Can someone help me plan 1st month of weaning (starting at 6 months)?

[Toowittoowoo]

DD2 is 5.5months so I need to start thinking about weaning pretty soon. She is currently FF and very happy on 7oz 5 times a day. Everything that goes anywhere near her goes in her mouth and she is pretty reliable now at gripping objects and chewing them.

So given all of the above I intend to start with a fair amount of finger food but I have nothing against spoon feeding her is either if it would be easier (e.g. yoghurt, soup etc) or if she just prefers it.

Dd1 is 3.5yrs so all of our food is child-friendly and most could be adapted without much hassle to be suitable for a baby (e.g. reducing the salt a bit). I also intend to feed DD2 at the same time as DD1 and if she is asleep she just misses a meal but will eat with us at the next meal.

So far, so straightforward! However i have got myself at all confused about 'first tastes'. I weaned DD1 (on the advice of the HV) at 5 months so by 6 months she had had an entire month of mushed up carrot and sweet potato and was ready for fairly chunky spag bol and happily eating cream cheese sandwiches for lunch.

Can someone help me work out what I should expect from a starting weaning at 6 months? Do I need to make any purees? How many single foods do I need to feed her before I can just dish her out some of ours? I don't cook much meat and 2 veg type food as I am definitely a fan of 1 or 2 pot cooking. A usual week would probably include things like chilli, spag bol, fish tagine, varies curries and pasta meals etc. It is no hassle to boil or steam some additional vegetables while i am cooking and then mush them up but i just don't know how long I should expect to do this for?

Sorry for the long post - I think I have been massively over thinking this so if anyone can help me make a plan then i would be very grateful!

Hello, I'm a month in, and I've so far avoided mushing anything for DS.
He loves sweet potato wedges, steamed broccoli and, as of today, roast celeriac. He also likes rice and dhal. Fruit wedges are also popular. He has a bit of our food, or I make some veg wedges if we are having something unsuitable for him. I tried porridge, but he's not excellent at accepting a spoon, he tends to intercept it and squish food everywhere. I make porridge pancakes instead.

My friends are doing purées and pouches, and their babies seem to eat a bit more than mine, but I'm not to fussed about that for now.

Okay, thank you callamia that is very helpful. Did you feed your DS single food like carrot before you fed him dhal or did you not think about it that much?

Veg wedges sound good as well can you explain to me as if I am totally stupid what veg you use and how you make the wedges?

Me and DD1 usually eat soup and bread, or hummous, bread and veg sticks, or dhal, or quesadillas and guacamole, or pasta and tomato sauce for lunch. How long do you before I could feed DD2 these? (The soup, pasta sauce, guacamole and dhal are homemade but the hummous is shop bought).

At six months you don't need to introduce foods singly, you can go straight to giving the same food as everyone else (bar the salt, and avoid honey).

Your plan of offering when the rest of you eat sounds fine. There's no need for any kind of complicated plan - they seem to exist to flog books and accessories .

Ok we are at 7.5 months now. I generally offer dinner foods but let him self feed from pouches of fruit puree when we are out too.

I didn't introduce foods individually. But in the first few days very little was consumed.

If you are cooking one pot meals perhaps leave out some chunks of veg like carrot or peppers as finger food?

Nothing needs to be pureed, mashing with a fork is fine.

My HV was very keen for baby to be eating family fits. Something they didn't really push when I had the others.

That should be finger not dinner.

I went straight in to 3 masks a day but he often misses one as he falls asleep or gets over Hungry and wants to bf instead

He's had very little single food, except what we would have. I roast sweet potato, carrot, celeriac, etc (with a bit of oil) in chunky sticks and he gets on with those (leave skin on to give something to hold into).

He likes strong flavours - I think it must take a while to develop taste buds like ours, but he shuns plain food. Anything with garlic or herbs is a winner. Everything you suggest sounds great. I'm guessing shop-bought houmous isn't salt-filled, but you can easily make your own too.

Ooh active relevant thread. Just about to start DS on food and going to BLW again.

However I cannot for the life of me remember if there are any foods other than cows milk, honey and chokable things like nuts that need to wait until he's a year.

Does anyone have any handy links to foods and when they are allowed please? (Yes, I have searched mumsnet but not found anything yet)

Right, okay that is all really helpful. I'm just getting confused because I am picturing the weaning I did with DD1, which although was very enjoyable and very successful, it was completely different because we weaned a month earlier as she wasn't feeding properly on milk. As DD2 is quite happy on milk and does not seem particularly hungry for more I think I can just relax a little this time.

Thanks guys, I now have a plan for the 1st 4 days and I think I'll take it from there.

Here you go:-

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/Pages/foods-to-avoid-baby.aspxere you go!

Silverten cow's milk is fine in cooking from 6 months just not as a drink until 1 year.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/Pages/foods-to-avoid-baby.aspx

try again!

Thank you! Very helpful.

How is it that cows milk is ok in cooking? Is it that it's actually fine, but if they are drinking milk then it should be breast milk or formula because that is more nutritious?

I had a mate insisting last week that I had to express for porridge, baby rice etc and couldn't for the life of me remember doing any of that faff for DD so got a bit confused over cows milk.

Yes the cows milk rule is because it shouldn't become a main drink as it isn't nutritious enough.

But it shouldn't be offered before 6 months so people get confused and think you need to express for cereal and things as it used to be the car when weaning earlier.

Of course if you want to express or mix with formula that is fine too.

Just don't accidently mix it in something to freeze and then defrost and serve to guests forgetting it has breastmilk in like someone on here did once.

We started with some tasters of mushed up root veg as well as sticks of well-cooked veg at around 5.5 months, started well for a couple of days but then she got poorly and stopped wanting to try for a week or so. Once better, she seemed to have a big appetite and desire to try things, so we went down the route of offering her something at every meal, if she ate it - great, if not - no worries. Well, my girl likes her food, haha! She is just over 6.5 months and has 3 meals a day, plus 4 x 6oz bottles. The first things we offered (after puréed veg) was stuff like cream cheese sandwiches, hummus sandwiches, dairy lea on toast, breadsticks, sticks of veg, omelette etc for finger foods. And for spoon feeding, cauliflower cheese, lentils whizzed up with butternut squash and stock, baked beans and jacket potato, yoghurt. She now has a mix of finger foods and mush, we are working towards more texture, so I still whiz it or mash it, but not so fine.

Typically she now has either porridge (or other cereal) for breakfast - or buttered toast if I don't intend to give her something bread-based at lunch. Lunchtime maybe a sandwich or picky bits - cheese, breadsticks, rice cakes, hummus etc. yoghurt or some mushed up fruit. And dinner is a mashed up something-or-other (recent ones have been mince bolognese with mini pasta, chickpea curry, chicken casserole - although she didn't much like the texture of the chicken!).

Yes exactly that babies need the nutrition from breast milk/formula until they are one.