic :)

6 months is a funny age where obv babies are all at diff levels, I'm sure in a month the banana you are helping him with now will be the easiest thing he will love to feed himself. He also needs time to practice learning how to put things in his mouth etc.. All in time