Weaning at 6months....

[Poppy1989]

Hi.
Just asking for advice on weaning at 6 months. My LO has only been breastfed until now.
I feel strongly about organic foods, and have brought organic baby rice.
If anyone could give advice on when to give the rice (morning or dinner) (what time) and also if giving a rusk during the day is too much too?
When do I introduce blended veg or fruits?
I'm a first time mum and would love some help please. Thank you 😊

Baby rice is nutritionally poor and has no taste. Risks have more sugar than biscuits. Weaning is about introducing taste and texture. Have a google of baby led weaning for some ideas. Much easier and more appetizing for baby

We started off with plain yogurt with a fruit puree for brekkie, or a mashed up half a banana. To begin with they will just smush it in their mouth and spit it out. I think to begin with as well it was a few teaspoons just to get them used to texture etc. As well as that normally it's 2 meals a day leading up to 3. Dinner was something simple like pureed spag bol or pureed sweet potato etc etc. We then eventually built up to lunch as well.
To begin with
8am bottle
9am brekkie
12pm bottle
3pm bottle
5pm dinner
6pm bottle

Then the exact same but worked lunch in there as well

He's 8 month now and he has
8am bottle
9am breakfast
11am bottle
2pm lunch
3pm snack
6pm dinner
7pm bottle

But he only drinks 10oz a day so that's not alot compared to other babies. Other babies drinking more milk might be less interested in having lots of food.

Snacks for us include yogurt and fruit puree

I didnt give much porridge or rice as it was far too filling, caused constipation and like pp said it offers no nutritional value unless your aim is to get more milk in to their diet in which case porridge takes alot

I liked the Ella's kitchen book, walked you through it. For the first 2 weeks I did single flavour vegetable purées, a different flavour every day. I also gave some finger foods (boiled veg sticks mainly) but they mainly got mushed around the high chair but just got him to start equating that what was in his hands was good too as I fed the purées.
I did a mix of finger foods and purées and still do, he's nearly 8 months and will eat anything.

One thing I'd try to avoid is veg mixed with fruit. A lot of the purée pouches will be carrots with apples for example. I have a friend who used these and then really had a battle to get her baby onto plain vegetable flavourings afterwards but that might just be a one off, put me off though!

Baby rice is void of nutrition and is pointless, even if it is organic. Rusks are full of sugar. Start with fruit and veg, either blended (although not necessary at 6 months) or in sticks.

Forget the baby rice etc.

Google Baby Led Weaning.

Look up baby led weaning we've been doing it for two months with my dd and it's absolutely amazing. The only foods she can't eat are honey and nuts. Everything I eat goes onto her place so I know exactly what's going into her body because I cook it all.
She spent a month or so learning how to grab food and put it in her mouth and chew then she gradually started swallowing. Now at 8 months she can spoon feed herself with a preloaded spoon, bite chew and shallow pretty much anything. I've never had to puree a thing.

We did BLW.

--Because I'm lazy

I started off with cucumber batons, steamed carrot batons, steamed broccoli, roasted sweet potato batons.

Basically present foods in the form of soft batons so they can feed themselves rather than bothering to purée and spoon feed.

Those £££ melty baby wafers went down well to encourage her to try putting things in her mouth.

Banana pancakes and other stuff (I recall some sort of squash fritter?) from the baby led weaning cookbook app went down quite well too once we were past single tastes, plus you can freeze most of them so you can just get something out in the morning if you want to have something that isn't baby friendly for your own dinner.

We would also put things like yogurt on a spoon and let her hold the spoon/bring her mouth to the spoon if she wanted, she progressed to holding the spoon herself pretty quickly, though we had to help her scoop for a while.

We usually popped her in the high chair at meal times and offered her a range of things and let her go at it.

Yes OP, if you are weaning at 6 months there is no need for purées and baby rice is pointless ( taste it). If you are trying to encourage your child to have confidence in trying new tastes and sensations I would give said child food that is tasty. Always sit your baby at the table while you are eating and let them have a try . As pp says; no honey or nuts or obvs choking hazards eg whole grapes.
Don't start worrying about the whole weaning thing; some DC are three meals a day within a week or two and others show very little interest until they are a year or so.don't forget either that it takes10-20 tries of a food before a child learns whether they like a food or not. At first they are very suspicious of new tastes and pull all sorts of faces as if they are being poisoned. I suggest pressing on, offering the same foods and a huge variety also encouraging them by showing how much you are enjoying said food will give them confidence. It's fun by the way !!

If you want to feed organic, just offer the normal foods you eat if you eat organic. No need for baby rice or processed baby foods. Baby rice can be high in arsenic even if ‘organic.’ Feeding healthy normal foods is a much better option and gets you in the habit of cooking baby friendly meals.

Agree with others on the baby rice, a wee bit of normal porridge made with formula milk (are you able to express breast milk?) did the trick for my wee one to get her started and then found she didn't really care for the store bought organic purees and no way in hell was I spending a few extra hours a week making up purrees for her so we just gave her veg off our plate and she loved it. Avocado on wholewheat toast was also a win as is just plain butter on toast at the very beginning (make sure to avoid the low fat ones as they need high fat for the first few years for growing). We started off with just dinner for a week as was nervous about feeding her without dad (works full time) there for assistance and then breakfast and dinner and then just a snack during the day and now she has 3 meals a day at 9 months and gets crabby if she doesn't. Biggest advice I can ever give about weaning: don't overthink it, your kid will likely be in the majority refusing to eat anything but frozen fish fingers and chips in a few years anyway. There's also the 100 foods challenge you can try.