What food to give baby first?

[Emmaaa1990]

Hi

My baby is 4 months old - I'm not planning on weaning til she's 6, however being a FTM I'm unsure where to start! What did everyone give their babies to start with? And how much etc? I know they will still need milk but guessing not as much? If anyone can give any tips and advice all welcome :) thankyou!

Anything really.
Whatever you're eating, so now is a good time to check how your diet is.

Try her with soft boiled/steamed veggie sticks, like sweet potato, carrots or swede. Cut into (your) thumb sized pieces so she can hold it.

Don't expect much food to go in

She will still need lots of milk. It's a very gradual reduction in milk and increase in food over a fair few months.
Milk should be her main food really until around 1+

Both my two started with mashed-up steamed veg

In "the olden days", every baby was started on "baby rice" followed by apple puree with the odd baby rusk mashed in milk. I can't comment on baby-led weaning, as it hadn't been invented when I weaned my baby. We just did the purees and mashed foods and slowly introduced lumps. Good luck, and enjoy it!

I did baby led weaning and started with banana. .it was messy and she mostly had it on her face!

I found the baby led weaning cookbook app great for initial guidance. I kept breastfeeding as normal at first as first few weeks, its more about exploration for them than nutrition. I found that important to remember, because it is really easy to worry about how little they may eat at first.

I did baby-led weaning, and it was the easiest thing ever. I stopped putting salt in my food, and ate with the baby on my lap (which I tended to do anyway, because my babies were very snuggly at that age). I let them eat whatever they wanted from my plate. When they started eating it in significant amounts, they got to sit in a highchair and have their own portion.

First thing I gave her was squash mashed with breast milk. She looked disgusted!

I tried a couple of other mushed things before thinking sod it and giving her a crust of bread and a stick of cucumber to gum on. We were away from there, she had a lot of veg sticks, steamed broccoli and cauliflower and then whatever we were having and I learnt to cook without salt.

I hated weaning. You panic about choking, allergies, mess. It’s so much more hassle than breast or bottles. But it soon became a lot easier, less stressful and a really lovely part of the day.

Get decent bibs, with arms. Try not to worry about what you’re offering as long as it’s got no salt or sugar and as long as your diet is pretty varied and healthy it’s far easier to give that than waste your days pureeing and mashing.

Mashed potato, steamed mashed broccoli, pureéd courgette. Soft ripe avocado and banana. Porridge - proper stuff, not baby porridge or baby rice. Moved onto toast quite quickly and is now obsessed with toast

Oh wow thankyou all for your comments tips and advice! I will definitely get the bibs with arms for sure and definitely still lots of milk. Excited to see what she's like so thought I'd get some knowledge in advance! Thanks again everyone for taking the time to comment and help me out :)

DS is 9 months now and eats what we eat. He started on veg he loves tender stem broccoli and asparagus. Also a bit of chicken if we were having it. He found toast quite easy to manage from early on. He has wheetabix for breakfast every day, softened in milk and broken into small pieces.
Someone on here also gave me a recipe for banana pancakes which he absolutely loves. 1 or 2 bananas, one egg and a spoonful of flour. All mixed together and cooked on each side into a pan.

I'm just gearing up to start in a few weeks (well, for my baby to start; I myself have been eating solid food for a while) and I'm finding the Annabel Karmel 'Weaning made simple' book very informative.

DD1 paediatrician said to start with sour vegetables. We did broccoli. Well boiled.

Then you can slowly start adding different vegetables.

They may take a little to get into it or eat straight away. Either way is normal :)

Btw, baby lead weaning is much easier! Just put the food in front of them and you can eat at the same time. It becomes a more social event for the baby

@mylittlesandwich that's good he eats what you eat! Seems like starting with veg could be the way to go!
Thankyou for the recipe will deffo use that! :)

@Persipan Thankyou I will have a look at that!

@grey12 yes I love broccoli too so that will probably be my first one to try her with Thankyou! And yes I think baby led weaning too that or abit of both, just gonna do with the flowwww I think :)

@Emmaaa1990 veggies for sure. If you start sweet, they may say "nah" to veggies later.

I was advised to do one veg for 3 days then add one more. So I did sweet potato, then added carrots, then added normal potato etc.

First month was veggies only. Then I added some fruit too. Then after about 2 more weeks I did some bread/wheat.

The known allergens to be aware of are (in no specific order) tomato, strawberry, egg yolk, nuts, soy and I am sure I forgot many more. Also no honey till 1y.

Personally I cook no sugar no salt but many people are more lax about this and I am sure to no harm to their kids whatsoever. It's more cultural than anything.

Also apparently lentils, beans, meat and such are needed for brain development so that can be added about 7m+. And fish, yeah. (I don't like fish but still cook it for the baby...).

I disagree, egg yolk is the first food in many cultures. It has iron (?? I think) ehich is deficient in breast milk.

After the first few months when my kids started eating breakfast I made soft boiled eggs with a little bit of bread.

It's the egg white that can be dangerous!