Weaning overview

Everyone has a different take on weaning, as does their mother or MIL ;) For me I read the BLW book and listened to my mum when she said, "when kids are crawling around putting things in their mouths, and wanting whats yours, they're ready for food", vs my MIL who was more of the "fill them up with as many carbs as you can stuff into them from as young as possible because they'll probably sleep better" school of thought. I didn't strictly speaking do BLW though, I went the puree/spoon route in the end which made my baby happier and seemed easier on his reflux, but the main principles for me were..... 1) baby eats food if/when and how baby wants to eat food, no coaxing, no tricking (don't alternate a yummy food with a spoonful of something they don't like, they just learn to mistrust the spoon), no getting cross if you slave away for hours cooking something and it gets rejected. If a meal takes 5 minutes fine, if it take s 30 minutes, still fine so long as baby is happy sticking around for it. 2) baby eats as much or as little as he/she wants 3) baby gets to watch you eat first, this is important as its the instinctive way that they know that something is safe a good to eat, you can do this now even without actually giving food your baby is learning about food, watching you chew etc. 4) If I would't eat it, he doesn't have to..... baby food needs to taste nice, which quickly ruled out pretty much all pre-made jars of baby-foods for me. You can add herbs and spices, its a myth that babies like bland food (but don't ever add salt or give salty foods like deli meats.) 5) their tummies are little and every mouthful replaces breastmilk/formula (and can even block absorption if some of the good stuff in your milk) so make each calorie count. In other words don't fill them up on ****, give them good nutritious food. Personally I think baby-rice is junk, its just starch with an added multivitamin to try and compensate for otherwise being nutritionally valueless. Unless you are planning on raising the vegetarian give them meat/eggs etc from day one (assuming you have waited until 6 months +, I'm not sure what the rules are if you wean sooner) If you are breastfeeding, then always give some breastmilk with a meal, (for the first few months you should breastfeed first, later on its ok to give solids first) it contains enzymes designed purely to break down starch. FF babies are at a disadvantage when it comes to complex carbs as this enzyme isn't in formula, so it might be best to lay off the starchy foods (rice, carrots, corn, potato, pasta etc) until their system is more developed otherwise they can get constipated and have a sore tummy as the food more or less ferments in their gut. With a reflux baby and a family history of wheat and seafood allergies as well as eczema, I tread carefully. Its much easier to pinpoint a reaction if you introduce foods one at a time and I certainly found it useful to do so as oats turned out to really aggravate DS's reflux as did wheat and yoghurt so was glad I had done a staggered introduction of the most allergenic foods. some random links I have saved from when we started solids http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/lv/lvdec99jan00p130.html http://www.parentingscience.com/iron-rich-foods.html http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5955/reply#bmj_el_249716 In a nutshell you want your baby to eat food because he/she is hungry and they enjoy it, not to make mummy happy or because they get punished if they don't want it, so everything you do should be with that goal in mind.

We followed BLW and it's worked really well. Once you get your head around the fact that the child will not starve himself and eat how much they want/need, then all is well. You see, I've got a friend-of-a-friend who really, really went for the BLW approach and it really, really didn't work out for her baby... she was devastated because she had to reassess her approach and, in the face of her previously bouncing bubba losing weight and not eating anything, had to move to purées and start again the traditional way. That's also why I'm a great advocate of not seeing any approach (in anything regarding birth and childcare) as the be-all-and-end-all. If you really bear in mind that there's no right or wrong, there's no possibility of "failure" or "backtracking" to get stuck on... just different approaches to get the same job done!

For Baby-led Weaning info, get your hands on the book by the same name by Gill Rapley, it's full of great info and really useful. We followed BLW and it's worked really well. Once you get your head around the fact that the child will not starve himself and eat how much they want/need, then all is well. It's very messy, but easy to clean up here with the tiled floors. Just remember that as HAK says it's not an exact science so you can mix and match until you find something that suits you and your routine. What suits one baby does not necessarily suit them all! Good luck whatever you decide to!

Bless yer - it's not an exact science! There are so many different schools of thought and approaches... and even the recommendations change regularly! My main pointers would be: - let your baby lead the process in terms of appetite, pureed/ mulched or finger foods... - the earlier you start (not before 18 weeks), the more you'd have to look out for adverse reactions, but if there's no history of allergy in your family, then chances are, your baby won't be allergic to anything - avoid salt, sugar and processed foods - start as you mean to continue - the goal is to have them eating your family meals, so by all means cook the venison hot-pots or chicken and apple goujons from the books, but if you only eat curries or spag bol at home, then you're kind of going to be facing a bit of a let-down! - remember mealtimes are just as important socially as nutritionally - children will learn their eating habits and manners from observing the adults around them, so try to have meals together and also try not to project your own personal food-related dislikes onto them. Don't stress or fuss about how and what they're eating - that's a one-way trip to a "fussy eater" (who isn't actually by nature, it's just that s/he's been taught to be.. by the fussing, stressed out parent/carer) - never assume that a baby won't like something or that it will only like certain things. My two will happily eat smoked salmon, sun-dried tomatoes, chilli, olives and curries and have done for as long as I can remember. - always give water with meals, but carry on giving the milk too. If you are breastfeeding and weaning on demand, then you will hardly notice the transition. - if you have set mealtimes in your household, stick to them. Sit at a table... together. Don't use the time to go do some chores or read your book and don't chase bubs around shoving morsels in his mouth whenever he doesn't realise it. Think eating [i'>habits[/i'>... and healthy ones at that! Basically, it's not rocket science, no two children are the same, no book has all the answers and they all get there in the end!

Used the Annabel Karmel books for age specific recipes and ideas. I started DD at 6 months with 1 feed a day (1-10 spoonfuls) and by 7months was up to 3 meals aday (very small). My friend gave me the best advice though and that was to get them on to breakfast,lunch and dinner at the regular times. We fitted food/milk around the set nap times.