what age did you start weaning your baby onto solid foods?

[bluesuperted]

'weanling' I like it!

Saffron - that is very interesting re: spoon-feeding each other. I wonder if I was very open to BLW and not so keen on spoon-feeding because of a great lecture I had in dysphagia management(nb dysphagia = trouble with swallowing, which forms part of speech and language therapy).... we spent an hour feeding each other liquids and foods of different consistencies/textures and giving each other sips of drinks. It was awful and I hated it, we pretty much all did, it really made me feel out of control and dependent. It gave us a great insight into dealing with clients (adult and child) who need to be fed and the need to treat them with the maximum amount of respect while doing so.

[prm]

I waited until 6 months to follow general advice and it went well, first baby rice, then purees and so forth. However I felt she was ready earlier, so with the second one and being more confident on the subject I dont think I will hesitate weaning from 5 months onwards, if he shows the signs of being ready. Other friends started earlier so whatever you decide to do I am sure it will be fine...after all it's all trial an error, mine has always been better spoon fed but a couple of baby friends refused purees quite early on (ie 7-8 months if I remember correctly) decided they preferred to feed themselves and did so brilliantly.

[Knomester]

We were waiting until 6 months, but Baby Knomester was clearly ready and so eager to eat solids that we gave it a go from around 5 1/2 months. We weaned in what seems to now be referred to as puree weaning (although I always think this is a bit of an anomaly as the real puree stage passes very quickly).

From a first few gums on our bananas and pitta bread, we worked our way through first tastes of baby rice with breastmilk, purees fruit and vegetables and on to mashed / finely chopped meals and finger food in less than a month. We spoon fed, but always gave baby Knomester his own spoon and offered finger food along side the (then) pureed / mashed food until he got used to lumps and had some teeth to chew with! We never forced him to eat when he didn't want to, didn't 'coax' him into eating and always stopped when he let us know he'd had enough. He took to food brilliantly and by the time he was 10 or 11 months was eating 3 large meals plus snacks and had naturally dropped to 2 BFs per day.

He could reliably spoon feed himself his meals from around 12 months after his Daddy spent lots of time gently teaching him to 'scoop' (Daddy has more patience than me...!). I would say he is a good eater. There are foods he is not so keen on, but very few that he won't try at all (smoked salmon is the only one that springs to mind, but that's really not a problem, is it?!). Like all toddlers, he has gone through phases of refusing meals and certain foods, but we have just continued (and continue) to offer everything and (unless ill, teething, etc) we don't really offer alternatives.

(As an aside, there is some discussion above about attitudes towards parents and their choice of the way in which they wean their children. I have also personally faced some pretty harsh criticism of the way in which we chose to wean Baby Knomester from people who have chosen BLW (not from anyone commenting on this thread I should hasten to add, and certainly not from my dear friend bluesuperted who has a toddler the same age as Baby Knomester). I recall one particular incident when I was feeding Baby Knomester some homemade food sat outside the Kernel Brewery arch at Maltby Street one Saturday morning - a lady behind me quite openly criticised me to her group of friends, telling them how cruel and psychologically damaging it is to spoon feed babies and that I ought to have done BLW. I'm not sure if she knew that I could hear her or not, but it left me feeling very upset.)

[oimissus]

you can blame that bloody book for comments like that, Knomester, which is full of unsubstantiated twaddle about spoonfeeding - it's a spoon, not a loaded gun or a turkey twizzler. And I would love to see anyone, BLW-style parent or whatever, try to 'forcefeed' my toddler, now or at any age. Not a chance! She has her father's almost total lack of interest in food (though, rather astonishingly, she did eat a bowl of porridge, and a bowl of weetabix, for breakfast this morning. !!!!!) She is a slim little girl, and I have no fears that her early introduction to cutlery is going to lead her into a lifetime of obesity.

(I hated that book. With a passion. Can you tell??)

[gillandjoe]

How bizarre to think it is psychologically damaging to spoonfeed. It seems to me that by that logic bottle-feeding would be better than breastfeeding because older babies can control the bottle with their hands! I think this is a fairly unemotional topic that is more to do with practicality and what a baby will or won't go for rather than a 'philosophy'. I haven't read BLW because I'm tired of reading books about parenting that dress up a non-issue like whether or not you spoon-feed into a life choice. I think some perspective is required! I thought I would BLW because of my green, easy-going approach to parenting. 'Green' being the operative word because baby Joe refuses to feed himself and won't eat lumps - he cries until I fish everything out of his mouth which then makes him cry more! Alas, I am a spoonfeeder and I don't even make most of his food - I buy it! He loves to be held all the time and when he naps - I rest too or am walking around with him in his sling. I just don't have the time but I am pretty sure he'll survive his non-BLW upbringing!

[Saffron]

Have always thought a problem with spoon feeding could be that babies are erroneously given solids at too early an age from a spoon. We had such a happy time with BLW, of course I'm biased, but surely any type of weaning style can be made safe and fun? The main thing with weaning is that it's a happy and interesting way for Baby to learn about food in a manner that's appropriate to Baby's developmental stage.

(Coincidentally, I once had to sit silently at the luncheon of a friend's NCT group, while one mother smugly related that they wouldn't be doing BLW because it was "too dangerous". Her comment came directly after someone else had asked me if we were doing BLW, because Little Saff (then ~8mo) was happily helping herself to half my sandwich, the best bits of my salad, and more than her fair share of chips. I felt I couldn't comment on the smug remark b/c it wasn't my own NCT group. I was only a guest. It was an awkward, angry, unhappy moment for me. Needless to say I never went back to any of their lunches. I think she was one of those smug people that has to belittle anything someone else does. I've known plenty of other people that did traditional spoon-fed weaning, and are quite lovely people. I wouldn't tar a whole genre with same brush, and the same goes for BLW.)