Hellobee Boards

Ooh, good thread! I have a mental block when it comes to solids...I just don't want to think about it. I want someone to tell me exactly what to do, and I want it to be easy and not messy. And I want the cloth diaper laundry to not get more complicated. Is that too much to ask?

LO's age now:
12.5 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids?
He was able to sit unassisted and showed interest in what we were eating. We started after he started trying to swipe food off my plate.

How old was LO when you started solids?
Just over 6 months.

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid:
Mostly BLW, but he did get some homemade purees, mostly at the beginning (and by purees I really mean things like mashed sweet potato)

What did you start with?
Green beans. We didn't really plan to start that night but we were on vacation with DH's family, my MIL was holding him and he grabbed a handful off of her plate and shoved them in his mouth before anyone could react.

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do?
No, not really. To be honest I didn't think too hard about it and mostly just fed him whatever I was eating. If it was something he couldn't eat (like peanut noodles) I had some finger foods from the wholesome baby site frozen--things like meatloaf patties made with ground turkey, applesauce, quinoa, carrots, etc.

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids?
I started with just breakfast, because it was the meal that we could all have together (my DH is almost never home for dinner with us...I eat a snack with DS when he eats dinner and then I have dinner with DH later). After 2-3 weeks I started offering him dinner. A month or so maybe after that I added lunch, and a month or so after that I added in an afternoon snack.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids?
I nursed in the morning, then we had breakfast 30-45 minutes later. I'd nurse again half an hour or so after lunch, and then right before bed (30-45 minutes after dinner).

Now he really only has good nursing sessions in the morning, and drive-by nurses a lot during the day, both before and after meals. I just roll with it, especially since he's over a year now.

What did you like about the approach to solids you took?
I felt very relaxed about the whole thing. I love that I've been able to introduce my LO to a wide range of foods: lots of different flavors and textures and levels of spice, and he'll eat them. I know that he has a spice tolerance equal to, if not better, than mine. I like not stressing over making baby food (or buying it) because he eats what we eat. With few exceptions I don't have to let my dinner get cold while I feed him at the table. I don't have to worry about bringing food for him when we go out to eat because he can share my dinner. And an added benefit is that it's really forced me to look at my diet and the sort of meals I prepare. If I'm feeding my son what I eat I need to make sure it's as healthy and nutritious as I can make it.

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids?
Oh it's a mess, for sure. We do dinner right before bath time, and as soon as I let him out of his high chair he knows to walk right to the tub. It's slowly getting better as he's figuring out how to use a spoon, but he often ends up with a Greek yogurt facial or peanut butter behind his ears. But that's really been my only complaint.

Would you do anything differently next time?
No. Well, green beans probably wouldn't be my first food choice. To be honest, we didn't think too hard about doing this. I didn't spend hours researching it (although I do have the BLW book--unread after the first chapter). We did it because it's what felt instinctively right for us. Although I'm not holding my breath I am *hoping* that being exposed to such a wide range of foods now will help prevent having a picky eater later.

Great idea! We started solids a year ago so we're old pros. ha just kidding.

LO's age now: 18 months
What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? holding his head up, reaching for our food, playing with spoons, opening his mouth and swallowing (no tongue reflex)

How old was LO when you started solids? 5 months

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: We started with purees since he was still so young. But we made BLW very gradual and he was full-on BLW by 8-9 months.
What did you start with? bananas, avocado and pears
Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? Not really. I wanted to focus completely on fruits & veggies and he didn't have an grains until he was over a year. He did have a quinoa (a seed) around 8-9 months though.

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? He was a solids-eating fiend from the get-go! He could eat half a banana at 5 months in one sitting. We started with one meal a day but he progressed quickly into three meals by 9 months.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids? He was still nursing 8-10x a day when he started solids. About 6x a day once he hit a year old.

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? It was very laid back and I really let him lead the way. I did't have an anxiety. I also am glad I didn't introduce grains.

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? Not really anything- it went so well!

Would you do anything differently next time? I would get a different high chair haha!

LO's age now: 12 months!

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? From 5 months he was grabbing at our food, could sit up (supported) pretty well, and I think he'd lost the tongue thrust reflex

How old was LO when you started solids? 6.5 months!

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: chunky purees, so I guess a hybrid?

What did you start with? fork mashed banana! he LOVED it. ate an entire half a banana the first go. we started giving finger foods at 8 months

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? nope. just did whatever food looked good to me at the time

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? we started with lunch, and just did lunch for a month. then we added dinner as well. it wasn't until he was almost 9 months that I decided to add breakfast. even now at 12 months we don't really do snacks during the day, just 3 big meals, and his milk bottles

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids? I did milk before solids until he was almost 11 months. at that point he was still nursing every 3-4 hours, so we would just fit his meals around that. not on purpose, the thought just never occurred to me that we would probably need to be filling him up on food rather than milk soon! now at 12 months he has 3 bottles (200ml or 7 ish oz each) a day, one before each of his 2 naps then one before bed

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? it was easy. i didn't research anything so couldn't make myself feel guilty about giving him the "wrong" things at the "wrong" time.

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? it's pretty messy. he discovered that he could throw things on the floor at around 10 months, and I don't think our floor has been clean since!

Would you do anything differently next time? not that I can think of! maybe start him with cutlery earlier? at 12 months he still doesn't use a spoon himself, but also doesn't let me spoon feed him... so no runny foods for him these days!

ETA: I would also start giving water with meals earlier. he was constipated on and off for a few months after we moved to 3 meals a day, but wouldn't touch water, or anything else out of a sippy cup/straw cup (I ended up putting a splash of apple juice in his water at first to convince him to drink it!)

Great thread!!

LO's age now: 7.5 months
What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? Sat well unassisted, grabbed for our food, started nursing more, practiced chewing while we ate. She has every sign in the book, except "is six months"
How old was LO when you started solids? 5.5 months. I really battled with the decision to start her before six months given the current recommendation. Finally my mom said that no magical mystery thing was going to happen the night she turned six months and that I should pay attention to her and not the calendar.
Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: purées and now BLW
What did you start with? Roasted sweet potato
Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? I just went with whatever we were having.
How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? First month dinner. Second month added in breakfast. Adding in lunch this week.
What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids? Nurse before and after.
What did you like about the approach to solids you took? I guess that I listened to my gut and not the experts. I'm her expert.
What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? I really second guessed my decision to start early for a while
Would you do anything differently next time? Nope.
Other: get those smock like bibs that sleeves. They are the best.

LO's age now: 8 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? She would watch us eat and seemed to want to try food

How old was LO when you started solids? 6 mo

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: Mostly purees, but some BLW

What did you start with? Rice cereal for a week and then moved on to veggie and fruit purees

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? I started with orange veggies, then green, the fruits

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? Started off once a day, just a tsp or so and then progressed to more and twice a day. We give her some nibbles of food at dinner, but she's not great about feeding herself yet.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids? She gets 4 bottles and eats twice a day. Early morning bottle, breakfast, late morning bottle, lunch, afternoon bottle, bedtime bottle

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? I think we were able to gradually expose her to new things

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? Nothing much, I would have skipped rice cereal but our dr. told us to offer it for a week.

Would you do anything differently next time? I don't think so - this is working out so far so good.

LO's age now: 16 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? She was able to sit up by herself and showed interest in our food

How old was LO when you started solids? 6months

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid:homemade purges
What did you start with? Green beans

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? I tried to do veggies first and then fruits. After green beans I tried squash, steel cute oats and then carrots and sweet potato

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? I started offering one meal a day and once she had gotten the hang of things I increased it to two meals a day.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids? I kept the same schedule with bottles & breast feeding and added the solids around my schedule ie an hour before it was time for her bottle.

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? I liked making everything myself and knowing everything was fresh.

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? Nothing I can think of.

Would you do anything differently next time? No I would do everything the same, except I would skip squash

LO's age now:7.5 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids?Grabbing at food on plates, could sit up, seemed to never be full

How old was LO when you started solids?5.5 months

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: purees

What did you start with?sweet potato

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? I just randomly chose different stage 1 foods to introduce. I did introduce oatmeal at around 6.5 months. Now at 7.5 months I will mash food off of our plates for him to try.

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? once a day for a week, then bumped up to 2 a day for about a week, then to 3. I gave small portions, however.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids?
7am nurse, solids
11am nurse, solids
3am nurse
6:30pm nurse, solids
Nurse whenever he wakes at night

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? I just tried to be laid back about it. If he wanted them, he ate them. If he didn't, he didn't. He was still getting all of his needs met while nursing. We made it fun by taking pictures of his reactions.

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? Don't really have anything.

Would you do anything differently next time? Not so far.

Other:

LO's age now: 8 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? Sitting up with assistance

How old was LO when you started solids? Ped gave us the green light at four months but I wanted to wait until she was 6 months. We started one week before she turned 6 months.

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: purees

What did you start with? Banana. Our ped recommended starting with rice cereal or oatmeal but I preferred fruits and veggies.

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? No plan. I go on wholesome mama website for ideas and I buy whatever is on sale at Whole Foods.

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? Once a day at 6 months, increase to twice a day around 7.5 months.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids?
BF first, solids about an hour later.

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? Don't stress. Have fun with it. Take lots of photos and videos!

Would you do anything differently next time? I don't think so

Other: I also started offering water after solids

LO's age now:

Almost 9 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids?

Sitting well, "chewing" when he saw food, trying to grab at food

How old was LO when you started solids?

A little past 6 months

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid:

Hybrid of BLW & homemade purees (so more like mashes that he could grab, not runny)

What did you start with?
Avocado

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do?
Not really.

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids?
I fed once a day until he really seemed to be excited about eating and consuming more. Then it quickly became clear he wanted a third meal - I think around 7.5 months we added breakfast and around 8 months dinner.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids?
Nurse 4x a day and solids meals about an hour and a half after nursing, roughly.

What did you like about the approach to solids you took?
We were relaxed and went at his pace - he practiced BLW and purees and we could really see him work through chewing developmentally. He hasn't/doesn't gag that often but when he does we both feel comfortable trusting that he's learning how to handle food in his mouth and knock on wood, it's never escalated to choking.

The only thing we've really avoided is honey (as everyone should); everything else we've let him try! It's so fun to watch him experience new spices and flavors.

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids?

I feel bad that I let him eat something spicy and it made him cry But other than that.. nothing! It is definitely more work and clean up than the parent controlling the spoon but I'm hoping it pays off in his attitude towards eating and food

Would you do anything differently next time?
Nope.

Other:
It drives me nuts when my Mom says " you can't feed that to a baby! " (Indian food.. raw onion.. raw tomato.. banana that's not cut up.. etc.). I feel like if he doesn't like it/want it, he'll let us know.

Also, it totally freaked me out that when he started eating more avidly he got crazy constipated. It SUCKED to see him cry while pooping We immediately went to a prune puree / raw pears diet and pushed the water intake (and called our pedi). It took 3 days and a tapering off of the prune puree but ever since then, so far so good. That's the only thing I wish I would've paid more attention to, trying to ration out bananas and applesauce since they're constipating.

LO's age now: 14 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? She was reaching for sandwiches out of my hand and full on biting them. Always watching us eat, and trying to reach for/grab our food.

How old was LO when you started solids? hmmm, about 5 months? I can't remember.

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: tried purees, she hated them. BLW from then on out with no choking issues at all.

What did you start with? Avocado, sweet potato, etc. (AKA: the usual suspects)

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? No plan, we just started feeding her whatever we ate. She eats EVERYTHING now (sushi, indian, shellfish, you name it, she eats it)

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? We started with offering dinner solids, and she also got daycare solids at lunch. When she wanted more food, more was offered, and we also added in breakfast.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids? For a long time she didn't eat that much dinner, so she got a bottle before and after solids. (Last bottle in bed, after bath, so a while after the pre-dinner bottle and dinner).

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? I like that we have always made food accessible and made eating everything normal behavior. No big song and dance about veggies, etc. She is an adventurous eater!

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? nothing.

Would you do anything differently next time? Nothing.

Other: Kids are tougher than you think, and their gums (if no teeth yet) are WAY tougher than you think. They can eat tons and tons of stuff, and don't really need it mashed up/cut into microscopic pieces. They get the hang of eating!

LO's age now:
16 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids?
She was sitting up by herself, showing lots interest at us eating, grabbing for our food/spoons etc.

How old was LO when you started solids?
1 week shy of 6 months. our ped reco's 6 months and we were trying really hard to adhere to it. But she had been showing signs for a few weeks

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid:
We started with purees then to chunkier purees then some solid table foods. By 7.5 months we were probably mostly BLW

What did you start with?
I wanted to start with local in season food so we started with a roasted butternut squash that I pureed with a immersion blender

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do?
Mainly to stay away from high allergen foods. Give what was local and in season. I had also made a lot of applesauce and canned pears from when they were in season over the summer and fall.

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids?
I started with 1x a day. "dinner" time with us. Then we started sending it once to daycare. Daycare informed us when she wanted a second feeding of solids. I think around 10 months?

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids?
At 16 months, we nurse at wakeup, then she gets breakfast around 630/700. At daycare she gets a morning snack around 9am then about 5oz of whole milk around 11am. Lunch around 11:30. Snack at wake up around 230 then another 5oz of whole milk around 3/330. Snack around 500pm when we get home then dinner around 600/630. Gosh, she eats a lot!

What did you like about the approach to solids you took?
I like that we took it really slow. I firmly believed in food before one is just for fun! So I never stressed if she was getting enough.

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids?
The only thing I wish is I would have remembered I was borderline anemic during pregnancy and given LO more iron fortified foods from the beginning.

Would you do anything differently next time?
Probably just more iron foods from the start.

Other:
Just have fun with it!! Don't stress. Watching your child explore and enjoy new foods is one of the greatest parenting joys. Let them see you eat. Don't be afraid to introduce food you do not like. If they don't like it the first time? Try again a week or two later. LO hated bananas in the beginning. Finally after 2-3 tries she loves bananas now. And don't rush them. They will eat table food when they are ready. There is no need to offer something else if they don't eat what you first offer before one. They get everything they need from bm or formula.
And also, gums + saliva soften foods up more than you think they can.

My son is 2.5 years old and he's a total toddler PITA eater, so I get pangs of wanting to have done things differently.

We started at 5 months with rice cereal. My son was formula fed and we were on a formula plan with stages (diff formulas per age) and we couldn't move up to the 6 month one until he was six months, but he was at the top of consuming the ounces of milk in the other formula and draining the bottles, always wanting more, so we had to supplement with food, otherwise I would have waited.

I switched to oatmeal cereal almost immediately, and I started adding in fruits right away. I was adamant about introducing one thing at time until about 10 months, then I relaxed and started offering more complex foods.

I offered peanut butter at a year thinking he'd hate it and he literally licked the spoon clean and dove in for another serving.

@Smurfette: We just took a super ripe avocado and fork-mashed it into a puree at first. LO was never a big fan of purees, so pretty quickly we just switched to giving her chunks of very ripe/soft avocado.

You can definitely mash it and mix in a little BM so that it tastes more familiar to her at first!

@Smurfette: I pureed it myself, or mashed with a fork! He hated it at first but I kept trying a couple times a week and now it's one of his favorite foods!

LO's age now: 9 months

What solid readiness signs did your LO show before starting solids? Sitting up on his own for a while, staring at us eating, reaching for food, etc

How old was LO when you started solids? 5.5 months

Baby led weaning, purees, or some hybrid: hybrid, we started with puree, quickly moved to chunky puree, finger foods. we do a mix of chunky puree + finger foods + our food now

What did you start with? swt potato puree and pouches

Did you have a plan for what food to progress to? If so, what did you do? no plan, ds tried new fruits and veggies pretty much daily.

How often did you start feeding solids and when did you increase the number of times you offered solids? we did one time around dinner 2-3 oz for a week or so, then moved up to 4 oz, then added in banana for bfast and mumums for snacks. he just started 3 solid meals this past month.

What is/was your schedule with bottles/BFing and solids? now he nurses 4x a day, eats bfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks 2-3x a day

What did you like about the approach to solids you took? GO WITH THE FLOW. my mantra with all things baby/parenting

What did you dislike about how you introduced solids? we haven't had any issues because ds is GREAT eater.

Would you do anything differently next time? probably not, but i hear every baby is different!

Other: skip the sippy cup. ds has been drinking water with all his meals out of a straw cup or reg cup since six months

@dolphin: yup but that's just the last month or so...we don't rrally measure anymore since we feed him off our plates too. His chunky purees r 4+ oz tho. He cut down a nursing session over the last month and a half