Meals for 6 month old

[BringMeTea123]

Hi all,

This could be long but bare with me.

I took my little boy to be weighed today and he was 17lbs 15.5oz. However 3 weeks ago he was 17lbs 10oz. So he's dropped a couple of centile. The HV isn't worried about him and said she's happy with him and will see us in a month.

He's a very active little boy, his legs don't stop, he always rolling over, he likes to bounce if you hold him on he's feet.

The HV told me today alongside his breakfast (porridge he's been having for about 3 weeks) introduce another meal and then in a few weeks he can be on 3 meals a day along with his milk.

He's only just turned 6 months old on the 15th and we are struggling to think how to wean. We have given him sticks of food he can hold and he puts them to his mouth to suck but doesn't do much with them guessing because he's still young and food is supposed to be fun to begin with.

Only thing I can think to do is, continue with breakfast, either porridge or eggs, toast, yogurt and general breakfast stuff. But what can I give him for lunches and dinner? Shall I blend some veg and give that as meal, but then that defeats the BLW.

Any advice would be appreciated

[lorelairoryemily]

Over 6 months a little cows milk is fine! I started off making up a bottle of formula, way too much faffing in that!!

[EnidB]

Gosh it is all flooding back! BringMeTea there is no such thing as a silly question - first, second or whatever the time round.
I may be showing my age, but the Annabel Karmel book always had some good ideas. The timescales may not be right anymore, but you can see the progression. Now I have to go and buy butternut squash and sweet potato!

[Shamoffour]

Was just coming on to say similar to dementedpixie. I did a mixture of purées and finger foods. I have 4dc and I was only giving purées for a few weeks just while they got the idea. I would do things like pureed chicken casserole with sticks of cooked carrot. He's six months so you can go for it in terms of what you give him. I found mixing things up a lot helped so lots of different textures and flavours helped them accept pretty much anything.

[dementedpixie]

If he's 6 months old just use cows milk in food. At 6 months old you can give them bits of pasta, sticks of veg, cheese, meat, rice, bread, fruit, etc and it doesn't have to be pureed to feed to them. If you wanted to puree then still give finger foods alongside and then it is the best of both worlds

[BringMeTea123]

Thank you all. I've been talking to a mum friend who's little boy is 11 days older and she said she is going to switch to purée too. Suppose it works differently for everyone, you have to do it your own way that works for you and your little one.

Another quick question if anyone can answer it -
I have a cow and gate weaning booklet that was given to me by a friend and it has loads of recipes in it for puréed fruit and veg. It says add either boiling water or some of the baby usual milk to it before blending. My question is, would I need to make a bottle to add his milk to it before I blend it or how would I do it? Lol

Sorry if this all sounds really silly. First time mummy 🙋🏼

[lorelairoryemily]

Also now at 1 year he has no problem holding his food and feeding himself the little bits we give him, I'll be doing purée next time too! (Whenever that is!)

[teaandbiscuitsforme]

If you are interested in BLW, try the BLW cookbook. Lots of ideas for meals that are suitable from 6 months.

Veg purées aren't very calorific so they're not likely to make much of an impact on weight. I'd go for things like hummus or nut butter on toast, omelette, tuna jacket potatoes, cheese cubes (watch the salt!), yogurt, etc for lunch and then whatever you're having for dinner. He doesn't need to have special meals, just food prepared in a way that he can access it.

[PonderLand]

I struggled with weaning, we tried blw first then at 9 months we introduced lumpy purees. Sometime he prefers one to the other (I'm aware that if you use finger foods and purée this is actually known as traditional weaning).

My son at 9m really loved potato and leek purée, I'd also use the same purée and mix it with pasta/spread on toast for finger foods. At the moment he loves pea and courgette purée and tomato and courgette. If you want to just do finger foods then spread them on toast/dip bread sticks etc. Blw would be giving them what you are eating and just cutting it/presenting it in a easy to handle way. Blw can take a while to see results, my son didn't quite get it and due to illness we decided it was best for him to go the traditional route. Sorry if that doesn't make sense, typing quickly!

[BringMeTea123]

I had my heart set on baby led weaning. He is really good and bringing food to his mouth to try too and will take from a spoon so he's definitely ready for it.

The HV said to add another meal think because of his weight and it should help with getting to sleep through the night again. He's definitely ready for more food. He has been since he was about 5 months but we've hung off until now.

Think I'll have to just stick to purée veg and fruit and just gradually add more and gradually add meat etc.

Thank you both for your comments. I feel a bit better about the purée now

[Zahrah5]

Different one ingredient vegetable meals, steamed. Carrot, peas, squah, butternut squast, broccoli, cauliflower, potato, sweet potato, asparagus. Later you can combine to 2 or more ingredients. All with a drop of quality fat, as olive oil, pumpkin or flax oil.
I personally prefer purees at such young age, no BLW fan for not sitting babies.


There is no rush on getting on 3 meals per day. Should be slow and gradual, adding one meal per month or so. Their main foodis milk.

[lorelairoryemily]

I did the purée thing for a while. Butternut squash and pear was a favourite here, I wanted to do blw but ds took massive bites of everything and couldn't chew so we decided to purée for a while. We did loads of vegetable combinations, introduced meat around 9months...