Basic weaning info “guide”
(Disclaimer!!! I'm not a professional child nutritionist! This is all info I gathered from the first time round, so if its changed, out of date or in other ways incorrect, then sorry!
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Things to look for so you know your baby is ready for solids (likely between 4-8 months):
- they do not automatically push solids out of their mouth (lost the tongue-thrust reflex)
- they are ready and willing to chew.
- they can sit up in a highchair without slumping.
- they are starting to pick up objects between thumb and forefinger.
- they are eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in their mouth.
Things that aren't related to being ready for solids:
- chewing and sucking on their hands
- waking in the night when they have previously slept through
- wanting extra feeds
Good things to do at 3-6 months before starting solids:
sit them with you when you eat
give them a cup with a little bit of water/formula/ebm in.
give them plastic weaning spoons cups etc to play with at the table/high chair
give them ice chips or big ice cubes to play with
partly defrost ebm and smash it up like a slushy and give them some in a bowl with a spoon to practice with. You can freeze it in ice cube trays too, or make lollies (popsicles) with formula or breast milk!
Starting weaning
Start off with giving them a couple of teaspoons full of solids once a day. The time doesn't matter, but do it after a feed when they are relaxed and happy. Good first things to try are, steamed or boiled then pureed (with a little ebm/formula if you like)carrot, sweet potato, parsnip, swede, squash/pumpkin. You can buy baby rice in packets, but it doesn't have much flavour, and they might as well get the taste of something a bit different. When you do decide to do porridge type food, then Ready brek is way cheaper and just as good, but best not to give it before 6 months as it does contain gluten. You might find they love it, they might spit it all out and make a face. Either way, keep trying. If they really seem not to enjoy it, then stop and try the next day. If they are pushing everything out of their mouths each time you try, then wait a week and try again. Its best to start with one thing, say carrot, and try them on that for 3 days, then if that goes ok with no bad reaction, try them with something else. That means if they do seem to have a reaction to anything,you'll know what it is right away
You can keep giving the veg meal and then add in another meal, say “breakfast” earlier in the day if you like. Its nice to give maybe some cereal at one meal and then vegetables at the other. If you start weaning on or after 6 months, you can forge ahead quite quickly, and once they take to it you can give mixed purees, or try just mashing thoroughly rather than blending. Also, after 6 months, you can add in white fish, chicken, mash boiled egg, cooked lentils, cream cheese etc. and also do a spoon or 2 of fruit purees mixed with natural yogurt for a sort of dessert (way healthier and cheaper than buying the kids pots of fromage frais and stuff like that) . It takes a bit of confidence, but once they are enjoying some purees, try offering finger food as soon as you can, and let them experiment with that too! The whole thing should be fun, not stressful for you or for them.
You'll work up to then giving 3 meals a day, still small quantities, maybe a couple of tablespoons full at most. Maybe one of porridge, one mashed sweetpotato and chicken and one pureed pear and yogurt with some steamed butternut squash batons and broccoli florets to play with.
Just as an example. If you are having a beef stew for dinner yourself, then cook it without salt, take some out, blend it and keep it for a baby meal the next day! No need to cook something especially all the time! Try to do milk feeds first before meals, and certainly to start with, if they begin dropping milk feeds, then reduce the amount of solids you feed for a while before increasing again. The formula or breast milk are higher calorie than the food, so they need to keep their milk intake up until they are eating decent sized balanced meals
Foods to avoid before 12 months are honey, unpasturised dairy products, whole nuts (not recommended before 5 years due to the choking risk), cows milk as a drink (its ok to use on cereal though, but use full fat). Also avoid sugar and salt as much as possible. Things like hard cheese have salt in them already, and it is totally fine to include these foods in their diet in balanced quantities, but never add sugar or salt to food you are cooking for them to eat!
If you want to do baby led weaning, then its the same stuff, but instead of purees, give it in convenient sized sticks that have been steamed, roast or boiled so they are firm enough to pick up, but soft enough to gum at. Just give a few different choices of vegetable to start with and let them have fun tasting and playing with them. With BLW, they aren't all that likely to eat much until about 8-9 months, but its the exploring process thats important. There is some great recipes for finger food out there, and loaded spoons are good too for things like yogurt and cream cheese etc. If you do choose to BLW i'd definitely recommend reading the book, its really informative, if a bit militant for my personal tastes!
A couple of things, first, “food is for fun until one”. Don't worry about how much they eat. Milk (breast or formula) is still the main form of nutrition up to 12 months, so its a gradual transition to eating 3 meals a day (with snacks) and therefore not relying on milk nutritionally. There is no rush or stress, and to be honest, the more relaxed and enjoyable the experience is, the better eating habits your child will tend to develop. Best to concentrate on helping them experience a variety of textures and flavours and helping them explore and enjoy their food.
Second thing is, choking. Strikes terror into all of our hearts I know! But in reality, babies don't choke that often. The general rule is, if they are breathing, and or making noise, they aren't choking , they are gagging. Its actually really important to allow them to practice and perfect their gag reflex, its what stops them choking on food. If food starts obstructing their breathing, they will start gagging to move the food forwards in their mouths so they can chew it, it can look and sound really alarming, but its a good thing. If they are choking, they will be silent and won't be able to draw breathe, they will start to go red, then blue quite quickly. If they do choke, don't put your fingers in their mouth. Check to see if you can see the obstruction. Put them over your lap with their heads lower down than their feet (so gravity can help) and thump them pretty hard on the back 5 times. Check them and repeat that up to 3 times. Almost all obstructions can be cleared doing that. If you can't see what they are choking on, and thumping their back doesn't work then call an ambulance, the operators can talk you through what to do
For a baby to choke on things they need to be about the size of a small grape, so don't feed things that size, or that are likely to break off in that sized chunks that aren't soft enough to be smushed up in their mouth. Roh has never choked, but used to gag loads, I always just let him do it, and he always sorted any problems himself
I can help out with recipe ideas whenever it comes up!
I always cock it up...
hope you're ok hon xx