Please help not sure what to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tallysmummy]

My dd is 5.5 months and i have started to wean her. She has has one week of baby rice which she really enjoys. I give it to her after her 3pm feed. now starting week 2 of weaning what can i give her now, how much and when?

I can not talk to the HV as she is a complete witch and will go mad as i have not waited until dd is 6 months.

Any advice will be great ive lost sleep over not knowing what im doing.

Please help!!!!!

Try giving mashed banana, or other fruit pureed. portion size - start with one or two ice cubes size, see how it goes. Try giving her a slice of banana to munch on herself. Just add a bit of 'real' food in whichever meal is easiest for you, when you have time and can be relaxed enough to scoop it out of your hair and off teh floor etc. Don't get stressed about it, as long as you dd is still taking plenty of milk, think of real food as just a little extra/alternative for now.

Baby rice is pretty yuk, I did use it, but only to thicken out any particularly runny purees!

Things like puree carrot, apple and pear are easy to start with - the ice cube thing works well - transfer them to bags once frozen then as dd gets more into weaning can mix and match them.

Don't worry about the 6 months thing - all babies are different - remember you are her mum and it is up to you!

HTH

You should be carefull not to introduce to many new foods to close together. It is good to introduce a new food early in the day so that if she has an allergic reaction you can see it. I started weaning at the same age and gave ds apple puree for the second week, alternated with baby rice and mixing baby rice with the apple puree. from 6 months you can go faster and introduce a new food every 3 days. Try sweet root veg i.e. carrots, sweet potatoe and butternut. mix these with the baby rice initially to make the taste a little bit familiar and then remove the rice. Just make sure she still gets all her milk!!

after 6months you can also start savoury veg i.e. courgettes, broccoli(dilute this with baby's milk), try to keep the veg seperate when you first introduce them, later you can mix them for an interesting taste. You can also give pear puree, easy to make, and I remember ds particularly like apple and pear mixed! Make sure that your banana is very ripe, you can microwave it for 5 sec to make it easier to mash, use a fork!

This has got me worried! I started my ds on baby rice nearly 3 weeks ago and he loves it! Should I have started using some alternatives too by now (ie sweet potato, carrots etc.)? Tbh I was trying to delay it another 2 weeks for purely selfish reasons as we are going on holiday in a couple of weeks and I just thought baby rice was easier to feed whilst out and about. Is that really bad of me?? He has rice twice a day and eats LOADS of it! Do you think I should be moving on to different tastes now?

I really wouldn't worry - solids are largely for interest, practising moving food around the mouth, swallowing, etc at this stage - most of your baby's calories and nutrients still come from milk feeds, and will do for quite a while yet!

I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but I imagine you're fine sticking with baby rice for a while if it suits you, although it might be worth introducing some more flavours before he begins to think that's all there is! There are quite a few other baby cereals and other dried foods available if you'd like to vary flavours whilst staying with convenience food. Making your own purees is quite easy though - just plain boiled / steamed fruit or veg pureed with a blender - using a little milk or cooking water to make a wetter consistency if needed, then you can freeze it in ice cube trays to keep for future use if you like.
weaning advice

Alternatively you could try introducing finger foods...
baby led weaning guidelines

Hope that's reassuring.
x
(Aitch - I've nicked your links!)

Thanks Thell. I'm all geared up with my steamer and blender ready to start freezing purees so will start this soon. May even give him a few tastes before we go on holiday. I'm just concerned about being able to re-heat purees whilst we are out and about. He is happy taking the baby rice made up with formula from the fridge!

thell

have a look at link{http://babyledweaning.com\this} when you get to 6 months, snewt, it's my blw blog and amongst other things has some finger food recipes on it which you can try at 6 months, whether you are using purees or not.
have a good holiday...

Thanks Aitch!