weaning schedule for baby exclusively b/f till 6m

[serenequeen]

hi everyone

fingers crossed dd and i are going to make it to 6m with exclusive b/f.

with ds i followed the guidance as it was then and started him off with baby rice and purees at around 4m.

do i still need to follow the same sequence with dd, e.g. purees for a couple of months, moving on to mash later and then finger foods at about 8m as AK says? can i give her things like gluten, protein etc straightaway?

thanks very much for your help

I was lead to believe that the older they are when they start - the faster you can accelerate/leave out stages in the weaning process. ds was about 5 mo and grew bored v. quickly of mush.

i didnt give my dd anything other than purred fruit and veg till she was 8 months... exclusivelyt bf for 6 months, at 8 months introdced stuff like protein and gluten..... turns out she seems to be gluten intolerant so i won't give it that early to my next baby... many people have since said that they remain gluten free for 12 months... mainly if there are allegies in family i think.

I would hold off on the gluten, they are lots of other things you can try first. We did rice cereal, applesauce and pureed bananas as recommended but ds got terribly constipated from it. If I had to do it again I would start with pears. The Baby Whisperer has some great advice on this.

thanks for these replies

other views welcome!

ds started solids at 6 months, we started with pureed veges and fruit and moved on pretty quickly. He had gluten and meat (chicken, chicken livers, minced lamb) after about 3-4 weeks, and cows milk on his cereal. Now he's 7.5 months and the only things he hasn't eaten are nuts, honey and egg whites. not sure of the logic behind not giving egg whites but haven't tried it anyway.

He still has pretty mashed up food, but has small pasta shapes and when I give him rice I don't puree it so the bits are quite big.

He isn't too good with finger foods yet but I gave him rice cakes pretty soon after starting solids and he has bits of toast as well.

Hi serenequeen - I also held off till 6 months (I have eczema, asthma and nut allergies) and then I pretty much followed the schedule in the books, just lagging a couple of months behind. And I avoided potential allergens where possible - e.g. didn't do wheat till 10 months, or dairy till 12 months.

I did ramp up my dd to 3 meals a day fairly quickly, as she seemed keen, plus her nursery were convinced she was starving!! I wouldn't have done that so fast if weaning earlier.

Well done on exclusive bfeeding this far.