When can I give meat

[FirstTimeMum881]

My baby is a week off 6 months. We started weaning 10 days ago, on our paedetrician's advice. She said no reason to delay as he's chunky, sitting up, and interested in food. I've only done veg purees so far and he LOVES it. Chomps it down. But when can I start giving some of our food I.e. some bolognese or mash some chicken and veg? All the books and guides online show only veg/fruit for a long long time. DH and I cook a lot so I'm keen to just mash up some of our food soon-ish.

I think you stick to fruit and veg for a while. I once heard that the reason so many people choke on meat is because your body doesn't recognise it as 'foreign' as quickly. A tiny crumb or piece of popcorn in the wrong place and I'm coughing and spluttering. A piece of steak... it gets a long way before I realise.

You can mush up the rest of the meal, just leave out the meat.

Have a look at the solid starts app, it tells you the safest way to serve certain foods. My LO basically had what we had from the start (meat included!) from 5.5 months, the exception being heavily processed meat like sausages etc due to the high salt content.

Even if you don’t follow a baby led weaning approach, you can still puree meat/ veg mixes though.

I second Solid Starts. It is really excellent in explaining how to prepare and introduce different foods.

I think another reason why it seems like it's simple plain fruit and veg for a long time is because you need to identify/eliminate any allergens and see what foods are safe for baby. The easiest way, it seems, is to give singular food initially as if you did give a combination of a few foods and baby has a reaction it could be tricky to identify what the trigger is.

Are you in the UK?

We used to purée our food for the DC, gradually making it chunkier over time.

I think it's from 6 months. You're usually advised to give just fruit and veg before 6 months but once they hit that age you can give them pretty much anything.

There's a helpful list here in foods to avoid giving babies, everything else is usually ok from 6 months

I think another reason why it seems like it's simple plain fruit and veg for a long time is because you need to identify/eliminate any allergens and see what foods are safe for baby. The easiest way, it seems, is to give singular food initially as if you did give a combination of a few foods and baby has a reaction it could be tricky to identify what the trigger

This is only the advice of you have known, severe allergies in the family. Absolutely no need to wean like this of you haven't

We did baby led weaning son just did the same food as us from day one.

You can totally give meat now. I used to give my kids lamb chops at this age and they loved them.

You can also think about starting with nutrient dense meats, like pureed liver and baked bone marrow. The nutritional content is really high, and they are also super cheap.
Best wishes.

You can offer tastes now.

I'd also have a read of this guide from the Caroline Walker Trust.

The examples of first foods to try is on page 19

From 6 months. Mine had strips of steak and chips then 😃 loved sucking the juices out of it. Also recommend solid starts. Aslong as it’s appropriately served then they can eat any meat pretty much! We didn’t do purées. They just had tastes of what we were having from the beginning.

Also agree with having a look at Solod Start too.

This is what they say about serving Chicken