Puree consistency?

[arabicabean]

Hi,
I have a 30 week old baby and have just started weaning. Do vegetable purees need to be velvety smooth at the beginning - i.e. vegetable steamed, liquidised and then passed through a sieve?
My baby does not like the slightest hint of a lump, it makes him retch. I found that he did not like the consistency produced from a food processor or liquidiser alone.
Did you find that your baby needed totally smooth purees to start with and then went on to lumpier food?

not here - DD hated smooth purees and loved finger food, and now at just over 8 months hardly even needs her food mashing, as long as the veg chunks or whatever aren't too huge

gagging to start with is normal - at 30 weeks, who not try offering some food for your DS to feed himself? Toast, steamed veg sticks etc

i personally wouldn't want the hassle of putting things through a sieve, as i'm a bit lazy

I never used a sieve as ds would take food that had been pureed with a hand blender. He did get lots of finger foods along with his puree and I stopped having to puree fairly quickly and he was mainly taking finger foods from about 8/9 months.

30 weeks - most don't need purees or mash at all. Second offering finger food and letting him self-feed. Gagging is quite normal - it's how they learn to manipulate food in their mouths.

arabica, its normal. Some babes just don't cope with lumps to start with. try not to worry to much. The gagging is normal and healthy, its training his thrat muscles to cope with lumpy food and they have an amazing gagg reflex at that age.

I too would suggest offering finger foods alongside the purees (done to whatever conssitenty he's happy with). Thin toast sticks worked great as a first finger food for our ds2 as he could dip them in the purees too.

before he's one food is just for fun and not nutrition which he'll be getting from his milk. Do whatever he's happy with, be guided by him.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Today I mashed a bit of banana with a spoon (at my wits end really on the vegetable front) and although he grimaced, he did open his mouth for more. So it's not the texture that he objects to, but the taste. The HV said it takes 17 goes before you know that a baby does not like a food!
A quick question about toast/bread - are you baking your own bread? Breads seem to have about 0.5-1g of salt per slice, so was thinking of buying a bread making machine.

I used ordinary bread, but reasonably sparingly. dd is 21 months and rarely eats a whole slice, as she's not a big bread fiend. But home-made bread is very nice! Try putting chip shaped pieces of steamed veg in front of him - let him play with them, taste them, bite them, etc. If he's in control of what he's trying and tasting, he might find it more fun. See www.babyledweaning.com for more ideas. I'm not trying to push you down the BLW path, by the way (much as I love it), but you may get tips and ideas you hadn't thought of there.