We’ve been giving Molly food for over a month now. I can’t quite believe that. Can time slow down please?! We started weaning Molly onto food when she was just over 5 months old for a few different reasons. I really wanted to wait until she was 6 months as is recommended but my poor little baby wasn’t gaining weight very well. The health visitor told me to feed her more but that just ended up with a very sore and miserable mummy, and there was no changes to Molly either. I tried formula but for some reason during that time Molly decided she was on a bottle strike. So food was our last option.
We started simple and just started mixing some formula with baby porridge. I did this for about a week while persevering with the bottle, which she eventually started to take after a couple of weeks. Once she’d started taking a bottle and she was swallowing more baby porridge than spitting out I started to give her ‘proper food’. We started Molly on pureed vegetables, following the guidelines of vegetables first. I think for the first week she ate courgette, broccoli, carrots, and beetroot. She took to it really well. I don’t think there was much that she rejected, even on the first try. After we’d introduced lots of vegetables we started to feed her fruit. The first thing we tried was banana which she absolutely hated. She even hates it now, but it seems to be the only thing she doesn’t like so I think we’re doing well.
As soon as she hit the 6 months mark I started to give Molly some finger foods alongside her purees. I’d planned to do baby led weaning from the start but, because we started early, I knew that this was something that I could no longer consider doing. If I’m honest, I’m quite disappointed by this. It seems as though most of the advice and recommendations is to do baby led weaning from the start (and wait until your baby is 6 months old) and since I didn’t do this I sometimes feel a little guilty. As usual, all I wanted was the best for my baby whilst also trying to stay in line with current guidelines and recommendations. (I can now see, after 6 months, that this isn’t always possible and that I can judge better what is best for my baby).
Overall, weaning Molly has been a really fun experience. Preparing all the food is a bit of a pain. It's an extra job that I don't really have time for, especially because of how much I have to make. I never knew something so small could eat so much. Molly is now eating 2 meals a day. She has porridge made with formula for her breakfast sometimes mixed with a fruit puree. For her lunch she’ll usually have some sort of protein (eggs, beans, meat or fish), a vegetable, and then a carbohydrate like toast or potato. She’s had fingers of avocado, fingers of banana and toast but she doesn’t have many finger foods yet. Until you’re experiencing your little one eating finger foods you have no idea how scary it is. So we’re taking it slow just to keep anxiety levels low. We haven’t introduced many high risk allergy foods yet either for the same reason. She’s had cow’s milk, wheat, gluten, egg and fish which have all been fine so far. I’ll continue to keep introducing these high risks food and then keeping them in her diet regularly to help reduce the risk of allergies.
Looking back I’m glad we started weaning Molly when we did. It was obviously the best thing for her at the time and now she’s eating like a pro (almost). At some point we’ll move onto complete baby led weaning but for now I’ll continue to cover her face with puree (aiming for her mouth of course) and let her gum on a piece of toast or avocado afterwards.
wow that 6 months has flown as it does. We too weaned before 6 months – actually 4 months for us as our little one cut herself down to just 4 bottles of formula a day by this time, what a worry, but turns out she just prefers food to milk. Theyre all different and I guess they cant read current guidelines themselves and just know what they want or need.
That’s very true Tracey. What a great way to put it. I sometimes wish I couldn’t read the current guidelines too! I think then it would be much easier to follow my child’s cues.