Starting purées at six months before sitting independently and weaning kit recommendations

[JavaGreen1998]

Hi,

My baby boy is 6 months old on May 10th and we want to start weaning. Just with purées to start with, I’m a first time Mum and scared to do BLW incase I do something wrong/cause choking.

He can’t sit up independently but I’ve read not many can at 6 months. NHS says not to start weaning until they can sit up? He has great head control and sometimes when sat leaning on us, he tries to pull himself upright.

We have his highchair ready, just need to order his weaning set. Any recommendations or where to order a complete set from? And we will just be doing 1 meal/taste per day for now.

I’ve also read if I’m correct to offer 1oz of cooled boiled water with a meal?

Thanks!

If he can't sit up he isn't ready. Wait till he's ready.

And they are more likely to choke on purée than solid food, I would advise looking into this more.

Wait until he can sit. This in itself reduces the choking risk.

Completely agree with this.

being able to sit, pick things up and put them in his mouth are the signs of being ready for food

also completely agree that choking is more likely with purees

if you are worried take a baby first aid course

in terms of ‘kit’ we used muslin squares for mess and just fed what we were eating by popping bits on the high chair tray and a sippy cup for water

They need to gag on lumps, it's part of them learning how to swallow.

But he's too young and not ready.

If you are just spooning into his mouth then surely that is ok. When my first was born we started slowly with weaning at three months! By number 2 it was four months. Times change but if your little one is hungry then just spoon feed him. It won’t hinder him in any way. I would have been terrified of them feeding themselves and the mess factor must be huge. I personally would start fairly smooth then over time make it more chunky so that the muscles develop to cope.

i think waiting a bit until sitting more steadily is likely better all round. Small child sliding down a high chair isn’t good. It won’t be long until he is sitting.

Thank you all so far.

he is my first child and I apologise if I come across as clueless, but it’s a big learning curve and I’m trying my best.

when you say sitting does this need to be fully independently sitting ie if I put him on the floor he can sit comfortably on his own?

the purees are just for the very first week, obviously we will progress to lumpy textures etc.

Im just unsure on the BLW thing, and what I can give what I can’t. There’s so much conflicting advice online.

Anyways - I’m always trying to do my best by him, as I say he is my first and I don’t have any family who have had little ones that I have been around to pickup knowledge.

What on earth is a weaning kit

No they need to be able to stay in a sitting position when sitting with support i.e. they can sit in a high chair with their head up and not lolling over. Sitting unaided is a 9 month milestone so definitely no need to wait for that.
Traditional weaning is both purees and finger foods FYI and you shouldn’t do only purees beyond the first few weeks as there are so many benefits to also including finger foods like hand eye coordination, developing the pincer grip and chewing strengthens the mouth muscles ready for talking. Gagging is normal and is not choking.
I would consider a baby first aid course, it’s a great thing to do in general but would help with anxiety around choking.
Yes offer water with meals. If UK based they can have tap.
Weaning bits if you mean bowls, bibs etc. IKEA is really good.

Some places do all the things we will need in a bundle rather than buying individually. So cutlery, plates, overall bibs etc

you might find the solid starts app helpful

https://solidstarts.com/app/

It sounds like you’re over complicating things.

You need bowls which won’t break if they go on the floor, and small spoons. Little weaning spoons are nice, teaspoons are fine.

Get a bib which catches dropped food, and an overall type one if you want. Ikea do good ones, they’re all basically the same.

Nhs does a free weaning course- contact your HV to book on. They do remote or in person in my area or Nct do them as well.

All my 3 could sit fully unaided before I weaned at 6 months- it supposedly shows their insides are developed enough. Tbh I can't remember the details but it is important. A couple in my nct had to wait a while as their son had low muscle tone and couldn't do it.

Sitting at 6 months is pretty average and you've got a couple of weeks for him to learn- lots of tummy time there's a few exercises that can help. One of them is sitting them on your legs and slowly rolling them side to side to help engage their core and get them used to balancing.

Also blw is less likely to cause choking and tbh much easier after the first few weeks than all the blending and spooning.

Those pelican bibs and loads of muslin cloths. And soft mouth spoons. And able to sit. I used a Bumbo for my children.

Purees in stages over a few weeks so they get used to them.

Apple
Sweet potato
Carrot

Then less sweet purees like brocoli maybe and spinach. Potato. But add apple to those sorts of things initially..

Then once they are used to that sort of food, add light things like pureed chicken or white fish. I used to make everything in icecube trays and ended up making pureed fish pie and add to a pureed mash potato with butter and pureed peas. I ended up quite enjoying myself! Cheese sauces and tomato based sauces were popular. No salt. My butcher suggested avoiding pork for a while as its hard to digest

What’s a weaning kit? You just need some coverall type bibs, Bibado are good. You can just use a normal teaspoon and bowl. Or just put food on the highchair tray. Get the Solid Starts app it’s so helpful. BLW is actually safer as they learn to handle actual food

Waiting a little sounds good - it doesn't need to start exactly on 6 months. Every child is different.

Personally I'm not a fan of pure-BLW. But it may just be biased by my personal experience. I raised my child outside of the UK, where it is still the norm to do things in the "traditional" way. (purees -> more textured -> blended adult food (with less salt etc.) where, within this process finger foods come later than in BLW, and they are 'secondary' - e.g. the main food is always pureed, and the finger foods are just snacks.

While we were doing this, we had family + friends in the UK doing BLW, and that gave me a lot of doubt that I was doing the wrong thing and wasn't keeping up with modern methods.

But in reality? My observations have been that BLW isn't great if taken too far. Personally I think it enables fussiness from a young age, because it establishes refusal from the get-go, and as far as I can see it also enables kids to gravitate towards the more tasty/sweet things (fruits, sweet veg) far more. I do think it promotes motor skills, independence and jaw strength, but at the expense of getting establishing a healthier, less sweet, and more varied diet at an early age.

The UK mums that I knew who did it religiously for their first baby, all seem to be less focused on it the second time around, and end up mixing both traditional weaning ideas, with BLW. Which to be honest, is probably the best approach in my eyes.

I did blw with both of mine and disagree with you, mine enjoyed eating everything and I didn't hesitate to do it with my second and I have a five year gap. I also had friends who did it with all their children.

It's so much easier and the evidence base for it is huge. Purees were invented by baby food companies so they could promote premature weaning. Babies should wean at six months at which point they are ready and able to go straight onto solids.

In France advice is to start weaning at 4 months (we actually waited to 5) and they are still quite traditional with purées still being very standard. So I wouldn’t worry about BLW if you’re not comfortable. I started spoon feeding DD with smooth purées and simply over time progressed to slight lumpier textures. DD is now 5, a great eater and maybe a coincidence is also an incredibly clean eater. She has never dropped or thrown food and the floor is always spotless after she’s eaten. (We might have got lucky with that one!). So purées absolutely will do no harm.

I think times do indeed change.

There is nothing terrifying about BLW and it is not more unsafe than spoon feeding.

It’s lovely for them to touch the food, pick it up themselves, suck it, lick it before possibly throwing it all on the floor 🥴.

OP @JavaGreen1998 Ikea did a fabulous plastic mat what we kept under the high chair so if anything was dropped, it was easy to just clean the mat.

That said, if your baby isn’t sitting up I’d leave it for a bit. They grow fast, I am sure he will be ready soon. You don’t have to do everything dead on specific dates.

Also if you want to go down the puree route here are a couple of tips that helped us.

Get a microwave steamer for veg- lets you prepare veg quickly and easily for purées. Batch prepare them then put them in ice cube trays. Once they are frozen transfer them into freezer bags. Makes it easy to store all your purées efficiently and you can then select 1,2 or 3 cubes as you increase the quantities and then you can just defrost in the microwave in under a minute.

Do single vegetable purées at first to get them used to the flavour of each vegetable before moving to more combined flavours later on. We were recommended to start with vegetables and introduce fruit puree later. This avoids them rejecting vegetables as they are used to the sweet fruit purées first. Our go to : carrots (not her fave), peas, green beans, sweet potato, artichoke (we bought this ready made), courgette, aubergine.

We had a soft spoon that she could gum on with a long handle for when we were feeding her. Then we moved to a larger shorter soft spoon when she started to feed herself. The long handle was useful when she started to want to guide the food into her mouth as we could both hold the spoon at the same time.

And despite being a nation of puree weaners, French children on the whole are excellent eaters who eat a wide range of foods (my daughter’s favourite food since she was tiny? Camembert! 😂 pasteurised of course!).

not against BLW at all - just saying that the alternative is perfectly fine.

The sitting thing is that they can sit with support (i.e. the support of the chair), not that they can sit completely unaided so start having your child sit in the high chair at meal times and let them play with a spoon and bowl and see how well they sit - if they don't slump over then its ok.

I'm not in the UK, my country advises starting between 4 and 6 months, depending on signs of readiness, but by 6 months at the very latest to reduce allergies. BLW has many positives but it does make it harder to introduce all the allergens so it carries more risks in that sense than using a mix of pureed/mashed foods and finger foods. Also harder to introduce a broader range of tastes.