What do you mix with cereals if EBF?

[Aradia]

We're looking at starting weaning in a few weeks and will probably do a mix of purees and BLW but just wondering what you mix with things like porridge if you are EBF? I do express but can only get a couple of ounces at one go. Do you use formula or breast milk or what? Thanks in advance.

How old will your DC be? From 6 months you can use cows milk in their food, just not as a drink. The guidance is to wait until 6 months to wean anyway.

I just use cows milk in ds porridge, but waited till he was 6 months before weaning him. I think officially you're supposed to use full fat milk, but check that with a health visitor

One of my friends does hand express straight into a bowl with weetabix in it. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when she did this in front of me and I know she also uses expressed milk in her baking/cooking feeding her ds breast milk pancakes etc.

Cow's milk. Once you start with food your baby isn't EBF anymore!

I used formula, but only because I had most of a tin to use up.

DD2 fell off the graph, assorted medics said you'll have to give her bottles of formula.

However, she point blank refused to touch them and didn't climb back on to their precious graph until she was 7 months old and stuffing her face with yoghurt, cereal and assorted purée.

I used whole milk on weetabix when DS was weaning. He did BLW so I just put enough on to soften it but he could still pick it up in his hands.

BTW if you're giving purées along with finger foods it's not BLW, not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just being a picky bugger!

Ah brilliant thanks for the advice, DD will be 6 months when we start so will just go for cow's milk to mix in then. You wouldn't believe she is DC3 would you? The other two were mix fed by the time I weaned so I just used formula IIRC.

I only plan on giving porridge really, hoping to go more for the BLW route if I can get over my fear of choking! I was a bit of a wreck with DS but hoping to be a bit more relaxed this time round and just let dd go for it.

Weetabix, hands, yikes! .

You clearly never had my horribly designed high chair to clean.

It is a nightmare to clean but DS loves it!
The thing that helped me with the idea of choking was knowing that a baby's gag reflex is much further forward that an adult's so they're much more likely to gag on something before it goes anywhere near their throat. I noticed DS gagged a lot in the early days of weaning and it was hard to hold myself back but it improved very quickly. Doing a baby first aid course helps with the confidence too.

With porridge and blw, you can make a kind of porridge biscuit, just by putting equal amounts of porridge oats and milk together, let it soak and thinly spread onto a plate and zap in the microwave for 1-2 mins. It cooks it and dries it out so you can peel bits off and they get gummed to death.