Weaning questions

[Orangeisthenewtired]

Hello
DD will be starting to wean soon. Just had some questions as an overthinking FTM! - I did try talking to my health visitor but they just kept saying ‘see how things go’ which hasn’t answered any of my questions at all.

So I’m planning to give DD some banana porridge as the first taste, just more for her to understand the concept of eating and something that’s a bit blander so as not to shock her lol. I know I only start with a small amount - but how do I know when to increase the amounts I’m giving?

do you try new foods daily? Or do you try them on say some mashed banana for a couple of days, and then change to say mashed peas for another couple of days and so on? I know they say about allergies and to only introduce one food at a time, so when do you start to do a ‘meal’ such as broccoli with some pasta and tomato (for example lol).

I think I’m also getting a bit confused as to when I’ll need to give her a full bowl of food for breakfast for example, and when to then implement a lunch time, and obviously then when to start dropping bottles? (I assume she’ll just refuse a bottle and then I’ll know to drop it?).

my friends weaned their LO’s from 3&4 months so their journey has been very different - the children have been on purées for a long time as they have always been spoon fed until they reached around 8 months which is when they have started BLW. Whereas DD will be 6 months when I wean and obviously I’m not sure how quickly it all goes from a few spoonfuls to a full on bowl!

I will also be doing BLW but just want to start slow for the first couple of times as I’m a bit nervous!

we are going abroad when she will be 7.5 months so I guess I’m also just trying to understand whether I’ll be able to give her any foods from the buffet (mashed potato, broccoli, etc etc) or whether at that point we’ll still be on small amounts of porridges and purées etc, in which case I’ll need to ensure I take enough purées (which I want to try and buy as little as possible as they are bloody expensive!).

would be really great to get some advice. And thank you in advance.

I think you're overthinking a bit. In terms of quantity, I just let both of mine eat what they wanted and it naturally increased fairly from hardly anything at 6 months, to a full (age appropriate) portion months later. I didn't stop them eating if they wanted a bit more. Both my DDs progressed at different speeds in terms of how much they ate, and now my youngest is 22 months she still varies week to week, sometimes eating loads, sometimes less.

We have allergies in the family (DH has anaphylactic allergies) but we only introduced common allergy foods individually. I didn't worry about introducing every single food on its own. That would be impractical, take forever, and no one suggested to me that that was necessary.

Initially I started off giving some fruit in the morning, and some veg in the evening (I made my own purée mix for this, it wasn't a single vegetable, it was a whole mix). That was for quite a short time really. Then introduced some finger foods around lunchtime (with very varied amounts eaten day to day), and pretty quickly onto meals which were just whatever we were eating, and they ate what they wanted.

For the first 2-3 weeks my daughter didn't eat a single mouthful of food!
Then she only ate food with spinach in
Then she didn't eat anything
Then only peas
She was 13 months before she ate a meal and was 20 months before she ate enough to start weaning her off formula. Up to 18 months she was still mostly formula fed.

Really you don't know what kind of weaning experience you will until you start.

Make a plan for the first two weeks and then see where you are. Week 1 a new veg or fruit each day. Then you have 7 foods. Week 2 mix multiple vegs or add fruits to other foods. Adding the first allergen here - yoghurt or oats or wheat. Toasted strips of pitta with a spoon of veg puree was how we started with breads and she used them as an edible spoon.

If those weeks go well then weeks 3 and 4 you start to combine into more typical meals adding pasta or potatoes or rice to the veg. Maybe introduce scrambled eggs as the next allergen to try. If you can try one a week. Pick a good day, do it early and on a day when the GP surgery is open

If it's not going well play around with textures - do batons of carrots alongside carrot puree. Be playful and dip the batons into the purée. Try before or after milk. Try breakfast or lunch. Don't worry about breakfast being breakfast foods and lunch being lunch foods. They don't know the difference - they have had 6 months of milk, milk and more milk for every meal and snack!

The first few weeks you just have to get stuck in. The following few weeks is figuring out what kind of child you have and what works for them and then you have hopefully 4-12 weeks of building up a broad range of meals but this is where it is so so baby dependent. Some babies get it straight away don't worry if they don't. Some take the full 6 months to twig why food is fun and others even longer!

There is absolutely no need to inteoduce one new food at a time. Allergic reaction rarely happens on first exposure anyway, they tend to develop over time. The only exception is if your child already has a allergy or there is a strong family history of allergy. Generally you need to give all major allergens early and regularly including a range of different nuts - nut butters are ideal for weaning.

I would stay away from ultra processed or very processed baby porridge and other products.

You either do BLW or do purees and the add in finger food later. I’m saying this to be annoying but you may find things make more sense when you look these things up.

They should have 3 meals a day from 9 months and snacks after 12 months.

Not sure I agree with the above poster about not introducing one food at a time or needing to be on 3 meals a day by 9 months, not sure mine was at that point. I think we dropped any day time milk by about 13 months?

We followed Charlotte Sterling Reed's book 'How to wean your baby' and that gave us a really clear plan for moving through week by week. We started with single flavour purees/finger foods, then combination flavours, then moving on to small meals. Mine was a bit slow to get the hang of it so we repeated some of the early weeks. She gives advice about how to drop milk feeds and example schedules. I found some advice online suggested to offer food in between milk feeds but my baby wasn't hungry then so I offered food before milk and that worked well for us.

I would also offer veg as first tastes rather than banana porridge as babies love sweet things and you want them to get used to different flavours and not to rely on the sweet stuff!

Also - you can just give regular porridge oats which are much cheaper!

Introduce 3 meals a day from 9 months not by 9 months.