Starting weaning..

[MrsMattie]

OK, so next week DD turns 26 wks. definitely think she is ready for weaning, so this isn't about that issue. But do I start her on baby rice or what? Do I have to, is what I mean? What's best for her?

I'm not an expert but from my experience with DS (18m) I tried baby rice at lunchtime on day one. He loved it so I just followed on with rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day. Then same next day but with pureed carrot added to the rice at lunchtime.

As there were no negative reactions (allergy, vomiting, dodgy poo etc) I moved on to baby cereal at breakfast on day 3 and pureed vegetables followed by pureed fruit for both lunch and dinner. Sometimes I added creme fraiche to the fruit for a change and I often added baby rice to the fruit or veg too.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are great to start. At an nhs weaning class I was told to get them established on veg before introducing fruit as it establishes their taste for savoury before sweet food. This could be a load of rubbish though - most veg is pretty sweet tasting too imo.

Annabel Karmel's baby and toddler book has a menu planner with ideas & suggested quantities for meals on a week by week basis. I found this useful for the first month or so as it helped me make sure I was introducing a good variety of flavours. It also explained a lot about balanced diet for baby's and toddlers and tells you what they should stay clear of until they are over 1.

In saying all of that DS did happily scoff some rather hot chilli and tomato pasta from my plate on day 3 of weaning. I thought he would hate it and it would put him off stealing my food in future. (I'm terribly selfish!) He loved it and it backfired on me completely.

I don't think baby rice is mandatory but it is nice and bland as an introduction to food and is really useful for thickening runny purees or adding bulk.

Hope this helps.

I started ds1 off on some mashed banana at tea time. Did that for a few days before I introduced breakfast. I offered baby rice then, but ds hated it! I tried different consistencies, but he just didn't like it. Can't blame him, it is foul, so I gave him the flavoured breakfasts from Hipp Organic. Much better.
All babies are different and all families are different. I started at tea time, because I had more time in the evenings than in the mornings. Others will do it in the morning because that might be when baby is hungriest and all are feeling fresh, not stressed after a long day.
Just do what is easy for you

Another alternative is just to go straight to finger food of family meals - i.e. 'baby-led weaning'.

Read this - far easier than purees!

Send a "tree" of broccoli his way, or a banana and watch. You don't need to use baby rice - it was a product designed when babies were weaned too early and they needed something super bland for their guts. It's not needed at six months.

Thanks all. Not keen on BLW, so deffo going to stick with mush for the first while, but good to know there is no real reason not to start off slowly on veg/fruit. What about very runny porridge, made with proper (finely milled) oats? And can I use cow's milk to make it? God, I've completely forgotten what I did with DS.

I think it's ok to use cows milk when cooking and mixing with food. When we started on breakfast, I continued to use formula so the taste was familiar.
I didn't work by the 3 day rule either. The only thing I'll do different with ds2, is offer finger foods sooner. Ds1 didn't have so much as a rusk until he was 9/10 months, so I might offer finger food alongside mush from day 1.
I do expect things to be a bit different generally though. Ds2 isn't as big as ds1 and seems keener on milk, so may not eat as much as quick as ds1 did.
Ds2 is 14 weeks and I'm going to start giving him a spoon to play with. I did it from 10 weweks with ds1 and had no problems weaning.
Goodluck