Meal suggestions for 6mo

[NewMumSept2014]

Hi,
I started weaning my DD about 2 or 3 weeks ago on the advice of HV due to weight issues.
She is now 6 months and has some solids 3 times a day, but I need some suggestions of good foods to give her.
She will eat carrot/ parsnip/ sweet potato/ butternut squash purees, and apple/ pear/ papaya/ mango/ banana and strawberry. Have tried mixing broccoli and cauliflower purees in with other things but she hates them and just won't eat them. Also tried giving her egg the other day (huge failure) and some toast but TBH she didn't really get what she was meant to be doing with it, sucked at it for a while and gave up.
I have been giving her porridge with fruit at breakfast, then usually fruit of some kind at lunch and vegetables in evening, but i'm just so bored of feeding her the same thing over and over. I feel like I'm missing something!
I have an Annabel Karmel baby puree book so going to make a couple of the recipes from there but I just wondered what else I can try?

She can have meats, pastas, yoghurt, etc now too

Have you thought about baby led weaning rather than purees? Much easier, much more fun and arguably much better for the baby too. We did it with DA and it worked brilliantly.

Here you go: www.babyledweaning.com

Hi,
Yes I did think about BLW but at the beginning we just needed to get more calories into her (weight was dropping centiles) So I started spoon feeding. I guess I could try again now that weight is no longer an issue. It doesn't help that my diet is awful so either way it will involve cooking something separate for her! ??
Thanks for your help.

There are some good (simple!) recipes in the Baby Led Weaning cookbook - you'll be able to get it at the library if you don't want to invest. I still do a few favourites from that now, three years on - fish pie etc.

My diet improved once I started cooking for DS!
You can go somewhere between hardcore blw and spoon-feeding. We did, and it's gone well - we never puréed a thing, but went for a mix of vegetable wedges and things like dhal. If your baby rejects something once, don't worry - just try again later. It takes a while sometimes for babies to 'get' a new food. Remember that she's had very sweet-tasting purées so far, a new type of flavour might take a few goes.

Full fat Greek yoghurt with her fruit in the morning or weetabix for variety instead of porridge? You can get tiny pasta stars to mix in with her veggies at dinner time, grated cheese too, either to mix with puree or for her to pick up. Grated cheese works well as a 'finger food' because it melts on the tongue so no chocking. How about mashed potato? Different texture to Vegetable purees?

If weight is an issue, try things like avocado as this is quite calorie dense. Banana-cado from the MN weaning recipes is a good one. Don't forget good fats like adding olive oil to mash and giving salmon, mackerel and sardines. You could cut salmon into chip size pieces, dip into egg, then breadcrumbs and bake for about 15-20 minutes.

The advice from your hv does seem a little odd though. There are a few foods that you can give her that will have the calories of her milk. How many centiles has she dropped?

Thanks so much for all your suggestions, I'll definitely try some of those. In retrospect I don't think I agree with advice from HV either. I was breastfeeding at the time and I think it was more of a supply issue. She had been 50th centile at 8 weeks and dropped back to 25th at 4m and then a little bit more at 5m. HV said to start weaning, but I started formula at around the same time and she put on just over a kilo in 2and a half weeks. Think she just needed more milk. She's now back up to where she should be thank goodness.

At least you know to avoid her advice if you have another. If weight is an issue with your next lo, don't doubt yourself, just ask in Infant Feeding, go to a Bfing Support Group or call one of the Bfing Helplines. Kellymom is very good too

Nice ideas here!

I've just started weaning my 6 month old. Started out eager but has a cold and is doing "zip shut mouth" so I need some ideas to tempt her.
Thinking finger foods she can play with and eat just a bite or 2?