Six months old - so many questions!

[MrsHandles]

So we’ve tried some veg purées with my DS and each time he’s projectile vomited. I’ve given him just a couple of teaspoons around an hour after his bottle (so around 5/5:30) I just feel I’m doing everything wrong.

So, dear people of Mumsnet, I’d like to start again.

Can anyone give me a rough day guide to introducing solids? Do I try before, after or during a bottle? What do I introduce first?

Please be aware that I would also like to try BLW, do I do this differently?

Thanks

Now, if I remember rightly, before a bottle.

And a tiny tiny amount.

The first food I gave all of mine was banana.

It might be worth doing a baby led weaning course.

And don't forget that food before one is just for fun x

My LO is just about one so we've just been through all this.

I was always told after a bottle, I tried him on sweet potato first. Few spoonfuls a day then after a week or so upped it but I just followed his lead . (I did start at 4 months due to reflux)

Once we hit 6 months I just went into the BLW pretty much straight away. I would just give him little finger foods like cooked potato cut up into wedges, banana. There's heaps of good Instagram accounts for BLW.

We did blw. We gave DD food when she was happy and relaxed and mostly at our usual mealtimes. We didn't worry about how much she ate or what she ate - just made sure our meals were reasonably healthy. We cut veg into thumb size chunks and just let her have a play. It was super easy and stress free. The one thing I would say is to watch a YouTube video of choking Vs gagging so you know whats normal and what's not. Have fun!

Thank you all. I get very easily stressed and worked up about things, so as you can imagine, weaning is right up there on the stress-o-metre.

You’ve all given me food for thought (pun intended) thank you

How soon after a bottle would you give solids? Straight away? An hour?

Usually about an hour is the recommendation

I think there are lots of ways to wen your baby and it’s about personal preference. They get most of their calories from milk up to the age of one so don’t stress about getting loads of solids into them.

This is how I did it...I offered finger foods such as avocado, soft boiled veg, boiled eggs. Anything that was soft and easily picked up basically. Let them experiment with tastes. I tried home made purees with ideas from Ella’s kitchen weaning book but my boy didn’t really take to them. He preferred feeding himself. While I tried the purees though, I batch cooked then separated portions into ice cube trays and froze. I could then you defrost a few ice cube portions if I was in a rush.

Overall it took just over a year for solids to be the main source of calories and nutrition. It was a slow process. Just offer foods at your mealtimes.

I’ve read that milk first is better then solids but again I think this is up to you. If they’re full on milk, they’re not going to be hungry for foods so I thought it was more about your stage of weaning for which order you do them in!

I waited until my DD could sit well in the high chair and started to show an interest in food. She watched us intently whilst we ate then started grabbing food off our plates so that was when we started weaning around 6.5 months. She sit at the table with us and has 3 meals a day, basically whatever we're having without the salt and heavy spices, veg, chicken, pasta, fish, cheese, egg, rice etc. She has milk early in the morning, afternoon, and bedtime, or really whenever she wants it, as it's the main food up to a year as pps have mentioned. We are being very relaxed about it, and she loves food and meal times. She doesn't like being fed though, she prefers to feed herself. Sorry that was all a bit of a ramble, but I hope you get the gist

If he's 6 months old you don't need to offer puree unless you really want to. Puree followed by finger foods is called traditional weaning. Simply offering finger foods is called blw.

I only have experience of blw but if I were you I would just pop down small amounts of finger foods whenever you eat. Let him explore and don't worry about how much actually is eaten.

About an hour after a milk feed is what is usually suggested by HV etc. I agree that at 6 months you can just give food to self feed and not bother with purées unless you really want to give them.

Just remember no honey, no added salt, and no whole nuts/grapes etc (choking hazard), and then give similar/same as what you're having. See if you can find the BLW book by Gill Rapley at your library, as it's useful to have a read through the ideas behind it.

Thank you all. We’ve since had a real improvement with taking food and have kind of worked out some sort of routine. Your advice has been invaluable, thanks again