Is steak too much for a 6 month old baby?? Advice needed please!

[babybore]

Have been weaning my baby for about 2 weeks on all different fruits and vegetables (so far no protein but have used cow's milk so little bit of dairy). She is still having 4-5 breast feeds a day.

Took her to be weighed today and she had dropped half a centile. In a slight panic I bought a prime steak at the supermarket on my way home. I've been vegetarian for 10 years so have no idea how to cook a steak for a baby. Can I use butter to fry it? Shall i wait a few months and give her things like cheese instead in order to get her to put on a bit?

Half a centile isn't much. Being breastfed, the charts are all wrong anyway. It's usual for their growth to tail off about now.

As for the steak, DS had it BLW style about this time, he just sucked all the goodness out of it. Grill it, it's the healthiest way. Make sure it isn't rare, but, not dry either. Wait for it to cool (it gets very hot for a baby!) and either cut into 2 or 3 chuncks, or strips (I've done both). CUt 1st, it will cool quicker. As always, watch them whilst eating. DS hasn't choked yet, but, I guess steak is a more risky type food.

Don't give her steak! My 4yo dd struggles to chew beef. PUt it in the freezer or give it to a friend.

Half a centile is not much loss either - my kids often get taller, then their weight seems to catch up over a few months, so they can look extremely skinny for a while. So chill.

BTW, Cheese is good - whether cubes or in sauce (cauliflower cheese etc.)

And milk will have far more calories than solids. 6-12 months is really experimenting with food, rather than for nutrition. xXx

Think chicken & turkey might be good too for protein - easier to cook & digest and you can puree it & mix it with other stuff to get it down her (like sweetcorn & potatoes)

what quootie said....

they can manage meat easily if you just give them a chunk to suck..... takes forever though!

I'd wait a wee bit to be honest. Firstly, were you advised to start giving her meat because dropping half a centile doesn't seem that much to me. Secondly, is steak that high in calories? It may be that your baby has been cutting back on milk because of the solids - milk has more calories than most things you'd ben giving her.

As for giving her meat and cooking it, do you cook meat for anyone else? I'm also a vegetarian, although dh isn't and our ds (9 months) has had a range of meat including steak, mince, burgers, venison, chicken, ham and turkey, as well as fish. Basically he eats a bit of his daddy's meat. However we waited till he was well established on solids before introducing meat - mostly because it's more difficult to chew, we're doing baby led weaning.

Thanks for all your advice. I always offer milk first so she hasn't been given any less milk although she does only seem to want 1 breast rather than 2 in the morning these days (I express the other one to keep up supply).

Conflicting advice though... I have been trying a bit of blw with banana, and yesterday a little bread but mostly I have been spoon feading.

Percypig - haven't given her any other meat, dp doesn't eat it either (at home anyway). Was hoping to stick to red meat for protein and iron and fish for other fleshy nutrition! I thought the steak might be fattening that was all

Quootiepie - thanks for the advice on serving it blw style. Good idea to grill it too. Maybe I'll freeze it for a month and try again then when she is used to other forms of protein first.

I made my DS beef with sweet potato which ends up like a stew. Blended it to puree and he loves it.... However this was when he was 7months old (and the recipe is in Annabel Karmels Food PLanner Book)

The only way I give my 13 year old steak is stewing steak in a slow cooked stew so the meat is so tender it almost melts in the mouth and he loves it as does my 3 year old.

I actually steam small bits of steak and then puree with veg but I am one of the puree mums. This I did from 7 months.

DS is 6 1/2 mths and had some well cooked tender steak chunks a few days ago. LOVED IT! He sucked and chewed it for what seemed like hours, then threw it to the dog. (who also loved it!)

DD (almost 8 months) likes chicken and pork but LOVES beef and lamb. She has had meats pretty much since six months.

Similarly, shell turn her nose up at mild cheddar but munch for ages on a piece of mature - I think she just likes stronger flavours TBH.

Also - look at www.babyledweaning.com

Excellent blog and lots of reassurance!