Weaning at 4/5 months

[Whiskeyjar]

Can anyone recommend some foods to start weaning with a 4 and a half month old?

Why so early? 6 months is the recommended age. www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/solid-foods-weaning/

Sorry @serenmoon you must have misread my post. I was asking for food recommendations, not for questions around why I am weaning at this stage or for links to guidelines. Move along

We did baby led weaning at 6 months.

You’ll find the majority of people wean at 6 months now. Entirely up to you but people will query it. I did BLW as appropriate at 6 months so can’t help. Sorry.

@Since2016 not relevant then 

@ItchySeveredFoot thanks but that isn't relevant to my post.

I waited until my baby was showing the signs of readiness - sitting up, able to put food into his mouth, able to swallow. He could do this at 5 months so we started blw then. He fed himself sticks of broccoli and sweet potato. Now at 6 months he’s eating everything. If your baby can only manage purees and is under 6 months then they’re too young. If they can feed themselves then at this age they should only be having fruit and veg, so try some steamed/roasted carrots, broccoli, sweet potato etc.

Fair enough. But you asked what foods recommended at 4.5 months and none are except for milk. Babies gut isn’t mature enough, choking much more of a risk, risk that fewer nutrients taken in from milk as baby filled with less nutritious food. So formula or milk is the food that is recommend at 4.5 months unless of course a medical professional has advised you otherwise and if so I’d ask them what foods they recommend.

I started with fruit purées...I was told not to because LO could get a sweet tooth but loves veg now! Also LO loved a cucumber or cooked carrot stick to chomp on because they started teething around 4 months.

I meant formula of breast milk obviously.

Formula or breastmilk!

With my LO she had bits but wasn’t really “eating”. I’m in no position to advise medically but from my experience if they aren’t ready they spit it out

Oh sorry to bombard the post but I mixed formula into the purées or whatever we were giving. We had some advice to start early as we had a few struggles with milk

Cant recommend any as we waited til 6m.

I would recommend speaking with gp/HV to see what they recommend.

I weaned my two at 16 weeks. On medical advice.

We used fruit and veg purees and baby porridge to begin with.

We did introduce other foods earlier than the 6 month limit once they got used to the purees.

We started at 5 months as the baby was able to grab food off our plates and chew and swallow. Guidelines are just that. We do baby led weaning, She liked banana, avocado, sweet potato and carrot (steamed), chapattis, Pita, hummus.

Have fun, it’s a great time to watch them learning and developing.

I started with purée veg and tried to give the same item as stems for my LO to chew on and worked up from there

I weaned DS1 at bang on 5 months on the instructions of his gastroenterologist. He had bad cmp allergy and was on Neocate but would go days without drinking anything. He was 10 1/2 pounds at birth and we couldn't fill him up. Anyway - that's the background. Doc told us to start with pear as it's low sugar and easy to digest. Went from there to peas, papaya, avocado and then eventually onto proper Annabel Karmel recipes - cottage pies, fish pies etc but not until he'd been on the purées for about a month.

We went with the advise of HV and GP and weaned at 4 months - purely because dd was stealing food off our plates and we couldn’t stop her anymore.
We started with baby rice and some of the purées, moved onto the pouches a couple of weeks after and then started BLW from just under 6 months. She’s now 8 months and has about 5 meals a day and 25 ounces of milk, is very healthy and progressing amazingly.

If you absolutely must wean at 4 months (have you been instructed to by a healthcare professional? Early weaning doesn’t help with sleep, and can cause long term damage to your baby’s gut) then please don’t feed crap like baby rice. It has absolutely no nutritional value at all and is pointless. Start with proper food, puréed. Babies can have anything you have, just watch salt, choking hazards and no honey.

Honestly, unless it’s absolutely necessary I’d wait until baby is 6 months and go down the BLW route. It’s so much better for them, it encourages a healthy relationship with food, and is excellent for muscle tone in the mouth which in turn helps with their speech. Plus they get used to real food first rather than grim baby food, and it’s so much more stimulating for them to explore food and play with it. Much better than having food shovelled into your mouth and unable to decide what to eat for yourself.

Chips and curry from the Chinese chippy. I swear by it as the perfect weaning food.

@PossibiliTea I gave my now ten year old banana as a first weaning food and I remember my mum warning me it would lead to a child who would only want sweet things - couldn't be more opposite lol! His lunch box is full of raw veg which is his absolute favourite!

@Fatted thank you. Did you make your own fruit purees? Or did you buy them?

@NameChangeCuddleBums thank you :)

@Whymustyoubringinthebirds great, thank you!