We've all heard "food before 1 is just for fun." When DS1 was 7/8ish months, it was neither "fun" nor "just for." Getting him to eat solids (purees or BLW-style) was totally awful, he wasn't interested. No worries, right? It was just supposed to be fun. Except that my already tiny munchkin was dropping weight...fast. And I had plenty of milk, so it wasn't a supply issue. My ped had us drop some nursing sessions and push the solids and we eventually got his weight to move up.

With DS2 (7 months), he is a much bigger baby, and solids has been a totally different experience. He'll eat pretty much anything, but even if he chooses not to, it doesn't seem to affect his weight or his sleep, and he's doing just fine on breast milk alone if he isn't interested in solids that day. Solids have been both "fun" and "'just for!"

I found the phrase "food before one" to be really stressful with DS1--it just wasn't true for him. It made me feel awful, and was bad advice for my son. But now it totally makes sense! I still won't use it, because of my negative experience with DS1, but I do understand why people use it. What was your experience?