spanish weaning

[wakeywakey]

i live in spain and was told to start at 4months with baby cereal in bottle in morning.which i ignored but started nearer my dds 6 month mark with pureed cereal.they then say, 5months start with fruit and 6months with veg and fruit,1 portion of each every day with cereal in morning.they say maybe a bit of chicken at 6 months but no red meat until 8 months or fish until 9 and no gluten until 8 months! is it just me or does this seem way too careful?oh and with the veg and fruit only introduce one at a time with a weeks gap in between.
my now 7m dd is on baby cereal in morning, fruit late morning and veg for lunch.its getting boring.i want to give her a wide range of foods but am now so confused about what i can give her and am getting a bit neurotic thinking oh i shouldnt give her this or that.also how do you go about preparing meat? ie chicken as surely you have to prepare it fresh everytime? i mean can you prepare and freeze? i cant understand why they are so fussy here yet in the shops they sell baby cereal with honey for 6months..honey i thought was really dodgy until 1 and they sell fruit juice which they say to put in the bottle which i thought was also a bad idea?backwards or just me?

are you familiar with baby led weaning? the spanish health service would hyperventilate if they knew about it.

Just go for it... try as many different fruit, veg and whatever else you fancy - they seem to love it... and IMO it's best to get them used to as many different tastes as possible as soon as possible. They do definitely recommend no honey until after 1 in this country because of something in ti. But Gluten, meat etc all fine from 6 months. Meat - you definitely can prepare in large batches and freeze - about 100g or so of meat or fish with veg will easily make enough for about 6 meals - so it would be tiny quantities if you were going to prepare from scratch every day, let alone quite a hassle. Fruit juice - my instinct is not to bother - definitely better of sticking to water in the bottle/cup.

My dd is 7+ months - I only started weaning her at 25 weeks - and she is on three meals a day - cereal of some sort and fruit for breakfast, meat/fish or lentils with veg followed by fruit and sometimes yogurt for lunch, and veg and fruit for dinner - often with some cheese or something in it too.

I know a lot of people on these forums are advocates of baby led weaning - which sounds great - but equally if you want sensible advice and easy recipes and ideas for more traditional purees etc, Annabel Karmel's stuff is quite good (although admittedly a lot of it is common sense). I've got her complete baby and toddler meal planner and it has been useful to refer to, although I certainly haven't followed it to the letter - sure you could get it through Amazon or something and sent out to Spain.

Good luck and ignore what you are bing told if I were you!

honey is only a potential problem if it is 'raw' (and even then it is debatable whether it actually is a genuine threat) so baby cereal with honey will be absolutely fine, or say a cake that has been sweetened with honey is fine too.