What do you feed your 6 month old?

[Ilovenannyplum]

6 month old DS was weaned at 4 months due to reflux. HV has told me to now drop bottles and go 3 meals a day. He's quite small, 9th percentile, only 16lbs and I struggle to get 3 'Proper meals' in him.
He has 5oz at 7, breakfast at 9.30, bottle at 11.30ish, lunch (well fruit/yoghurt something small) at 1, bottle at 3, dinner at 5.30, bedtime bottle at 7. I give him baby juice or water with his meals and he wakes up once in the night, around 4am for a bottle but goes back off til 6.30.

We're still eating a lot of Ella's kitchen and purées, he's not great at actually eating 'proper food' by himself, he'll try things if I physically give it to him and put it in his mouth but if I just left some toast for instance on his high chair tray, not much would actually get eaten and I would be left with a hungry baby so BLW is not for us.

He already has 2 little front teeth so likes crunching things. I'm not against letting him have completely solid things at all but feel like I should still spoon feed him to actually get a decent amount of food in him.

How much do you feed your 6 month old and what do you give them? I need some inspiration!

Sorry this is a bit rambly

I do very similar to you in terms of 4 bottles and 3 meals- I have moved from purree to mashed with a fork. We still do a lot of fruit and veg- mashed carrot, parsnips, courgette, butternut squash, sweet potato, potato (occasionally with cheese), broccoli, mashed banana, stewed apple, pears, raisins. We have tried risotto and macaroni cheese but that was harder to chew rather than just swallow. He also loves breadsticks, oat cakes and will suck bread with cream cheese /butter etc. We also mix ham, chicken, beef and fish cut into tiny pieces into the veg. He has porridge and fromage frais for breakfast. Just build up slowly and increasing amounts!

Oh this makes me feel better nothing like reassurance from an internet stranger is there?

I think I want to stick with what I'm doing now, keep on with the fruit & veg purée/mash and keep on introducing new things and then slowly upping the amount I give him with the new things added in.

He loved dairylea on toast but oh god the mess he also loves scrambled egg, the organix carrot wotsit thingys, little bits of baked fish and pretty much anything he can pilfer from my plate.
I've bought some tiny pasta shells from Boots, going to give those a try later.

My HV is massively massively anti purée and just tells me to "give him what you eat" so I don't find her very helpful at the moment

Oh yes forgot about scrambled egg. Yes to mess but compared to friends who do blw it's not so bad and like you I'm just glad I know he's eating. Ds only had fruit and veg until 6 months when added meat, fish bread etc! Try not to stress about it - food is fun until their 1 is what I was told. After lots of frustration with breastfeeding then bottle refusal I'm refusing to get stressed about weaning!

Oh and if ds is tired normally just give a pouch as easy, quick and keeps us both happy!

I did have a very temporary blip of getting super stressed with lunch, trying to get him to eat a big meal and it was just too much and he didn't want it.
Now we just stick with a small meal and everyone's much happier!

what do you call a big meal? I wouldn't worry too much about quantity at this stage just try to give him lots of different things.

Some days ds will easily eat 3 meals other days I'll struggle to get one into him. This morning he had a scream about a piece of toast!

DS is 7.5 months and we started off with puree/mash but now I do a bit of that and blw I guess but basically I just give him what I'm having in some form. Some things he can't quite eat but chews/sucks but I always give him a mouthful to try. He's not great with meat as he just chews it for ages but I try and give him something that's more challenging like that towards the end of the meal so he doesn't wear himself out. The only baby food I've bought is a baby porridge because initially he wasn't keen on normal porridge but he is now (but it's a great fallback if he's tired but hungry) and some heinz baby pasta stars but my mum gave me some normal small pasta shells she bought somewhere which are ok but I expect are pricy. I tried him with penne but he wasn't keen but spaghetti cut into smaller pieces also works.

His fave seems to be broccoli, marrowfat peas courgette and a cheese sauce I made for his pasta the other day which I'm going to make a batch of and freeze cos I can then use if i'm having something later.

For breakfast I tend to give him porridge or toast with fruit (normally berries), lunch is dinner leftovers, beans and scrambled egg on toast, baked potato with something and some fruit. Dinner is usually what we're having with extra veg.

When I say big meal, I mean something more substantial than some fruit, yoghurt and a rice cake. I think though if he has more breakfast and dinner (which he does) I'm quite happy with that for now. He's still so tiny and I've got the next few years to worry about getting veg in him!

Saying that though, today for lunch he had carrot & parsnip mash and some fruit after.
I think I worry for no reason!

ah ok :) I base ds's meals around fruit/veg and if he eats anything else it's a bonus. I usually give him veg for lunch/dinner by saving stuff from the night before or sticking a potato in the oven. My HV said to try to get him to eat more bitter veg because everything they have is sweet initially (amniotic fluid, milk, medicine) and so I try to do this every day - even mashed/pureed he loved sprouts, courgette, broccoli, spinach, marrowfat peas, cabbage.

I've only given him yogurt this week not sure why just haven't really thought about it before.

I think you're doing well no need to worry :)

Yoghurt is a guaranteed winner in this house!

Roughly 30oz of formula a day.

I give mostly finger food with the odd purée.

Today he had a slice of cheese on toast

Lunch was a chicken goujon with cauliflower, carrot and potato with sticks of melon and pineapple dipped in Greek yogurt

Dinner was chicken goujon, roasted parsnip, roasted carrot, brocoll, cauliflower, green bean, baby corn, Yorkshire pudding strip and more melon and greek yoghurt.

Loads of it goes on the floor! But he does eat some of it. I'm with the 'food is for fun before one' camp.

Oh and he's 6.5 months olds