Weening recommendations and tips

[DisneyGirl2387]

My DS is only 4months old but I'm a FTM and am trying to get my head around weaning. I want to be organised and feel confident and raring to go when he is 6 months old. Do you have any recommendations for things I need to buy? Im assuming Highchair, bowls/spoons, bibs, blender, cookbooks etc but I don't know where to start! Please can you let me know your favourite items! Also any top tips would be great. I watched a YouTube video and someone mentioned keeping Piriton handy which I never would have thought of! I am guessing you keep milk intake the same and then just add one meal a day initially? Do you give milk first then food or the other way around. I'm pretty clueless about all of this as you can probably guess. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you x

Have a read about baby led weaning. No need for a blender or cookbooks, you can just feed baby what you eat if cut into appropriately sized chunks (about finger size for most things) and it’s low in salt.

There are 1001 different ways to go about weaning, and its mostly trial error. Before you decide anything though, you need to decide if you want to do BLW or spoon feeding, or a combo of both. The general rules are;

• introduce potential allergens once at a time, so if your LO has reaction you know whats caused it.
• no honey before 1 because it could have a bacteria in it that little babies find difficult to fight off.
• start with a single veg or fruit and build up slowly to 'normal' meals.
• solids shouldnt replace milk until much later. My DS dropped his morning bottle at 9 months, he's nearly 1 now and just starting to loose interest in the mid-afternoon one.

As for timings of it, I gave solids at proper meal times, regardless of when I did milk feeds. I think my DS was on 3 meals a day within a month maybe. Then as the milk feeds dropped away the proper 'meal times' were left.

Also - dont be caught up by the word 'meal'. A meal when you're a baby thats just started weaning can literally be a spoonful!

Also dont let the BLW fanatics ram it down your throat. It works for some babies, not others. My DS wasnt remotely interested in feeding himself until he was about 9 months old.

Our little one is the same age as yours, I was given the ellas kitchen purple book and I'm planning to use that as a guide to get us started. It's nicely laid out and makes a lot of sense to me!

You don't need much really - I found a stack of small flannels was great for cleaning up as is a plastic mat/tablecloth/shower curtain for under the highchair to catch any mess. It was easier to strip DS off than bother with bibs but we did BLW which is much messier than traditional weaning. A sippy cup for water too - you'll probably end up with a collection trying to find the one they like best.

There's loads of accounts on Instagram but I'd take them all with a pinch of salt (not for your baby though ). Your baby probably won't like cabbage but that doesn't mean they'll hate it forever.

I did milk as usual and then added in meals about 30 mins after a bottle - started with lunch and worked from there.

Finally ready yourself for the nappies and the farts 🤢