Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

What should I start my 5 and a half month old on food wise?

39 replies

queenceleste · 22/02/2009 23:36

I can't find any of my baby books and am not sure what the latest orthodoxy is!
Is it baby rice and breast milk? What is the most gentle way to start?

OP posts:

Clary · 23/02/2009 00:31

The latest advice is to wait until he or she is 6mo.

After that they can eat almost anything (not shellfish, honey or choking hazard type food (cherry toms, whole grapes, hazelnuts).

I would start then with simple bits of food they can pick up and eat - veg, fruit, bread, pasta, cereal etc.

But there are a whole load of experts on here to whose superior knowledge I would bow

Trinityrhino · 23/02/2009 00:39

nothing till they are 6 months

cmotdibbler · 23/02/2009 09:22

Wait till they are 6 months, and can sit up unaided. Then just chuck some of whatever you are eating (obv don't add salt to your cooking) on their high chair tray and let them eat what they can transfer themselves.

stickybeaker · 23/02/2009 09:30

Personally I went down the puree route at 6 months. BLW didn't work for us.

We did baby rice then pureed fruit/veg. All quite gentle to start off with.

As she got the hang of picking stuff up we let her eat whatever we were having.

At 13 months she really will have a go at anything which makes life easier for us. I'd do the same thing again next time.

MrsMattie · 23/02/2009 09:34

Started DS at 5.5 mths (ticked all the other 'should you start weaning?' boxes, so the 6 mth thing seemed irrelevant to me).

Started him on pureed fruit/veg/baby rice, but to be honest, he was eating whatever we had with his fingers pretty quickly with no ill effects. I never enforced the '3 meals a day' thing, and milk was still his main food for a good while afterwards.

Original poster

queenceleste · 23/02/2009 11:03

Just out of interest ignorance how do people count the months for the purposes of weaning? Is it calendar months? I just have no idea. BIG pressure from dh to start weaning, he feels left out, I waited til 6 months last time but it wasn't easy.

OP posts:

AitchTwoOh · 23/02/2009 11:08

"Personally I went down the puree route at 6 months. BLW didn't work for us."

do you mean 'we didn't try BLW' or 'BLW didn't work for us', i'm curious.

latest govt advice is mashed table foods and finger food as soon as the baby can manage. for most tbh this is around 6 mos hich can take you into blw territory. hth. www.babyledweaning.com

DaveTheHairyHandedTrucker · 23/02/2009 11:22

aitch,

glad i caught you

dd is nearly 8 months and gags on anything offered,

what can i do?

tried mash banana, mash pot, sweede, carrott, even rusks are a problem,

it makes me very nervous,

kidcreoleandthecoconuts · 23/02/2009 11:50

I started DD at 6 months on pureed fruit and veg. I did try BLW but DD would get hysterical when she wretched on the lumps and was often sick as a result. I reintroduced finger food at around 8 months and she was fine then. She is 12 months now and eats a combination of finger food and spoon feeds ie. yogurts, pasta and sauce etc.

AitchTwoOh · 23/02/2009 12:00

i'm not understanding the concept of trying BLW and doing purees from 6 months. you do know that the two are mutually exclusive?

dave, ach, what a pita for you. i've seen a few (like, say, 10-15 or so out of a membership of about 1500) people mentioning this on my forum. while 10 ish isn't a statistically solid gold sample, it does seem that some babies do just lose their gag reflexes later than others, which is stressful whether you're trying to feed them or let them feed themselves.

from what i recall, most of them just 'clicked' at some stage, i'm sure i remember one at nine months and most thereabouts. interestingly, i have other pages on my site with passages from old weaning manuals and it seems like 9 months was until recently a fairly common time to start weaning in any case.

i dunno what you can do, though, cos it must be just so ICK apart from anything else. re your (understandable) stresses, i always recommend doing an infant resus course before weaning (actually i think they should be mandatory for all parents) and i am reminded of the fact that when dd gagged we used to do really lunatic exaggerated chewing faces at her and say nyum nyum nyum etc. that may just have been to occupy ourselves while she did her thing, though.

kidcreoleandthecoconuts · 23/02/2009 12:05

Aitch...I tried BLW first but got nowhere after perserving for weeks. So I offered pureed veg and fruit instead. And then tried finger food again when she was a little older, so she has a mixure now.
Why are they mutually exclusive?

Wigglesworth · 23/02/2009 12:07

Queen, I think the guidelines say 26 weeks.

AitchTwoOh · 23/02/2009 12:18

well, strictly speaking, you can't 'get nowhere' with BLW because the aim is not to get food into them, but to let them explore this new thing and then self-feed. so, say for example your baby ignores the food/doesn't swallow anything for the first few weeks you don't try something new because they're not eating, you'd just let them do it in their own time. same as if they're starting to cruise one day, you don't buy them walking shoes and expect a round trip to the park the next.

i do think that letting them progress at their own pace really is a central tenet of BLW. that's not to say that people should never feed yog on a spoon or whatever, that's a bit rabid for my tastes and tbh i've only ever seen it proposed by detractors.

but the bit about letting them dictate and waiting until they do it, that's the whole point of BLW afaic.

kidcreoleandthecoconuts · 23/02/2009 12:34

i understand the fact that they wont eat much at first and that its about textures etc but I personally couldnt cope with my DD gagging and vomiting every meal time. I think she just wasnt ready for it.

AitchTwoOh · 23/02/2009 12:41

they really do gag to begin with, though, some more than others. at the end of the day you do what you're happy with, so you say you couldn't cope with x, y or z. someoen else may have been fine with it.

i hope i've cleared up why mixing mashed and finger food isn't quite blw though, it is different. not better or worse, in fact it's what the govt recommends as i mentioned earlier, just different.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 23/02/2009 12:43

I started on baby rice mixed with milk and mashed banana, (for a couple of weeks) then introduced a veggie meal, such as sweet potato, carrot, potato, swede, (any combination) mashed with milk and a little philadelphia, or butter, or something. I tried him on weetabix today and he loved it.

BLW is a different approach, I don't think that's what you were asking for is it? And 5.5 months is fine if you feel your baby is ready for it.

AitchTwoOh · 23/02/2009 12:48

she asked what the latest orthodoxy is, to be fair. not unreasonable to point out that BLW is popular while quoting the latest govt guidelines.

Original poster

queenceleste · 23/02/2009 23:54

so Aitch, when you say they're mutually exclusive, do you mean with blw you don't do the puree/baby rice route? You just let them feed themselves on real food when they're ready as in the excellent photos on the website?
Thanks!

So is feeding babies purees/etc for people who are scared of that degree of mess???? i.e. me?????!!!

I am a little scared, I fed ds the puree/rice route. With blw do you have to hose them down every meal?? ?

OP posts:

Twinklemegan · 24/02/2009 00:01

I think splitting hairs between 5.5 months and 6 months is being a bit precious tbh. The way the guidelines are normally phrased is that most babies are ready for some solid food at around six months. The readiness of their guts will be evidenced in many other signs, and for some babies these signs will be very strong before (but probably not much before) the six month mark. The classic tale on here is Wallace's DS and the banana, isn't it?

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2009 09:49

lol, i think people have a habit of sending in their messiest pics, tbh. but it is messy, a lot of food gets dropped in the beginning for example. and broccoli is a revelation.

but the other way of looking at it is that they do get a lot of stuff out of the way, that every child will have to learn to feed himself and there will be mess, you're just delaying it.

people like tanya byron etc are very much against wiping up while children are eating, washing faces and hands during a meal etc, so even if you're doing purees nowadays i think the consensus is that it shouldn't be a particularly clean experience in any case.

MrsMattie · 24/02/2009 09:54

Totally agree with Twinklemegan.

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2009 09:57

oh, me too.

spinspinsugar · 24/02/2009 10:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mololoko · 24/02/2009 10:48

we started blw at just after 5.5 months because all the signs were there (after doing a resus course)

dd started eating at about 6mo. she's now nearly 7mo and eats a fair bit (i think). she tries anything.

the one thing i will say about blw is that out of my ante natal group of 7, i am the only one blw. and i am the only one who hasn't hated weaning.

in fact, we're having great fun, and i HONESTLY don't think the mess is worse than purees judging by what i see with the other babies. we are lucky that she very rarely gags and chews really well.

it might not be for everyone, but we're loving it.

mololoko · 24/02/2009 10:50

oh, and i did help her get a spoon to her mouth for yoghurt, porridge etc at the beginning, which may not be "pure" blw, but within days she was having none of it and now takes the loaded spoon out of my hand and uses her fingers to shovel it on off the spoon.

Flip

1 2