Starting solids for DD - mashed up/pureed foods or big chunks?

Thanks for all the fantastic feedback ladies! Janesul - that's such a kind offer and yes, I'd love to borrow the book and yes, I'd be happy to pick it up from Arabian Ranches (I live in the Green Community so it's quite close :) ) How do I contact you? email me on [email protected] let me know when I can delete my addy.... :)

I'm a huge fan of baby led weaning. We started ds on french fry shaped pieces of food at about 6 months and now at almost a year he's a great eater. He loves meat, fish, chicken, all fruit and some vegetables. He also likes pasta and eggs. Meal times are a pleasure, we all sit around the table and eat, there is no begging the baby to eat or trying to sneak food in. He likes sitting at the table and enjoys going to restaurants! The other week we took him to brunch and he sat happily at the table trying things for 2 hours! The down sides are that 1) it's messy and2) it's time consuming. Most of the time it's lovely to share a leisurely meal but sometimes it would be practical to do a 5 minute breakfast on the way out the door. If you are interested in blw definitely check out Gil Rapley's book. There is a blw dubai facebook group as well. Could you give me a link to the facebook group please? Thank you :)

This was at around 5-6 months old too. I started weaning DD at 4 months and DS at 5.5 edited by Hello.Again.Kitty on 01/04/2011 H.A.K - do you mind if I pick your brain quickly? After much debate on Wednesday with others re: weaning at 4months or 6months, I decided to give it a go! DD is 17 weeks on Sunday and I started with one teaspoon of baby rice cereal mixed with breast milk at 4:30pm. This seems to be such a controversial subject ie. digestive systems aren't ready, food allergies... What made you decide to wean at 4 months? And which plan did you follow after the rice cereal? It's pretty much a fact that the gut isn't ready before 18 weeks, which corresponds to the end of the 4th month. The guidelines stating that babies should be weaned around 6 months (and the research linking early weaning to later health problems) is to do with some mums still trying to start their babies on solids (not-so-harmless cereal in their last bottle at night, for example) from a very early age, say 2 weeks old (this was common 40-odd years ago) and/or uniquely feeding them purees from jars, which often have all kinds of additives, salt and sugar in them. My health visitor took a very pragmatic approach, saying that my DD was showing all the signs of needing extra food (feeding ever 30 minutes from 19h30 until 22h and then waking every 2h throughout the night for a good milk feed was a subtle hint, as well as her following every fork movement with a gaping wide mouth and hmm sounds!). She also said that there was very little harm in starting off gently (baby rice and milk for a week or so, then moving on the home-made purées) and that the kind of things I was giving (fresh, home-made, organic) was ticking all the right boxes. She recommended that the earlier you start, the gentler you take it, introducing new food slowly - if you started at 6 months, you could pretty much launch into giving anything (not raw eggs and the usual...)... either way, both my two had got to eating everything going by 6 months. I think it's really important though to take your baby's lead. Start when they are ready, not because your mum/ friend/ neighbour said that it's make them sleep better (false in my experience), or that they would wither away if they didn't have more (not really true) or that your milk isn't good enough (not true in the vast majority of cases) and also don't start because every other baby the same age seems to be being weaned. It's not a race, there are no medals and they all get there in the end, in their own special way. Oh, and as for the recipes and whatnot, I just winged it and made up my own. Again, my lovely HV said that by a year old, the child should really be eating what the family eats - with the family... so by all means do wonderful recipes for the baby, but if you're not eating venison and sweet potato gratin yourselves on a regular basis, then there's little point in doing it. More often than not, I would save a portion of what we'd had the night before, heat it to piping hot and mash it up a bit for the kids! <em>edited by Hello.Again.Kitty on 02/04/2011</em>

Plumie, for the record...in Belgium almost all babies start weaning at 4 months so it's not that big of a deal. It is also not obligatory to start with rice cereal. As a matter of fact my doctor said it was better to start with veggies and/or fruit purees (but with a very lumpy consistency). I started DS at 5 months and only introduced meat and chicken at 6 months. Because I started with veggies he still isnt a big fan of fruit purees, hoping once he will be able to eat raw fruits that this will change. I use the babycook from Beaba for steaming and puree-ing (is that a word), but soon he will just eat what we eat. Also I use the oven quite a lot, like for butternut squash and sweet potatoes. U dont need a lot of fancy equipment to make babyfood, one of my friends steams everything in the microwave and just uses a fork to mash it, so it is completely up to you. You can find a lot of information and age appropriate recipes on the following sites: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/cereals.htm http://www.annabelkarmel.com/ <em>edited by Yasmine on 02/04/2011</em>

This was at around 5-6 months old too. I started weaning DD at 4 months and DS at 5.5 edited by Hello.Again.Kitty on 01/04/2011 H.A.K - do you mind if I pick your brain quickly? After much debate on Wednesday with others re: weaning at 4months or 6months, I decided to give it a go! DD is 17 weeks on Sunday and I started with one teaspoon of baby rice cereal mixed with breast milk at 4:30pm. This seems to be such a controversial subject ie. digestive systems aren't ready, food allergies... What made you decide to wean at 4 months? And which plan did you follow after the rice cereal?

the first time he tasted a jar he looked at me as if I was crazy coz there was nothing to bite, it looked like a smoothie, so runny and he refused. My two were the same - after a few weeks of home-made purées, they refused to even open their mouths for it, almost saying "hey, come on, I've done this now - bored of it, let's move on to some PROPER food! If I wanted runny, I'd stick with milk!" This was at around 5-6 months old too. I started weaning DD at 4 months and DS at 5.5 <em>edited by Hello.Again.Kitty on 01/04/2011</em>

My son is now 7 months and I started out with quite lumpy food. I started with root vegetables and he loved it. Because I was a bit afraid of how to transport fresh food safely I also wanted to get him used to jars so the first time he tasted a jar he looked at me as if I was crazy coz there was nothing to bite, it looked like a smoothie, so runny and he refused. I now have 75% of the time very lumpy food except if I make beef coz those chunks are to hard for him to bite and swallow so I make sure I always puree the beef or use mince. If someone has a tip on how to tenderize beef I would gladly hear it. We do give fingerfoods every day but he tends to choke on it quite often...but since it doesnt traumatize him we keep trying until he starts to get it. Steamed carrot sticks tomorrow....inshallah. We started a bit earlier because of reflux and solids have really helped, otherwise might have tried the BLW.

Our first meal was chicken, steamed carrots and asparagus. We were really surprised that he loved the asparagus. We just gave him what we were eating, but some other first food ideas that work well are roasted sweet potatoes, ripe mangoes, cucumbers, french toast and steamed broccoli.

I did a bit of a freestyle weaning method - invariably baby-led in that I followed their pace, but starting off with purees and moving rather quickly onto lumps, small pasta and then normal meals within a month or 2 of starting. They always had a variety of textures and flavours (sometimes quite bold - like olives, goat's cheese or smoked salmon) and could tackle it as they wished. Snacks always were finger foods - things like plain rice cakes, grapes, melon, banana...)

I have a copy of the Baby Led Weaning book that I've finished with. Happy for you to borrow it for as long as you like. We are in the Ranches if you'd like to pick to pick it up. We used the BLW method with our boy and it worked like a dream! He's now coming up to 18 months and eats everything, I mean everything, we give him. Of course he may have been that way anyway but it was a joy to watch his fat hands clutching broccoli treess and sucking on chicken legs from being really tiny. The only downside that I can see is the mess. Boy do you have mess. But it's summer so feed her in just a nappy and dunk her when she's finished eating. Let me know if you want my book to have a look at the method.

I'm a huge fan of baby led weaning. We started ds on french fry shaped pieces of food at about 6 months and now at almost a year he's a great eater. He loves meat, fish, chicken, all fruit and some vegetables. He also likes pasta and eggs. Meal times are a pleasure, we all sit around the table and eat, there is no begging the baby to eat or trying to sneak food in. He likes sitting at the table and enjoys going to restaurants! The other week we took him to brunch and he sat happily at the table trying things for 2 hours! The down sides are that 1) it's messy and2) it's time consuming. Most of the time it's lovely to share a leisurely meal but sometimes it would be practical to do a 5 minute breakfast on the way out the door. If you are interested in blw definitely check out Gil Rapley's book. There is a blw dubai facebook group as well.