How quickly to wean from 6 months?

[SilverSixpence]

DS is 25 weeks and I am starting to wean him, with baby rice mixed with breast milk for the first week, then a mix of spoonfeeding and finger foods after 26 weeks.

Thanks to not having given in to MIL pressure to start at 4 months he has taken to it beautifully (had a few spoonfuls yesterday) - no gagging, really seemed to want more after feeding. All the books seem to advise as though you are starting at 4 months and seem to go very slowly with small amounts of v runny puree etc. I think DS is probably ready to eat thicker foods and possibly a full meal's worth already - or should i continue to increase the amount v slowly?

Btw, small rant: MIL said to DS (as he had eaten so well) 'You were ready to eat long ago!' after his mini meal yesterday and also said that if he skips a bf or two he will go onto solids more quickly!

Oh, and please do not make this into yet another blw thread, I have read all the blw thread, I am choosing to mix finger foods with purees and just want some advice on how i should go about it! no offence intended but I see that every weaning thread seems to get hijacked by those with a blw agenda

THe saying is food for fun till one. Just go at his pace.

if you just did the finger food bit then you are allowing him to control the pace and quantity. no need for the spoonfeeding really.

you're right about the weaning books. they tend to be very slow and cautious because essentially starting at 4 months is too soon nd you do have to be very careful at that stage. at 6 months they can just have normal food.

Hi there! We just started baby rice yesterday, which DD (26 weeks tomorrow) just loved. Same again today. I'm thinking about carrot tomorrow and then perhaps sweet potato. Planning to feed her solids once a day (lunch) for the first week, then also at teatime. I'd like to give more than just a taste, but I want to make sure her digestive system can handle it. Waiting anxiously for the next dirty nappy...

I also plan to give a mixture of purees and finger food, though to be honest I am scared about choking. DH is not happy about the finger foods, by the way, though he has been nagging me to wean her since ages. It's hard to ignore such talk, isn't it? Anyway, I'm going to give it 4 weeks before introducing protein.

silversixpence - I would have a look through the general puree lovers thread - theres lots of good tips on there and hints as to how people are mixing the bfing and the weaning...

thanks everyone, will check the puree lovers thread. Moo I am also planning to do once a day for the first week or two but it was more about the quantity because the books suggest to just give a teaspoon or two to start with whereas i'm sure he can take a lot more! I did give him a squashed boiled carrot cube the other day and thought he spat it all out again but the evidence was in his nappy

I started around 24 weeks with purees - I started with one ice cubes worth of puree per day, and increased it by a cube every couple of days as DS was taking everything I fed him. Two weeks later and he's taking about 4 ice cubes of puree at lunch, and 2/3 cubes at breakfast.

He only had his purees very runny for the first few days. Since then they've been smooth, but thicker, and he's been fine with that.

HTH.

I started last week (DS is 26 weeks) and have just been going with the flow.

I have tried a bunch of stuff - a mix of spoon & finger foods (no purees though) at different times of day - some days he has had 3 lots of food, some days just one. I have no idea if this is a 'bad' thing to do, but my thinking was that since he isn't actually having that much and is still getting lots of milk it shouldn't really matter if it's all a bit haphazard (please set me straight if you disagree anyone!).

What has been most successful so far is banana (just cut into thick sticks to munch on), toast fingers (plain or with cream cheese), rice cakes, strawberry yoghurt, pear sticks and home made bombay potatoes and korma dahl (???).

He will not have a bar of porridge / ready brek / apple sauce (things I thought babies were supposed to like).

Basically I have been giving him stuff that I am or will eat myself so that if he isn't interested then nothing goes to waste.

He has been eating maybe 1 whole toast fingers (half of 2) and 1/4 - 1/2 a banana at 2 different 'meals' and this evening he had about 6 baby spoons of curry lentils (which we will no doubt regret giving him at some later date - but he loved it).

I do wonder whether I should get a bit more into a routine - but I reckon that it will just happen if I carry on giving him something when I am eating or there abouts.

Am I helping? Maybe not

yes thanks that is a help actually, we're asian so its good to know i can try him with our own food fairly soon. I'm going to try him with rice and dahl next week at some point too. It seems a bit early for toast to me but I might give that a go too

Toast is actually brilliant - they gum it till it's soggy so they can eat it and you can spread all sorts onto it. It's better than bread as well as it doesn't get as doughy when it gets wet.

Give it a go.

It is actually incredible what they can deal with - I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. There is a bit of gagging, but if you let them feed themselves then it seems almost impossible for them to get anything too big to deal with. Infact, it is the smaller things (bits of grated carrot for example) that seem to cause the gagging - I guess they are too small to chew or something.

Anyway. The experiments continue here........

Hi, if you want a good book that gives a weaning guide from 6mths, the Gina Ford weaning guide is really good. I know lots of people hate her routines but her weaning guide sounds like what you are looking for. It speeds through weaning quickly and suggests how to introduce finger foods alongside purees. We started dd (nearly 8mths) on this at 25 weeks and it has been going really well with lots of yummy recioes. It also tells you how to drop milk feeds (if that is what you want to do).

I agree with Pudding, I also have the Gina Ford weaning book & it makes sense to me, it's a very clear guide to how to wean, & also includes lots of finger-food ideas.

Maria - hows it all going - have you started weaning yet?

Hi, no, haven't started weaning yet My DS is 22 weeks, so will wait a bit longer, but am planning to start in the next month sometime.

How are you?

yep we're good.

I waited til 26 weeks and was so pleased with myself - and it meant that only had to mush foods and not puree properly - although still did all the ice cube trays because [whispers] I quite like it.

Hows the sleeping?

[apologies OP]

Yes [whispers too] am quite looking forward to the ice-cube-tray thing too!! Am a bit of a cooking-freak anyway!

Sleeping is better, thanks for asking. Am on holiday right now (returning tomorrow) & things are a bit all over the place, but still, much much better since we started making a few changes.

yes I love cooking as well - you dont need any of the overcomplicated recipes btw if you're used to cooking - my dd loves a basic lentil/chicken casserole, fish pie etc - I think the AK ones are completely ott...