Weaning

[Honeybee70]

I know the guidance is to start weaning around 6 months - but as with many things I know everyone does things differently - I just wondered when you started weaning your baby? How old? What did you give them?

I’ve been told of people giving baby porridge/rice from 8 weeks - and rusks in bottles around the same time to help with sleeping - I know even the reduced sugar rusks are still full of sugar.

I plan to do mixed baby led and purées - I know you shouldn’t do baby led until 6 months old. But what did you do?

I started giving some porridge in the morning when DS was 5 months old. Guidelines say 6 months but they also say you can start if your baby can hold their head up and sit unaided. My DS was more than capable of sitting upright in a highchair so we went from there. We just started on purées and then gave a couple of finger foods as her reached 6 months.

Veg / fruit purées at 6 months, veg first to get them used to bitter tastes- never bothered with baby porridge or rusks. I really loved the Ellas kitchen weaning book/ recipes

I started a few weeks after DS turned 6 months. I was in no hurry to start - I felt like I'd finally got the hang of everything so I was quite reluctant to throw food into the mix! I have found it all to be quite a faff.

We started with single fruit/veg purees. Pureed pear with a pinch of cinnamon went down best. Then I started mixing things together for different flavours, then gradually made things less pureed and more mashed. He's really getting the hang of lumps and finger food now (at 8 months), and his current favourite is baked beans which I gently squish with a fork and spread onto toast fingers for him to feed himself.

I don't know anyone who has found weaning has improved their babies sleep! Weaning nappies are revolting so I was happy to put that awfulness off for as long as possible. And if they're sick, it's actual sick, not just milk!

I started giving some baby porridge before bed at around 5 months. I then moved on slowly to giving puréed carrot, sweet potato etc and eventually just added new things in until we hit six months and then just started giving what we were having except mashed up. I didn't follow BLW or any other guide, just made it up as I went along. DD is now 9 months and eats everything - favourite dinner is salmon with rice and veg and she helps feed herself with her spoon/fork. I weaned my DS in the same way and he's now 9 and also a great eater - loves veg, seafood etc

Something I would say is if you are planning to give a rusk with milk then I would put it in a bowl and spoon feed rather than put in their bottle. My DS got the occasional rusk as a baby and it didn't do him any harm, I used to give him one and then I'd finish the packet myself 😂 I haven't given any to DD though, loads of alternatives that are sugar free and sweetened naturally with fruit juices etc

6 months. Babies know how much milk they need by volume so they take the volume they need. Milk is high her calorie by volume than most weaning food so early weaning can cause you baby to wake more.

Rusks in a bottle are a big no no as they are a choking hazard.

I weaned both of my dc at 6 months. I made a few fruit purees to put on top of their weetabix but they mainly just had food, either a bit mushed up and spoon fed or finger foods. No added salt, no honey, no choking hazards, everything else was just normal food.

Guidelines state 17 weeks for babies/families that are struggling to make it to 6 months. Before this point there are questions about their digestive systems being able to process the food, and their kidneys being effective.

Will add that the guidelines change frequently, children born in every decade seem to have been weaned differently at different times and I've never heard of anyone that had problems because they'd been weaned too early/late.

I didn't wean my son's chose to do baby led weaning. He just grabbed over to my plate after having a bottle and ate a samosa so we done baby led weaning from then he was premature.

Baby just eats what I eat bar choking hazards. No stupid baby food we never done rice cereal either as they are bad for babes stomach.

For saying mixing baby led and traditional is it mixing it's just traditional weaning tbh. Information agree with purees but that's up to you only reason is the sugar content. I prefer normal foods

Here's how to start

It really doesn't have to be BLW v purees op. Most people I know who weaned at 6 months did a mixture of spoon feeding/spoon loading/finger foods. I thought BLW was too rigid so didn't do it, my dc always ate normal family food.

I definitely wouldn’t give baby rice/porridge at 8 weeks!! Their guts aren’t ready and it’s so unnecessary. Milk is fine until 6 months and saves the hassle of having to prep meals, clean up, deal with smelly weaning poops and vomit.

I started a week before 6 months but she’d been sitting up for a month before and was literally grabbing things off our plates. I never did any baby rice/risks...just normal family food that I make for all of us and adapt

I would wait til as near 6 months as possible and don’t give yourself extra work. It won’t help with sleep and won’t fatten them up, usually the opposite!

I'm starting to wean my 5 and half month this weekend. He has been sitting with support for well over a month and can now sit independently and is trying to crawl. He had also been trying to grab food/drinks from everyone. I'm combining BLW and purées starting with sweet potato then carrot. If I'm eating and he is interested in my plate of food I'm planning on giving him a stick of softened veg x

user1496701154 in what way?

I left it till around 6 months, because she didn’t seem interested earlier and it all seemed like a massive hassle so I had no incentive to start sooner! We mostly went with BLW but I’m sure the purists will be along to tell me I’m wrong because I gave her the odd spoonful of yoghurt too. There are BLW groups online full of all kinds of bizarre rules which I’d recommend avoiding because it’s all bollocks.

I had lots of relatives asking when I was going to start giving her baby rice from what seemed like about 3 weeks old. I just said to them that the advice had changed now and it was recommended to wait till around 6 months, and they all accepted it.

My DD took ages to get the hang of eating any solids whatsoever, I think it was probably about 2 months before she even swallowed anything and it stressed me out so much! But she really got it around the time she started nursery and she ate really well from then on. I wish I hadn’t worried so much, they get there in their own time.

Sharing meals with babe is Blw don't want understand how rigid 😂. These are only thing babe can't have with Blw

Why not peanut butter on a spoon? It’s not something that I have offered but I can’t see why that would be a problem.

It's rigid because if you adhere to blw you never spoon feed your baby, so something you can't do, the way I weaned there was nothing safe I couldn't do, so less rigid.

Jacks I don't know why peanut butter on a spoon would be unacceptable either.

Neither of my children were bothered about food until they were about 7 months. We offered purées and finger foods. If they purely had finger foods they wouldn't have eaten until later as they weren't interested.

I'm also interested why peanut butter on a spoon would be an issue?

I would guess that the peanut butter on a spoon is a choking hazard. A big lump of peanut butter wouldn't dissolve easily in their mouths, it's quite a solid, sticky food and if a lump of it was inhaled it would be extremely difficult to get it out. When you spread it on toast or a sandwich it's much more thinly spread and chewed up with the bread.

We did little bits of puree and fortified cereal from about 18 weeks ( I also stirred a bit of peanut butter and other things into the cereal), added some meat puree a couple of weeks later, then added in table foods gradually from 6mo.

I preferred a gradual lead-in in this way. There is a reasonable amount of evidence that early-ish (before 6mo) exposure to allergens creates the lowest risk, and small EBF babies may benefit from getting an earlier start with iron. However, very small babies should be getting very small amounts, not dropping milk feeds and polishing off whole jars etc.

It's rigid because if you adhere to blw you never spoon feed your baby, so something you can't do, the way I weaned there was nothing safe I couldn't do, so less rigid.

Yup, this. Proper BLW means never spoon-feeding your baby, meaning that (if you have a typical average baby) each mealtime has to take a long time and create a lot of mess--either that or you have to start restricting the foods you give them to reduce time spent and mess levels. It is handier to offer different foods in different ways.

My DD was 4.5 months when I started weaning her. Didn't have much of a choice tho, out the blue she started refusing her milk and became very distressed at feeding times and would bring up any milk she drank. Doctor prescribed ranitidine which did nothing and I tried changing her milk to comfort milk etc which also never helped. However, once I introduced Ella's puree for 4 month olds she not only scoffed that but started taking her milk without a fuss again. So no idea what was wrong with her, but felt right to continue weaning.
She's nearly 9 months old now and doing great, although shes still getting used to lumps and finger foods. I give her a mix of Ella's, organic jars, homemade soup and dinners I make which I blend for her. I've never given her rusks and she never liked any of the dry baby food you mix with their milk.