A few questions on first stage weaning for weaning experts please!

[bramblina]

A bit of a long one for quite simple questions, sorry,
Ds is just over 5 months and after previously sleeping through began waking once (no prob to me) then twice, and taking a huge feed (exclusively breastfed) which was then having a knock on effect with the amount he would sleep in the day and was clearly not satisfied so we decided to begin (really had planned to get to 6m); so last Wed we mixed 1 teaspoon of babyrice with 10 teaspoon of ebm and gave him it (after 1side bf; feeds are usually both sides so classed this as half) and he loved it, would easily have taken more but just offered him other side (think I'm reading too much about milk intake and iron levels etc). He went back to sleeping all night. He had 1 teaspoon the next day but woke the next morning at 6 for a feed, so the day after that had 2, and again would happily have taken more. Today, day 7, he had carrot for the first time, about the same quantity as rice the day before, but must have had a burp stuck under it as most of it came back up. So I made up a teaspoon of rice and he woofed that down. He really loves the food but I think it would be possible to give him too much.
Q1- Do I go by his appetite and just keep increasing the quantities? Or do I move to 2 meals per day of same quantity?
Q2- Do I offer water (previously had sips for wind and does like it) as I'm a bit worried about dehydration, and if so how much and how often?
Q3- When can we introduce meat? Annabel Karmel and my local NHS booklet say 6m but that's going by a baby who was weaned at 4m, so do I still wait the 2m after weaning (ie is it to let their gut adjust to different foods etc?) or is that a type of food that cannot be given until 6m?

i'm not an expert but i would say move to 2 meals a day now then continue to increase quantity, dropping milk only if he doesn't seem interested in it.

Can't remember about meat, sorry, i think it was a little while before we introduced it, maybe 7 /8 months.

No, only ever bramblina. New since had ds and still feel like quite a MNvirgin when I read other threads where everyone knows eachother!
AB- Shall I still offer milk feed first, then solid, and offer more milk incase he's still hungry? Not sure when to drop, in what order?!?! There's too many guidelines, and I'm reading too many of them!

I would just increase quantity, I guess, if you want to. The sort of foods you can give at this age aren't as filling as breastmilk, so they don't really help that much.

You can give meat from 6 months. From 6 months you can give just about anything, except maybe for shellfish and nuts, depending on your allergy concerns.

I wouldn't give water. The solids you are giving him are mostly water anyway, iyswim. And obviously breastmilk is mostly water. The only real issue with water is avoiding constipation.

Personally, the weaning style I think is wisest is baby-led, where you wait until 6 months, and then just offer finger food. DS2 refused purees anyway, so was a natural for this method.

Not as filling? Crikey, I thought the opposite. Oh god I really am useless! So increase quantity, but would you say still 1 meal or go to 2? And is constipation not likely if we're following a sensible (home cooked, fresh fruit & veg) diet? Didn't think about the water content, god, how obvious. Would his poo change slowly (always good, loose, breastfed baby poo!) to give me warning?

As i remember it, we gave ds ebm mixed with baby rice for at least a week and only at tea time initially with the theory of filling him up for bed time.
Following week we gave mashed cooked pear mixed with ebm in the day, baby rice at tea time.
Following week mashed cooked apple with ebm, baby rice at night.
Then we mixed the friut and rice and ebm ad slowly increased quantity.
We definitely did it in weekily chunks.
Primarily though i still breast fed the same amount as previously.
I always gave food about one hour after a BF to allow tummy to empty and encourage some appetite.
I gave water at food times too.
Dont worry about dehydration as baby will get all the fluid from you breast milk.
Just take your time.
HTH

so sorry for spelling errors ive just swigged some night nurse and its kicking in!

Thanks, it does. Why did you add ebm to the fruit purees?

High fibre food, introduced suddenly, can cause constipation. Well, so can babyrice. So far, your DS has only been having breastmilk, which is the perfect food for him, with little waste. It is a shock to the gut to have to deal with anything else.

But if his poos are so far the same as they were before, then it's not worth worrying about. You will notice a change, and discomfort if this happens.

The calories per volume of breastmilk is higher than any of the first foods. Breastmilk has fat in it, while carrots etc don't.

Again, quite obvious and now am getting more concerned for my own sanity than my son's health!
We were planning to give new things in stages of at least 4 days, poss 1 week, is this the best idea to give him a chance to adapt?

He only poos once a week though so we're yet to recieve the delight that is a poo of a baby on solids!

because i thought that the taste was familiar and its sweet so more likely to be accepted by ds.
Havent read that from any expert, it was just my theory at the time.

feel free to ignore.
Also to help with digestion, i thought that his system can deal with EBM easy peasy so with a bit of fruit added it would go through him ok.

Adding EBM to things isn't a bad thing to do.

The waiting between introducing foods thing is mostly about spotting allergies. To avoid surprising his system, I wouldn't give too much solids at a time. A teaspoon of food here and there is fine.

(I didn't bother with waiting between introducing stuff with DS2. Couldn't be bothered. But he was 6 months when I started offering food, and nearly 7 months when stuff actually started going down.)

Oh, he'll probably move to pooing every day. That's what DS2 did, anyway.