Weaning Advice please!

[skm985]

Hi all, my little one is 4 months old and weighs a whopping 21lb! He is starting to show signs of weaning but I know it is recommended we wean at 6 months. Also when I do wean what is the best thing to start with ie mashed banana or baby rice etc.. and what time of day should I give him his first meal? sorry all the questions !!!

I would think about weaning when he is sitting up, has lost the tongue thrust reflex and can pick up food and get it too his mouth - that'll be around 6 months.

There are two ways to go really - either something like baby rice or mashed fruit/veg from a spoon, or you can give him pieces of food to try himself. I started ds with whole pieces of well cooked brocolli, roast sweet potato and parsnip and banana. Also later did mashed avocado, mashed sweet potato from a spoon.

Don't think it matters too much what time of day it is - offer food about an hour after a milk feed though so he doesn't cut down on milk too quickly. And not late in the day in case it upsets his stomach and disturbs his sleep.

Hi. I started with baby rice at the 11 am feed. I gave half usual milk feed first then tried solids. Worked a treat. I then let him have more of his milk after solids. Been weaning for two weeks now. Usually give sweet potato and veg in morning and baby rice with fruit in the evening. going to try and introduce breakfast this coming week and move 11 solids nearer to lunchtime. I still offer milk firt at 11 but he's taking less top up milk now.

I started when my son was 6 months and he was obviously ready for it. He grabbed the spoon off me and stuck it in his mouth! In retrospect he was probably ready at about 24 weeks but as he was sleeping through the night I was happy to wait and follow the HV's guidelines..

Thank you for advice, having looked into it I think we will wait to wean, he isnt sleeping through, we wake him at 1030 for a feed and put him back down at 11 he will then sleep til 4 - 4.30 and need a feed then sleep til 7.30 ... I wonder if we should try to cut out one of these feeds before trying to wean but he really seems to need this 4am feed. I know as his mum I should probably know what to do but I dont mind admitting...I dont! I think I might phone the hv for advise also x

I didn't try to cut the 4am feed til ds was a few weeks into solids and taking a decent amount in the day, then cut the 11pm feed about a month after that. Could probably have cut the 11pm feed earlier but things were working ok and didn't want to mess his sleep up!