Weaning for first time

[Fizzysherbet22]

My daughter has just turned 6 months old and we are starting the weaning process.
First child so this is all
new to us, any tips of advice on weaning please?

how long do they stay on puree for? when to
give finger foods.

Thank you

They don’t need purée at all.

BLW saves all that faff. They can have what you have just watch the salt and no honey until one.

Purees were a disaster here, we forego them completely and it worked out brilliantly.. So another option if you wanted it!

We gave ours some
blended broccoli and worked through a few vegetables. We used to freeze in ice cube trays, she enjoyed her puréed veggies. I blended our meals for a while as well, minus any salt, also gave her baby porridge for breakfast. Then I gave her a piece of toast one morning and she really liked picking it up so we’ve been giving her stuff she can pick up ever since. I’ve just played it by ear to be honest and done whatever I fancied doing at the time. It’s worked out well, she eats whatever we give her. We’re just careful that we avoid salt and don’t give her anything she can’t chew with her two tiny teeth and her gums. She’s 9 months old now.

Baby led weaning all the way.

Food is fun until they're 1 so just offer everything you have and let her have fun and explore.

She's going to get all of her nutrition and calories from her milk for now and as she shows more interest in food she'll pick up how much food she eats and reduce the milk accordingly.

Not everything has to be finger food - you can do things like ready brek or weetabix for breakfast etc, it's more that you don't need to wean using puréed fruit etc.

Puree isn't necessary but it IS easier for babies to swallow and digest, so it's a good stepping stone for solids. Some babies don't need the help; I found initally mine gagged if the food was too thick (like mashed banana rather than blended carrot). It's also really easy to bulk prep and freeze in ice cube trays.

After a few weeks I would slowly swap out some blended foods for chopped so he would eat lumps - eg blended cauliflower with tiny lumps of carrot. It's a bit of a smoother transition, but as others have said you don't HAVE to do this. Take the lead from your baby and see how they tolerate eating.

Puree no necessary and just teaches the baby to suck rather than chew and swallow. Weaning from 6-12 is about learning to chew and swallow than actually getting food down (although that's a bonus!) But if you do want to do it it's best to load the spoon and pass to baby to self feed. They have to learn where their mouth is, and when they bring food to the mouth themselves the brain is more geared up for swallowing.

Follow Solid Starts on Instagram and checkout their website and app. You won't regret it.

We did a mix of purées and finger foods here, and will do the same again.

We started on veg, toast etc and slowly introduced more.

Don't worry about how much they are eating - it's very much about exploring and experimenting with different tastes and textures at this age.

You absolutely can use purées. We started my 6 month old on baby rice to start the moved into flavour purées such as fruit and veg. We also threw in a few finger foods; boiled broccoli, cauliflower, carrots ect though make sure they are slightly overbooked and soft.

He's almost 7 months now and is using the spoon himself though majority of food goes over his face😂

It's personal choice to use purées or BLW. We did a mixture of both 🙂

Some babies get on well with a bit of purée to help them get used to the new flavours. My first hated BLW and preferred being spoon fed, my second is the exact opposite and at 9 months will practically eat everything she’s given. I’d say not to make lots of puréed veg if that’s the way you want to go, as they’re on it for such a short amount of time. Personally with my second I did a couple of weeks of veg/pouches with things like toast fingers, banana, cheese fingers offered alongside and she was on full solids by about 8ish months (along with the same quantity of formula).

We did about half purées and half finger foods and it worked really well without much faffing around. Didn't think BLW was compatible with our usual diets. And it seemed considerably less messy than friends who did BLW.

So I cooked our usual stuff, minus salt, puréed the things like cottage pie, fish pie, lentil daal etc and also gave DD something to hold at each meal and feed herself eg green beans, broccoli. Initially I puréed in a little whizzer/chopper thing and would also freeze some in ice cube blocks so you've always got something available. Then a bit later on I would just mush it up with a fork, then do it gradually lumpier until it was the same as we were having. I didn't cook specially for her, just used what we were having.

She was well stuck into 3 meals a day by 7 months (having started solids at 6 months) and started to reduce her milk intake from then. The puréed meat etc also meant she was getting plenty of protein and iron.

I found the Annabel Karmel books useful for some nice recipes ideas.

Just keep an open mind and be led by your baby's cues would be my advice, rather than deciding what approach you're going to take and making the baby fit in with that.

With my first, I was adamant we'd do finger foods. She loved it, no dramas and all went as expected. Tried the same approach with DS at 6.5 months and he just couldn't manage finger foods at all. His coordination wasn't good enough to bring the food to his mouth properly and he just wasn't able to move it around his mouth effectively when he did get some in there. Tried him with some purées and he absolutely loved them so we stuck with those for a few weeks and then gradually introduced some finger foods alongside. He had a big developmental leap at just over 7 months (learned to properly sit up on the floor with no support at all, change to naps, very nearly able to crawl) and just seemed to suddenly "get" finger foods and self feeding.

Babies are individuals and there's no "one size fits all".

Do baby led weaning
Don't worry if they don't actually eat a lot and everything goes on the floor.
Milk will still be main source of food until 9/10months