Weaning help

[SweetPeaPods]

Ds is 7m. He is enjoying sucking on toast & breadsticks.
he is also enjoying fruit and veg purees in jars & pouches however I cannot get him to eat anything home made. I think it is texture as he doesn't seem to like lumps. I can't seem to get my spag Bol for example as smooth as the jar one. Even carrot purée, apple purée or mashed banana he will retch and spit it out.
I'm keen to move him up to the 7m jars, or ideally home made but don't know where to start! He is starting nursery in a few weeks and they cook everything home made.
When making cottage pie, spag bol, pasta etc do you add any extra liquid?
For sausages & mash I would normally add gravy but I'm not keen for him to have it with the extra salt. I'm sure water would make it watery?
TIA

Well, you can get reduced salt gravy so you could use that in your cooking, if that would help.

As regards the issue with smoothness of purees, I think I would ditch the jars/pouches and keep offering your homemade versions. He will eventually get used to it even if it is a bit of a struggle to begin with. If you keep offering just the same textures he won't want to try anything different. You could also expand the finger food you give him, eg banana, soft pear, soft fruit, steamed carrot etc. That may help with getting used to lumps.

Also the nursery should be able to handle whatever needs he has around eating - they will have plenty of experience of babies at different stages. You may also find that he eats a wider range at nursery, which often seems to be the case.

Yeah I think I need to persevere with homemade. I might buy some recipe books as have no idea where to start or what I'm really doing. I'm happy to make a cottage pie with low salt stock cubes but not sure how to get it to a consistency for him.
He's not keen on banana or pear if not puréed think its too slippery for him. He managed well with breadsticks though.

Why don't you just give him real food? Not puree. If he'll eat breadsticks then he'll probably eat cooked carrot sticks or fruit or chicken or homemade chips.

You can get a crinkle cutter for a couple of pounds (eg on amazon), which can make slippery food easier to grasp for little hands. Banana can be split lengthways and is less slippery like that - just press down on the end of a peeled one, and it should separate into thirds.

Really I think you should persevere with homemade food and finger food. As long as he is still getting plenty of milk (breast or formula) he will be getting enough nutrients and it is worth it in the long run I think. He won't ever get used to textures if you don't keep offering them.

Yes just go with real food!

My 7 month old ate pasta, cucumber and apple crumble today!

Have you tried dipping the breadsticks into your purées? My DS won't go near a spoon but will eat a whole yogurt if let him suck it off a piece of melon

The reason we started with jars is my friend gave me some that she no longer needed and I thought they were handy when out and about, and to get an idea of different tastes.
He really enjoys them so I'm not keen for him to go hungry.
I'll persevere with 'real' food but think I need to read up more about it as I need more ideas I think. We have had fajitas, chilli and curry this week and I think that's a step too far at this stage.

At 7 months my dc had no problems tucking in to fajitas or curry they are staple dinners in our house.

If a baby is trying to suck at smooth food because they are trying to drink it like milk they will not like lumps, they will gag. Sometimes it makes more sense to just give them real food as they recognise it as such and stop trying to slurp it up. No one is going to try to drink a fajita.

Oh and gravy was frustrating at that age for mine as it made things slippery so we usually put it to the side as 'dip' same with any sauces. In terms of salt level, just don't put salt in or if you must have it add it at the table to yours?