Weaning!

[H8624]

My LO is 5 1/2 months so going to start weaning when we get to 6 so not long! I am going to do traditional rather than baby led to start with.

My question is what do you start with?

Do you do baby rice like cereal at first then fruit/veg purées? I'm a bit confused!

And if I were to start with baby rice how long until moving on to fruit/veg purées?

What I was advised to do by my health visitor (and it worked beautifully for us as our daughter is doing very well with weaning!) was to start with just veg purees for the first ten days, one portion the size of an ice cube once a day, and after that, to add in an ice cube sized portion of fruit once a day too.

Baby rice doesn't offer any nutritional benefits unless you buy Kendamil which I think you can only get online (it's fortified with iron and vitamins). After DD was eating a good proportion of her veg and fruit, I added in a third meal of baby rice for breakfast and we've built it up from there! I'd recommend Annabel Karmel's weaning book, lots of good advice and ideas in there. Good luck!

I wouldn’t bother with baby rice tbh. It has no nutritional value and very little flavour. I’d go straight for veggies and then on to actual food.

Strongly strongly recommend Bee Wilson's Consider the Fork, which is all about how we learn to eat.

Agree with other posters - hold off sweet things and fruit for a while and focus on veg, as you have a chance to set their tastebuds to savoury. And don't be afraid of flavour.

I found Ella's Kitchen purple book to be helpful. Like previous posters they suggest veggie purees for the first couple of weeks, then move on. They have a planner which helped and a chart you could track their first tastes which I liked as I got competitive about filling it in lol, plus it didn't matter as much when she didn't like the veg I was trying the one day as I knew I would be trying something new with her the next. Good luck!

Theres a great book called How to wean your baby that has a step by step plan for the first 30 days. I was already about a month into weaning by the time the book came out but I’ve still found it super helpful and it has lots of other recipes for when you get further on in it too. www.amazon.co.uk/Veg-Led-Weaning-Creating-Little-Foodies/dp/1785043242?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The author also has an instagram sr_nutrition which is packed full of useful stuff!

It's not meant to have nutrition value other than the milk it's used with!!!! Its to get baby used to the feel and texture of a solid without the added experience of a new taste₩₩!

There are about 1000 different approaches to weaning and none of them are wrong unless you're weaning the baby straight onto chicken vindaloo :o

The most common are the following but you can really do anything you like, just avoid too much salt, too much sugar, too much processed food and any choking hazards :)

• Start with baby rice, move onto smooth single-food purees, transition into lumpier, more mixed food until they're eating normally.

• Baby led weaning - give them pieces of whole food and watch them explore it (love this method - really fun!)

• Start with savoury veg in order for them not to develop a sweet tooth. (This doesn't work BTW.) Move onto carbs, protein, fruit.

• Pick a weaning plan from a popular author/baby food brand (loads available) and follow it so you feel like you have a road map.

• If the baby is awake when you/older DC are eating, make them a little bit of what you're having too (you can either do BLW style chuck a bit of your food on their highchair tray, or modify it for them - e.g. take some veg out of the meal and mash it up, maybe with breastmilk/formula) If they are asleep or not bothered, skip that meal. Eventually they are having 3 meals a day.

• Pick one meal a day to start with and introduce something that seems baby friendly. Add some variety over time. Add more meals over time. Use a combination of jars, bits of your meals that you keep behind and puree/mash, and home made purees/finger foods.