Assume I'm absolutely clueless--where do I begin?

[stopgap]

DS is 4.5 months old, exclusively breastfed, and while I don't intend to start food until he's six months, I'm downright confused about where to begin.

In a nutshell, I've been gifted books on purees, books on weaning etc., and then there's the grandparents' perspective (blend everything and anything) and my paediatrician's suggested approach (baby oatmeal, banana and apple only for a while). Can someone tell me the merits of baby-led weaning as opposed to spoon-feeding cereals and purees? Or does everyone start with spoon-fed purees and progress to more complex finger foods?

DS has shown sensitivity to milk protein and soy, so I want to proceed with caution, anyway, re: introducing food.

Are you in England? Your NHS birth to 5 book has an excellent chapter on the current guidelines on weaning. If you want to look at an online version, it is http://www.nhs.uk/Planners/birthtofive/Pages/Healthydietweaninghub.aspx. It tells you all you really need to know , including signs your LO is ready, good first food, things to avoid.

As for the merits of BLW vs purees. You will know when you start weaning that sometimes there are no choices. Some babies will not open their mouths for the spoon, grab it as fast as you get near and proceeds to catapult the mush across the room. My DD is like this. I hear there are babies that are very lazy to pick up their own food, but happily open their mouths like little birds (i havent seen it myself ofc). Just be guide by your DS when you start.

If you want to follow a book, Annabel Karmel is very popular. There's also a BLW cookbook.

The first thing my little boy tried was mashed banana and he loved it. Add warm water to make it easier to mash and eat... his first foods were mainly mashed fruit as it's sweet and there are some nice variations in texture and flavour. His first regular meal was baby rice for breakfast. Also some of the 4m+ jars as he was a bit troublesome with lumps in home mashed food, favouring fruity ones again, but I would definitely try blending/mashing your own first 'cos it's a lot cheaper! He probably has more jars than I would like, but he happily eats most of the flavours now so if it goes in its a win :L

He grabbed for the spoon at first but soon realised I was better at getting it in his mouth than he was and now sits quite nicely unless theres something to distract him like a daddy coming home! Also loves fingerfood such as ricecakes, baby-crisps, plain biscuits, chopped fruit/veg and rice krispies (now that he's bigger and can grab them with fingers rather than fist). He's had those sort of things since he got some teeth to dig into them.

We didn't especially follow a timed plan but i would say roughly 2 weeks after his first try of real food (4 1/2 months ish) he was on one meal a day, then onto two at about 6 months (starting to get less breastfeeds), then another month or so before he had 3 meals and now he sometimes has a snack in the morning too (he's 10 months now, bf at bed and nap time and maybe once in the night, trying to introduce milk very slowly and stop bf-ing by the time he's one).

The biggest mistake I made was not giving him enough to drink alongside it... I also breastfed, and for a while fed him after each meal, but he really needed more water so I would say introducing his sippycup before/alongside his first meals might be a good idea!

I don't know if that's helpful but hope it is, have to confess I'm still not sure what 'baby led weaning' is or if I did it or not. My kid eats food, that's all I know. ramble over!

Actually mmmerangue experience shows you don't need to start early to get them used to food. It seems to be a common misconception. I started at 6mo, and moved to 3 meals within a week. (Because DD was very very keen with finger foods. I started with both spoon mush and finger foods given I was already at 6mo and she is sitting up unaided). And by starting at 6mo, lumps never troubled my DD. One of her favourite first food is a strip of chicken! She's never had a jar just because she would make such a mess with mush

Oh I wasn't starting early, just when he seemed to want it! he was sitting then already, grabbing for mine and DP's food, and endlessly wanting bf-s so away we went and never looked back!

Have a look at this site. Even if you choose not to do BLW there's handy advice which you can look at.

You can give non-pureed food from the start if you want and you don't need to limit how many new foods you try in a week, or use baby rice at all.

To avoid:
Added salt
Whole grapes (halve or quarter them until 3yo as they're a choking hazard)
Whole nuts (nut butter or chopped nuts are fine, whole nuts are a choking hazard until around 5yo)

That's about it. Everything else is good to go from 6mo.

I'm not a fan of baby rice at all. You are supposed to be introducing them to our food, and certainly I don't eat that bland foul baby rice thing! So if you ask me, start with the veg purees (potato, sweet potato, parsnip, carrot kind of thing), and the safe non-acidic fruits (apples, pears and bananas). If you have a family history of allergies than you can be a bit cautious and introduce a new food at a time. You can thin the thicker veg and fruit (like potatoes and bananas) with milk to get it taste more milk like though.

Actually the disclaimer is I'm a BLWer so I don't use purees. Just finger foods. It's brilliant when we go out because I don't have to pay for jarred food. I pack rice cakes normally. And DD have things off my plate.From around 7mo, she started eating out. Early days food includes nandos chips and chicken and tomatoes. (Ask for no salt on chips). She also loved the pizza hut salad bar.

We did BLW because it took all the guesswork and worry about weaning away. DD has always sat at us with the table, right from birth (I think she missed one meal because she was asleep!) Gradually around 19 weeks, she started grabbing food and shoving it in her mouth. She told us when she was ready by doing it. We have no allergies within the family so didn't have to watch what she ate. Now at 2 years old there is nothing she won't eat.

In the BLW book I read and lent to the grandparents, it did say that there was some anecdotal evidence that BLW babies had an instinctive dislike for food to which they were allergic/sensitive, so it may help you in that area.

I read this the other day....won't be using baby rice either when weaning starts in a month or so

www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2011/12/nine-good-reasons-not-to-use-baby-rice.html

Worldgonecrazy - which BLW book did u use? Off to the library to lend a couple, trying to be prepared for mess!! X

We used this one by Gill Rapley.

It was really useful for everyone who has had a part in raising my daughter. It does sometimes feel a bit strange to have had no stress at all over feeding, not worrying whether she's eaten a big meal one day and not much the next.

We haven't had a huge amount of mess either - no food in hair or all over the floor, just a few bits that were easy to wipe up.

I have the Gill Rapley one and the River Cottage baby and toddler. I think the only thing that's nice from the Gill Rapley is the cheese and spinach muffins. The river cottage one has some real gems like the pesto (which I stir into normal risotto with low salt stock), the brussel sprout gratin, the spinach and cheese tart. Since about 8mo, DD has really improved on her handling of food and became much easier to feed. (For example she can do beans and risotto and small pasta). I just now look at my normal cookbooks and find things that doesn't have salt (or soy sauce, fish sauce) as its main ingredients. You might surprised yourself if you look at what you cook normally and see which ones can be made baby friendly. Some of the things I've found are curries tastes mostly ok without salt. Also a lot of recipes with salsa are very ok as well. Like quesadillas. You should see them using pincer on refried beans

Thanks ladies! LO isn't 6 months until Feb, but want to start reading up on it. Like the idea of her just eating what we eat, as we are fairly healthy (albeit I need to not cook with so much salt!) thanks again x

Same here! We cook all our meals but I'm salt heavy. It took me a while to find my way around cooking for a baby. So many things I cook normally doesn't work with adding salt at the table. I planned to do annabel karmel but DD would not be spoonfed. So I was thrown suddenly into BLW. The Gill Rapley cookbook is worth a read if only for the intro section. It has all you need to know about BLW. If I have month or two to plan I wouldn't have to endure DH and I to so many bland creations .

PS the blw cookbook does have a lot of nice burger patties recipes. I forgot about them but they were staples in DD early weaning days. I form them into fingers and batch cook. I tried my normal ones without salt and it was beyond horrid. Iirc the pork one has parsnip and apple in it.

A lot of it comes down to the type of person YOU are I think. After spending ages pureeing and freezing one load of carrot I realised that approach wasn't for me. So I gave DD a bit of broccoli which went straight in her mouth (and on her hair and the walls) and we were away. You do need to be relaxed enough with BLW to trust they won't choke.

You don't need to go crazy with meals, things like pasta with veg is fine to start with (fusili type pasta is ideal for picking up) then add meat, herbs, sauces etc as you get more confident.

Just be careful with the allergens - DD had an allergic reaction to egg at 7m which was pretty scary so we tested things like fish, prawns etc very carefully.

For me, the thing that looking back I did well was not stress about how much she was eating. If it went on the floor so what, the first few months were more about getting her used to the idea of mealtimes. Now she'll happily sit with adults and kids and eat whatever you give her (disclaimer, I do know that in a year's time she'll only be eating chips and ketchup).

Pureeing, cooking special food, all of the rest of it just sounded time consuming, so anything to avoid that. Realising that pureeing must be modern (pureeing wasn't possibly 100 years ago) made it obvious that it wasn't the only way, so obvious other solution.

Feeding the baby the same things you eat just sounded so much easier than anything else. DD went from EBF to 3 meals a day with lots eaten and lots of dropped milk feeds just about immediately just before 6 months (I would've been happy starting a couple of weeks before as DD seemed completely eager) Generally she's completely fed herself all she wants in 20 minutes whilst we're eating our meal.

The only changes to the meals we cook have been to reduce the amount of chili or cayenne pepper etc. in it. Although we ate healthily before and had time and interest to cook, so there was minimal change there.

Spoon feeding seemed way too much effort. And I don't regret a thing, a big shower curtain that get shaken outdoors for the birds deals with the food that gets flung.

I'm allergic to hazelnuts, and DS has definitely shown sensitivity to soy through my breastmilk. Is it true to say he should not be given nuts/shellfish for the first two years because of my nut allergy?

I'm a total string bean with a fast metabolism, and DS is definitely taking after me (95th percentile for length, 15th percentile for weight, and CONSTANTLY wanting to stand assisted and "walk"). Do I need to be concerned that he might not get enough food with BLW in the initial stages when, I assume, it's more about exploring textures, tastes, and not too much eating? Is it more about convenience, BLW, or is there a belief that a child will be less "fussy" being introduced to solids in this way?

Babies on purees will initially eat more. I found BLW really took off for us at 8-9mo when DD learned to pick up food with her fingers and can push everything she holds into her mouth. If you start with purees you still have to introduce lumps (eg 7mo jars have lumps) and also finger foods alongside.

I think toddlers can become fussy eaters regardless of how you wean. This is because I think it's a control thing.

They will get all the nutrition they need even with BLW because until they move on to meat and complex carbohydrate, the purees you feed are less nutritious than milk.

And feeding a baby who doesn't open her mouth for the spoon means my DD will get less solids if I insists on the spoon She was very good with finger foods from the start. Demolished the first rice cake I gave her. Also she almost never gags.

And food is fun until one! Remember this. I'm lucky DD loves food. Some babies just aren't interested. They can get all they need to grow from milk till 1.

BLW here too. Started at six months, DD is now 9 months (still EBF, not exactly my choice, but there you go), and a typical day is something like the following. I've put in the sizes I serve, as I've found it realllly hard to know - sometimes she'll eat everything, other times much gets wiped to the floor...

Breakfast: 1/2 banana, 1/2 satsuma (I bite the segments in two), blueberries (10-12), possibly a matchbox sized-piece of toast and butter. Possibly one or two avocado slices. She doesn't like yogurt, porridge or cereal. Yet!

Lunch: either mushroom or cheese and tomato one egg omelette, or hummus on toast (half a slice), or pasta (wheel pasta is good, about 20/25 pieces) with tomatoey sauce or creamy - whatever I'm having really, plus some boiled veg on the side, say 1/2 a carrot or a piece of broccoli. Then say, half a kiwi fruit or a plum.

Dinner: often leftovers, eg sausage casserole (she'll eat half a sausage) with butter beans and tomatoes, chicken strips (breast, about the size of your little finger) fried very fast in unsalted butter and olive oil to keep it moist, with spring onions and tomatoes + sweet potato (peeled, cut into rounds, boiled, a very small one, size of your palm), tuna and sweetcorn fritters (size of your palm) + veg. Then fruit, probably a plum / some pear slices.

Snacks: rice cakes, small piece of cheese, Ella's kitchen ginger biscuits...water.

HTH.