Is my 6 month old ready for solids ?

[Alexia26]

Hi

My DD is 6 months old and is exclusively BF. Recently she has been watching us intensely whilst we eat and drink and then becomes seemingly frustrated. Yesterday whilst I was eating a pear she was staring at it ,mouth wide open and then started to whinge and lean forward towards it. The reason I haven't introduced solids yet (I intend to go the BLW route) is because I've been told by our paediatrician and have read in countless articles that she should be sitting unassisted and have lost the tongue thrust reflex, the reflex has pretty much gone now but although she can sit upright she will topple over if not supported . My husband made feel really guilty as if I was denying her the food for the hell of it! . Am I doing the right thing to wait?

Thanks Dino that's reassuring .

I have a 12 month old who is BLW and also bf just as much as a newborn

Her very first food was egg, and she loves them till this day. She still doesn't consume a vast volume of food, but she loves the variety. She just has what we do. Babies are more than capable of feeding themselves.

Just keep doing what you're doing Alexia, all babies get there in the end. Gill Rapley is amazing though, her book really gave me the confidence to continue.

I just make sure I offer her some of whatever I am eating, whenever I am eating it. It doesn't have to be a 'formal' thing at all. Some days she isn't really fussed, other days she will bite my hand off to get more!!

You're doing great

The best piece of advice I was given about weaning was "food is for fun until they are one".

It really helped my 7 month old "OMG will she EVER eat enough to fill herself up?!" nerves calm.

It took my DS about 4 weeks to get the hang of BLW and my DD wasn't that keen on solids until 8/9 months. Some babies will get it quickly and some will take longer - just like walking and talking.

BLW was much easier imo. If you wean them onto purees then you end up with another sort of weaning stage when you introduce lumps whereas with BLW it's just one process.

Gagging is scary, but it's common. As long as it's gagging and not choking it's absolutely fine.

I don't agree at all. You start with puréed food yes but very quickly you purée less and less. My 8 month old is not eating good quantities of very lumpy food (chicken and butternut squash pie tonight) having started on purée. If you cook your own food you can adjust slightly with eat batch. My 8 month old is definitely beyond the "food for fun" stage (although she still has milk of course- definitely less than a newborn). Food from 6 months is important as b/feeding won't provide the required nutrients alone. I also don't agree that "babies are capable of feeding themselves". Really??

That should say now eating, not not eating. Sleep deprived!!

HighLow, I've got so many pictures of my DS feeding himself very efficiently from 6 months upwards. So it is perfectly possible and not in any way unbelievable. Really. I'm sure you'll be able to find lots of videos on YouTube of 6 month old babies self feeding if you want to see for yourself.

I'm sure there are some babies for whom self feeding is not suitable, but assuming a normally developing baby then BLW is suitable. The "food is for fun before one" phrase is somewhat unhelpful I think though, as it doesn't mean that they should have mainly milk until 12 months. It's also not an "official" phrase used anywhere. IMO that phrase is just trying to get across the difference in focus between BLW and spoonfeeding, in that with BLW the focus is more on the exploration of food and less on the quantities to begin with.

I must have two strange ones then Culture as neither of mine could get anywhere near eating as much at 6 months by themselves as they do with help. My 8 month old is just about able to eat chopped banana by herself (although most of it goes on the floor). Certainly the quantity she manages alone is absolutely nowhere near what I give her.

Alexia, do you think that your feeling of lack of control has led to a need to firmly control weaning?

BLW can be great but it's important to be flexible as no child is the same, and impressing what 'you want' on a tiny person seems a bit unkind.

Fwiw, we have taken a blended approach to weaning and it has led to great flexibility; a child who can be spoon fed or spoon feed self, who can feed self with fingers, who is interested in food and eats most things. We would give finger food at every meal and top up with purées if needed - and you will know if needed.

Principles are wonderful, but remember that these are yours, and your child has no say in them. If you need to reassert control, make sure you are doing it in a way that is healthy for you and your child

Egg- I couldn't agree more. A bit of both seems to me to be a much more sensible approach than resolutely being determined to follow your own agenda.

I just get so sad seeing people push their own agenda, it ceases to be about the child and becomes completely about the parent.

I hope no one thought that I was pushing an agenda on my DS. He was completely happy to self feed and actually really enjoyed meal times. Doing BLW and not doing spoon feeding doesn't make you a slightly crazed and over controlling parent with an obsessive agenda.

Must add to Dino that a child who is eating almost no solid food at 18 months is definitely not going to be healthy. The child I mentioned is underweight, anaemic due to a lack of iron and far from a happy go lucky child. Iron is so essential to brain development that I dread to imagine the greater implications.

Food is so important. I just don't believe in leaving it to chance and hoping that the child will eat enough.

Meant to say as well that the puréed route is hard work. Cooking batches of food and blending it/freezing it etc is much harder than just "giving them a bit off your plate". Personally I think it's worth it and my 9 year old who will eat anything and is a brain box proves it to me every day!!

OP has said she is doing BLW
OP has stated she will ignore paediatrician advice re purées
OP has discussed total lack of control re the birth of her child and after (which I am not minimising, sounds bloody awful)
It is completely normal after a loss of control to seek control elsewhere
If her child is genuinely hungry, she is unlikely to get the nutrition she needs from BLW for some time.
Sometimes we can lose sight of why we are doing something.
No harm in suggesting OP keeps an open, flexible mind surely

No agenda here! (Bizarre accusation when it is just parents doing things differently!)

I have just had babies who eat fine on their own. My DM was like highlow. She couldn't believe it worked until she saw my babies eating decent amounts on their own at a very young age! She now wishes she'd done BLW with us!

As for an 18 month old eating almost no solid food at 18 months, that is not necessarily down to BLW. Who knows if there were more concerning overall food issues? Anecdote is not the plural of data!

eggcidental, the OP sounds like she is keeping an open mind, starting BLW, seeing how it goes, might add purees if her baby doesn't take to it. Sounds all very sensible to me. Comes down to what suits each mother and baby.

Dino, I don't want to sound rude but this isn't your thread and I wasn't talking about you

I have clearly referenced the OP.

Unless I've missed it, she's not said she'd consider purées

I find it very unfair to suggest or imply that doing BLW means that the parent is putting their agenda before the well-being of their child. I also disagree that a hungry child couldn't possibly get enough food from self feeding. It's just not what I have experienced with my DS or with the many other babies I know of that did BLW.

If you are EBF then it is wise to give a multivitamin from 6 months which contains iron. Then there need not be any worry about iron levels. Obviously if you are FF then this contains the required amount of iron anyway.

The OP is not in the UK, and therefore sees a paediatrician rather than a HV as you might in the UK (or not see anyone at all). Her DD does not have any specific medical concerns or any special needs. I don't think it is being irresponsible to vary from the paediatricians advice, as it is just that - advice - not a required medical treatment or prescription.

Food is not for fun until they're one. I don't know where that slogan came from, but there's no scientific basis for it at all. Milk needs to be their main source of nutrition between 6ish and 12 months, but not sole. They won't get everything they need from it. Iron, for example.

I've nothing against BLW, it's a legit way to wean and some babies just do take their time getting into solids however they're fed. I'm not sure much can even be done about that other than being patient. Mine took her good sweet time. But they need food before one.

Culture, I didn't say that BLW was an agenda! I said that it's important to be flexible! BLW isn't the holy Grail of weaning, and having a very fixed mindset puts an awful lot of pressure on mother and baby! My child had finger food as soon as we started weaning and I know it's a great thing to do. But OP has been showing blind determination to do what she wants and that really concerns me.
I feel you are projecting, somewhat, and using words that I've not used

I think that the ability to be in control of portion sizes is really important when weaning babies. For example, I know that my baby ate 8 cubes of fish pie and veg today. For pudding she had banana as a finger food- most of which went on the floor. I have no idea how much banana she ate. When tipping the balance from milk to solid food (which is what is meant to happen between 6 months and 12 months) knowing exactly how much solid food a baby is getting is really important.

I personally want to manage the diet of my baby to the point where I want her to have the right amount of protein v veg, the right amount of veg v fruit, the right amount of food v milk etc. How you do that when BLW is beyond me.
I'm also not sure why the OP feels that you can't give a baby fish?? Fish is a great early food with lots of nutrients. My baby's process through weaning went from veg to lentils as a first protein and then cod next. When I cook for my baby I'm careful about salt, careful about balance of ingredients, careful about sterilising etc etc. I'm not sure how "having a bit off my plate" works- especially when that "bit" is something quite random.

Of course being flexible is important, and this is something that I have mentioned several times already. BLW is not anything precious or special, it's just a method of feeding a baby! Often other people seem to project the idea that people who do it are inflexible and dogmatic, and on this thread there has been the implication that they also put the wellbeing of their baby second. That sort of insinuation irritates me intensely.

Egg, you said you were sad to see people "push their agenda" in an earlier post. That's what I was responding to, so I am not inventing things or projecting. The OP hasn't been showing a blind determination to pursue a fixed course. In a recent post she clearly said that she would continue with BLW until the next weigh in (which is monthly) and then switch to finger foods plus purees if her daughter's weight gain slows too much or stalls. That sounds very sensible and flexible to me.

Highlow, I think that one of the good points of BLW is not knowing the exact volume of x, y, z that your baby is eating. Just like when you breastfeed, you have no idea how much milk they're taking. I appreciate you will probably think that makes me dangerously negligent! The idea is that you offer balanced meals across the week or so, and they take what they want. Sometimes they go for one type of food more than another, but it balances out over a week or two.

I don't understand your last sentence at all, HighLow. When I cook for my baby I do exactly the same as you. It's just that I cook enough for everyone, and call it a family meal. Baby gets some alongside everyone else. It's not just random bits from a plate with no planning, of course not. People use the phrase "bits from your plate" when working on the assumption that the food is balanced and suitable.

Perhaps that's how you do it Culture but the people I've seen who BLW have certainly taken a far less planned approach to their baby's diet than I do. It has always seemed to be more about their convenience than anything else. The notion that your baby gets a balanced diet "over a week or two" would worry me who ensures that my baby gets a balanced diet daily. That's a big difference.

I'm also interested by your assertion that weaning is like b/feeding in that the quantity of food doesn't matter. I disagree with this. B/feeding happens on demand- when the baby is hungry you feed him/her. Surely that's not the case with solid meals? You're unlikely to rustle up a home cooked meal half an hour after the last because your baby wants more?! What you probably do in that situation is give more milk- hence the balance of milk to food doesn't change.

HighLow, I'm clearly not going to persuade you that BLW is a reasonable thing to do! I'm a bit astounded that you really think that parents who do BLW are doing it for their own convenience above the welfare of their children.

Fwiw, the food that I would offer at each meal would be as balanced as I could practically manage. My baby would eat what they wanted, and as much as they wanted at that meal, so if they ate everything I would serve some more until they didn't want any more. They would eat to their appetite. Obviously inbetween meals they would breastfeed as normal, however gradually the number of feeds in the day reduced as the amount of food increased. I started off with one meal a day, moving to 3 meals by around 8 months. The shift from mostly milk to mostly food happened gradually over that time frame. Looking at how a baby's nutrition adds up over a period of a week is sensible - if you were to see a specialist about your child's eating they would ask you to keep a food diary for one or two weeks. Nutrition across that period would be looked at, no one would judge a day alone.

The thing I don't understand is that if you offer perfectly nutritionally balanced purees on a spoon for your baby, you can't control whether they actually eat it or if they eat the amount you want them to! Surely even with spoonfeeding you have to be led by your baby? Which might mean they choose to eat one thing over another at a particular meal, in a lower or higher quantity than you'd planned for.

Anyway, OP - hope it's going ok whatever you're doing re weaning at the moment.

The reason for my assertion that it's more about parental convenience is that the people who have taken this approach who I know have absolutely done it for that reason. Fundamentally they couldn't be bothered with the effort that is making specific meals, pureeing them, sterilising containers to freeze them etc etc (They said this to me by the way, this isn't my opinion of them). The people I have seen take this approach have cooked whatever they have and offered their baby a tiny amount of it from their plate. Whatever they have- even takeaway food which I would never contemplate giving to a baby (high salt, high fat). There has been no thinking about which protein next, which taste next, how well the baby might digest certain foods etc etc. Maybe the people I know have been particularly rubbish at BLW I don't know. What I do know is that my children both have considerably better diets than anyone I know whose children have BLW.
As you say, you'll not convince me but I am curious to understand what the motivation for it is. Why do people choose this route in the first place?