Where to start??

[YaMaYaMa]

My DD is 6 months old and I'm getting myself a bit stressed about weaning.
Originally, I wanted to start her on fruit and veg pretty much straight away and I fancied a bit of BLW alongside spoon feeding. But everyone around me seem horrified that I was going to give her some banana and it's knocked my confidence.

So I started her on baby rice once a day last week. She likes it fine; screams with excitement when she sees the bowl and spoon, grins right the way through eating it. I give her the same amount of formula still, which is right according to the weaning guide on MN.

What should I do now then? She has baby rice around 12ish, should I buy baby porridge and do that for breakfast? Or should I buy yogurt and give her some of that for lunch? Or what would be suitable for tea?

I was looking forward to watching her try new food but my SIL and Mum have really knocked my confidence. My SIL literally pleaded with me not give her any banana as it would upset her stomach. Now I feel incompetent and worried what people will think of me if I do anything wrong.

I'd maybe do some fruits/veg. If you want to puree then cook and blitz, if not then cook and offer the way it is. Carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash are good starter veg for pureeing. Banana is fine either whole or mashed (if the skin is lightly speckled with brown spots then it is ripe and ready to use). Ripe avocado is also good to mash (nicer mixed with banana imo!). Pears, cooked apple, etc also good fruits to try. I used to mix fruits/veg puree with baby rice to make the flavour milder - it also bulked the fruit/veg out a bit which is handy if your puree is too runny.

oooh - I am interested in this. So far I have given my son a few bits of vegetables to eat which he's mostly played with. Everone in my NCT group is doing the purees, and have been for a while, so I feel really out on a limb being the only one trying to do BLW.

This baby rice stuff - should I be offering this kind of thing to DS alongside the BLW or not? I like the idea of giving him porridge but can I give him the same stuff I make for myself or should I wait until he's older?

YaMaYaMa it's so hard to know what to do for the best.

Thanks, Seona. I've just bought avocado, bananas, sweet potato, butternut squash and natural yogurt. Also, some baby porridge.

Dueling, when you give your son bits of veg, have you just been steaming it and then giving him big pieces to suck on and nibble? I'd like to do that with my daughter but am having visions of her sucking the whole thing into her mouth and choking. Did you worry about that too?

I'm not sure if babies can have normal porridge, I read somewhere that it contains gluten or something. But then I read somewhere else that babies can have pretty much everything after 6 months (except honey, nuts, etc).

Yep babies can have everything bar WHOLE nuts (cos of the choking), honey and obviously not too much salt/sugar from 6 months.

I don't use any 'baby' foods i.e. normal weetabix/porridge which DS spoons in himself. Alsorts of fruit in big pieces or whole, big sweet potato/butternut squash/parsnip etc chips, pieces of chicken/steak big enough to hold, stuff on toast/breadsticks/veg sticks such as hummous, cream cheese, peanut butter, fruit spread, mashed avocado. Also pretty much anything I am eating unless it has too much salt.

The choking thing has never been an issue, DS does sometimes gag, but never chokes, he just coughs then spits out the piece or starts chewing it again. Have a read of the Gill Rapley BLW book if you are interested in that approach, she explains the choking/gagging thing and how sometimes we can actually make it worse when we think we are trying to help i.e. not letting them deal with it themselves, or shoving fingers in to retrieve bits when its just not needed. If you are going down the BLW path then you do need to get your head round this to stop you worrying about it. They really are quite good at dealing with things themselves if they are left to get on with it (supervised of course).

DS is 7mo and today has had Breakfast: about a 1/4 of an orange, toast with cream cheese on, bit of greek yoghurt. Lunch: some of my fish cake, a sweetcorn fritter, couple of chips, big slice of melon. Tea: some left over curry and rice, a weetabix and a big slice of mango.

And probably 5 bf in 24 hours (ish).

YaMaYaMa - yes that's exactly what I have been doing. I let him suck a bit of orange earlier and he sucked the whole segment into his mouth! I am trying not to be panicky but it's hard isn't it. I have roasted some sweet potato and parsnips for tomorrow.

I have the Gill Rapley book and it is very early days for me so I haven't yet managed to get to the point where I don't panic if he bites a huge chunk off. tittyb how long does it take before the whole thing becomes less scary? Also, what kind of bread do you give?

I find keeping the pieces big definately helps, also keeping the skin on stuff helps with picking it up as well as stopping too big chunks breaking off. So, I dont peel oranges, take a bite out of things like apple/pear/nectarine/plum/peach and give them whole and I tend to roast rather than steam veg if I can so it goes a bit mushy but with a crust iyswim courgette was good.

I had some excellent advice pre-weaning from a BLW guru and was well prepared for the choking/gagging thing and so have always been pretty laid back about it. If you eat with them and just do big exaggerated chewing motions it helps too. Try not to focus too much on them eating, they really do eat more if you just get on with your own meal and they get on with theirs. It took DS a couple of weeks to 'get' what he was doing, and he does still have off days when he just isn't that interested, but I just offer and if he doesnt want it then thats fine.

Bread I tend to just use whatever I have in the house while/brown/granary - he doesn't eat so much of it for me to be worried about the salt at the moment. It does have a habit of getting all claggy and stuck to the roof of his mouth if its not toasted, so if we are out and I have a sandwich I just give him the crust as its less gooey when sucked.

I got hugely stressed about weaning and thanks to a thread on here I chilled out. I started with a well known weaning book....but then got in a bit of a muddle and now we are out the other side. DD tries most things but still at 8MO my LO isn't on 3 regular meals but I offer stuff morning, lunch and dinner.

I don't worry too much if I miss a meal as I know that milk is still the most important thing. It's such a huge milestone and I am terrified I will do it wrong too!