Is she not ready yet?

[Queenofpi]

My daughter is just over 6 months and I started weaning last week. On hv advice I have been giving her mashed rather than pureed veg (so far broccoli, cauliflower and sweet potato) along with smooth porridge/weetabix at breakfast and some finger food that she just plays with. I'm not actually sure that she is swallowing anything I give her on a spoon and she has gagged two or three times, throwing up quite a bit each time. Should I:

a) give up for a while? I know that I'm supposed to wait until she can swallow and currently she's pushing food out of her mouth with her tongue which is supposed to be a sign she's not ready - eek.
b) try purees? Although then how will I know when to re-try mashes?
c) persevere and get over my pfb syndrome? Which I appreciate is most likely 😂

As I'm back at work, asking my hv for more advice isn't really possible so advice from you lovely mumsnetters would be awesome.

Hi @Queenofpi
I started weaning my little one a bit earlier but I started on purée food and then waited until she was 7 months to introduce more mashed up food. I did try the mashed up food when she was 6 months but she just wasn't ready and gagged so I waited a bit longer.

Has the HV said why she doesn't think you should give purée food? This is my first child but I thought purée would be easier as a first taste and then you could introduce textures.

My dd (now 2.5 years) wouldn't swallow puree or mashed food at all. For the first few weeks all she would eat was yogurts and breadsticks. It's amazing how effective toothless gums can be at grinding up all kinds of food.

A bit later on she wouldn't eat food that had been prepared at all - we literally had to cook whole (small) carrots, parsnips, etc or she just wouldn't touch them. Tesco do a full range of miniature veg if you need it!

It's all about exposure and experience rather than nutrition. Just carry on as you are, try finger foods as she'll be in more control of stuff.

They need to learn how to chew and swallow etc it's all about muscle toning etc.

I'd give puree. That way there is a lot of exposure to different foods if the puree is fine and runny(relax it by mixing with milk to make into a runny slush) baby might get the idea. From experience the mash descriptions in terms of chunkiness, solidity and slushiness given by some HVs are totally inappropriate. I've have experienced some over years thinking babies could eat bowls of food of much to adult a consistency. Even if they can chomp on the good, they get too tired to manage to eat any real quantity. I'd say it's better to get your baby something easier, let them taste foid, runny puree us easier to swallow at first . Don't switch flavours constantly, so do four days of squash at every meal then parsnip instead, then carrot for example. Afterwards do combos. Do all root veg then fo green veg one at a time and mix into the root combos. They need to get used to the taste of each thing individually for a consistent period before changing flavour. Give breadsticks, cut apple to chew/ suck pieces of melon, cucumber etc etc, all in strips to hold lick suck munch. After a while thicken the purees. At 6mth you need to be trying to get some food going in and not encouraging a gag response. Babies can have a pretty big gag response to foods at first, so making sure they are not too challenging helps get over this. I
Good luck. I miss pureeing!!

Thank you everyone for your replies.

@Roomarmoset hv said that purees were pointless as baby would not get used to textures.

@GlamGiraffe thank you for so much detail ☺

I'm going to try some purees but be more consistent with what veg I use, and up the finger food too. This whole parenting thing is such a steep learning curve with things you don't expect - I thought she'd just automatically enjoy food! Time to dig out the blender... 😂

I think I would gag too if I was presented with mashed up broccoli and cauliflower. They're probably not very good to start with because they can give you really bad wind as well.

If your DC has never had any solids before now, I would do purees first. Then you can progress onto lumps etc. I weaned both my kids earlier than six months, but I gave them purees until they started pinching my food off me and chewing on it.

I pureed lots of veg and put them in ice cube trays as they only eat tiny amounts but also handy when going out and about.Dd had puree and finger food mostly and ripe bananas are great as they persevere because they love the sweet taste and pureeing less and less I found paved the way for other food.
Relax,they get there at different rates.

Your HV is talking shite. Purees are fine. My son was on purees until about 9mo as any lump larger than a split atom just induced vomiting. I'm sure there will be some BLW evangelists along soon to tell you that your baby will be inept at using pincer grip/a fussy eater blah blah unless you're feeding them strips of fillet steak and steamed carrot batons by now, but it's not true. Just keep the milk up in the meantime and try purees. Annabel Karmel has some really nice recipes that can be pureed, and surprisingly, so does Gina Ford (chicken and peach casserole is lovely). Either way, they nearly all turn 3 and refuse to eat anything you put in front of them. Weaning can be stressful. Make it easy on yourself.

Purees are totally fine. I started DD on them (we were planning to do BLW but I bought an Ella's Kitchen pouch just to start and she really enjoyed it so I thought why not?) and we did about a month of purees, me spoon-feeding her, and now have moved onto more BLW style (except I do sometimes hand her food, which I'm sure is a big no-no ;) ) now she's 7mo. She has no problem picking stuff up, unless it's very slippery, and getting it to her mouth, and she devours anything I give her, so starting with purees has done her no harm so far.

If she still has the tongue thrust reflex, then letting her suck on something like watermelon sticks might get her used to different tastes without the gagging and vomiting.

Weaning is something that some people get very het up about, but there's no right way or wrong way (as long as you aren't feeding Coke and chocolate!). You don't have to just do one 'method' and stick to it.

Also we did fruit first, which I'm sure is another no-no, but she's breastfed and breastmilk is sweet anyway so she was more familiar with something that tasted sweet. She happily eats veg now, but she was keener on fruit for the first couple of weeks while she was learning, so maybe worth a try if she isn't finding the veg appetising. I don't believe you can give them a 'sweet tooth' by doing this - it's just that it's more likely the kind of taste they are used to from milk.

We started at 6 months. And she mainly just played with it or bazzed it to the dog. We've just hit 7 months and this past week it's kinda clicked. I dot worry too much you have 6 months to transition fully to food.

She finally seemed to enjoy something! Sweet potato pureed and mixed with breast milk. And I've discovered she likes to suck on toast, so that's kind of blw...
@Shmithecat2 I think I will take all hv advice with a hefty pinch of salt in future
@Celebelly I sometimes hand her things too - don't tell anyone!
Thanks all for the advice and reassurance. I'm going to try to chill out a bit and try some of your suggestions over the next couple of weeks.