Weaning advice

[Firsttimemumsteph]

Anyone have any weaning advice? Our baby is currently 4 months old and I'm starting to prepare now for when she starts her weaning journey. I've been doing some research but I just want to hear everyone else's experiences and advice

Thank you!

(Just FYI I won't be weaning just yet just preparing)

At 6ish months, I started offering the DC food. The same as we were having, maybe cut up where necessary, but otherwise just placed in front of them in their highchair.

We eat a healthy diet and cook from scratch. No whole nuts or honey etc, but otherwise they just ate what we did. DD started with a roast dinner (no gravy) and DS had grilled vegetables and noodles.

Okay so you didn't puree their food? How was they with this?

At 6 months I just started giving mine a little if whatever we were having as either spoon food or finger food.

Equipment needed

High chair
Bibs
Cup to drink from
Weaning spoons

We didn't do special baby food or purées. Just normal food.

I tend to fig mine a bit of a mixture. She's 8 months. So tonight she's just had peas (she can eat those herself) but I mashed up the fish and potato and spoon fed her that. She's napping now, everyone else is having pear crumble so she's going to have some thoroughly mashed pear later, which I'll spoon feed her for.

Basically it's easiest to start with fruits and veggies and you can puree or not at your discretion, either or a mix works. I reckon most people do a mix depending on what the rest of the family are eating.

By the way I have a teeny tiny blender (Kenwood mini chopper I think) that is so useful. So much easier to wash than a massive one and you can make just a portion or two without ridiculous waste.

We done puree food mostly with a little bit of baby led weaning.
Started off completley puree then gradually made it thicker with chunks. I made alot of the puree from the book Yum by Nadia lim. Later just started blending what we were having. Purposely started adding no salt when making meals.

We used jars and pouches - didn’t want to do blw. Pouches were easy - loads of different flavours and tastes and organised by age range. Was good to see how much they were eating.

Absolutely fine. They were ready and enjoyed playing/exploring and eating.

It was easy. Never used puree or spoons. Both grew up to be great eaters (one is an adult practically, other is a teen).

Pouches and jars are fine when out or occasionally but heat treated food stored on shelves for many months etc is not as good nutritionally as homemade food, due to the effect of the processing. I wouldn't want to subsist on that sort of thing for months and babies shouldn't really have to either. We did a mixture of purées and fingers foods at 6m. We did finger foods/BLW style only by the time she was 9m. And the odd pouch etc when out and about!

If you are interested in BLW I think Gill Rapley's book and Joe Wicks are meant to be good. Tbh next time I have a baby I will do BLW from six months. I was just too nervous as a FTM. Glad we stopped purees at 9 months though.

I started with veg and stuck with that for the first couple of weeks - I followed SR nutrition on instagram at the time, she was weaning her daughter who was pretty much the same age as my DD and I kind of followed along what she was doing. She has various books and things out now but I got everything I needed from her instagram and a few recipes and stuff from her blog.

I couldn’t be arsed pureeing really, I think I made one or two, but I did mostly finger food with some bits mashed. Occasionally I’d help with a spoon but DD was pretty good with the spoon herself from really early on, and anything she couldn’t manage she’d just go in with her hands anyway.

Apart from sticking to veg for the first couple of weeks, and being careful about introducing allergens it was pretty much what we were eating anyway, adapted or prepared with her in mind where necessary.

I really enjoyed the weaning phase and DD is, on the whole, a great eater who enjoys a really wide variety of foods. I feel like the approach we took helped, as has always eating together where possible and never offering alternatives (but always having at least a couple of elements I know she’d eat included in the meal). However, I also think we just got lucky and she’d probably be like this whatever approach we took! She did also hit a fussy phase around 2, which in the main didn’t last too long.

Mine loved porage and dal. And then bits of what we ate.Carefully chosen of course, not Vindaloo!

We weaned early due to DS1 Silent reflux and he was developmentally ready. He was just shy of 5montha able to sit up and hold himself steady and was very very interested to put food in his mouth.
We did purees home made until 6 months. First food was ground barley made into a porridge / also oats. Then 2 weeks later we moved onto green veggies and then worked our way to more colorful veggies and fruits.

At 6months we introduced baby led weaning along side purees. Roasted and steamed veggies for texture and practice holding.

I also remember the mantra - before 1 just for fun. So take babies lead and see how it goes.

Solid starts is great for weaning advise on instagram, they also have an app as well

The "what mummy makes " cookbook is really good as well

I did both mine with solids skipped purées , as a rule if you can't squish the food in between your thumb and fingers then don't give it to baby , no teeth also isn't important for starting solids

Research the difference between gagging and choking

Basic high hair like the ikea one is good with the cushion insert to start with as puts them in good sitting position , bibado bibs are great as there full coverage , easy tots do great stick down plates although didn't think the bowls were as good (never found a decent suction bowl )

I’ve started weaning at 4 months and need advice on those who done it on how u know how much u give then and how u work the bottle because my girl seems to enjoy the food more

At 4 months you need to be careful as the only food you can give is fruit or veg purée.

This is very low in calories and will take up room in baby's tummy that should be filled high high calorie, high nutrition milk.

Always give milk first because that is what baby needs at this age.

You also need to be careful because baby's digestive tract snd kidneys aren't fully developed yet for processing food.

So tiny amounts if you you feel you need to do this. And go slow until baby is 6 months.