if you waited til 6 months to wean, how long before your baby was ready for more interesting food than veg puree?

[deaconblue]

Weaned ds at 20 weeks (pointless waste of time intended to make him sleep better - didn't) but am waiting til dd is 6 months before starting. With him it seemed forever that he was eating goop before we started him on stuff like meat, pasta etc. How quickly can I move dd from just fruit and veg to pureed normal meals?

Whenever you like

If you want to puree then it is fine but don't have to. The beauty of waiting until 6 months is you can shove some finger food at them and let them get on with it.

ASAP IMO

Seriously chuck her a bit of what you are having and see how she gets on.

Just weaned my third - a week before she was 6 months just because she seemed so desperate to do what the first two are doing. Polished off every speck of pureed butternut squash etc with no problem so within 10 days I was handing her bits of toast. Finger food more of an exploration than a meal (this is all in the last 3 weeks) but is doing fine. So other food more lumpy and with bits of this and that - seems very pleased with the whole thing. Just remember to keeping watching her in case she bites off more than she can chew!

Yep, most foods are ok past 6 months, and most babies can grab and manouvre their own food too. If you want to puree go ahead, but within a month you can move on to meat, mash and lumps. I intended to puree, but was crap at doing it, so by accident my 6 month old lo was started on lumpy food. Worked a treat, as she'll eat almost anything - runny, lumpy, solid. Lots of different textures and types are good.

Have said this on MN before, but dd2's first taste of solid food was a broccoli floret at 6 months. She managed just fine.

She's 2 years old now and has never eaten puree in her life. It's completely optional.

I pureed religiously with my first two, and they were great eaters, right up until the point where I tried to introduce lumpier foods. Having then spent the next 3 years battling with them to eat, when ds was 6mths I just let him help himself. He's now 10 mths and eats exactly the same as his sisters, although he is usually finished first, and bawling for more!

dd is 9mths and I have never pureed, don't have anything in my kitchen to do it with! She's had the odd jar and I've mashed some stuff with a fork, but mainly it's been finger foods and she's never had a prob! Go for it!

No need to puree at six months. DS started with steamed carrot and turnip sticks then some pieces of banana.

Four days into weaning, he could feed himself a whole banana!

DS is 29 weeks (I think? losing count of the weeks thing now!) and we started giving him finger foods on his tray to feed himself at about 25/26 weeks. He took to it right away and is now very effective, to the tune of about 5 solid poos a day, so it's all going in and coming out! It was so worth the wait - he seemed to know just what to do and enjoys his food tremendously. Incidentally, I do spoon stuff like yoghurt in, and he doesn't refuse the spoon.

i waited with ds3 . and i never bothered with mush. just gave him food, food. stuff he could fiddle about with himself. he never starved, spent most of every day in a highchair 'conquering' different textures etc in delighted and fascinated fashion... and is a fantastic eater and has the best table manners of all my boys. was eating soup competently with aspoon at 12m fgs. wish id done it with all my boys.