Weaning routine for 6 month old

[Cheeseymondo]

We have been trying our LO on solids for the last week, we have been introducing gradually but he loves it. Can anyone share examples of weaning routines for a 6 month old, including how much solids to give. Ideally how often versus milk. Also any other drinks such as water/juice. I’m finding lots of lovely recipes, but lacking info / guidance in these areas.

I’d just start with lunch, when they are calm. A little puréed vegetable. Give it a week. Then introduce dinner. They’ll drop their feeds naturally - you don’t need a schedule or routine as such.

Baby led weaning. No purees, much easier and much more fun.

No routine really. Food should be fun until 1.

I did BLW so shoved low sugar and salt foods on dd’s highchair tray at breakfast, lunch and dinner and let her get on with it!

They generally don’t eat a lot at first, and the absolute best advice I can give is to totally relax and don’t make it into a ‘thing’. Dd is now 1 and eats pretty well with very little input from me. Made it very easy!

We did baby Led weaning. Initially did 1/2 ‘meals’ a day - she didn’t change milk intake for about 4 months but started eating decent amounts about 1/2 months in. Dead easy - no need to worry

At exactly 6 months I was doing morning bottle of 8oz, food at about 11am of a vegetable purée of some kind then bottles of 7oz at 12, 4 and 7.30.
Within 2-3 weeks I started introducing food at 4pm then about 2-3 weeks after that I started introducing breakfast and shifted the other meal times to 12.30 and 5pm. I started doing lunch as finger food around that time. My baby was a good eater so I felt I could move her into 3 meals quite quickly.
The main thing at first is to offer food at a time of the day that suits their routine, so not just after a bottle but also not when they’re incredibly hungry as they’ll get stressed wanting a bottle.

Keep everything else the same and just offer something when you sit down to eat a meal. Lunch is usually easiest if you aren't working as you're usually home and it's not as rushed as breakfast or dinner time. We did BLW but I offered something at lunch time every day from 6 months for the first month before I thought about adding in a 2nd meal and then from there we just took it slowly depending on when I had time to prepare something suitable and healthy. Milk feeds all stayed exactly the same, which was easy enough as I usually wasn't giving her milk feeds at the same time as meal times anyway (because otherwise I wouldn't have easily been able to eat myself).

Milk first so milk then breakfast. As other posters have said- finger food on the high chair and leave them to it. Offer food when you eat (unless you eat dinner later). I think we did something like:

7ish milk
9ish breakfast
10:30ish milk
12:30 lunch

And so on

Offer water with every meal. Don't offer juice until they are much older - it's just unnecessary sugar. My 3 yr old still only drinks water (and milkshakes if we go out for burgers...)

We have been two weeks now. I have kept his bottles the same and letting him just take what he wants. Sometimes he will take full 7oz, or he may leave 2oz. I’m following his lead. We have introduced breakfast and now lunch. It’s going well he loves it.
Was going to leave it a week before adding tea time to let his digestive system get used to it. We’ve now had 3 big poops in 24 hours, he’s definitely pushing!!!! very interesting, who’d have thought you could be so intrigued by poop😀.
I’m going to a baby led weaning class at end of month too. So will start introducing finger foods. Thanks for all your advice, it’s definitely helped my confidence.

I’m with you there- fascinating what comes out compared to what went in! It sounds like you’ve answered your own question. It sounds like you’ve got a good eater, givevloads of variety and when you’re brave enough some finger food to play with.

I found weaning a bit chaotic and it resisted my efforts to bring in a proper routine - the baby's needs change so often that it's difficult to be prescriptive and I always kind of felt like I was getting it wrong.

Then suddenly it was done, he was on three meals a day, and I realised it hadn't been as big a deal as I had thought at the time!

Good luck OP, it's quite a fun time