With my baby girl now being five months old I’ve decided to bite the bullet and start to wean her onto solids. I’ve thought long and hard about this, as she was 5 weeks premature and I am aware of guidelines and the implications for starting to early but I I weaned my first daughter at 5 months and I believe baby girl is now ready too, plus I fully intend to take it very slowly.
Current UK guidelines do recommend to start weaning from 6 months (as opposed to 4 months when I was weaned), this is because it is thought that waiting until 6 months gives a baby’s digestive system more time to mature and reduces the chances of developing allergies like eczema and asthma. It is also thought that premature babies may not be ready to wean at 6 months and may need to wait longer. However many people still continue to wean their children earlier (whether premature or not) because all children are different and the Department of Health advises that if your baby is showing signs of being ready to move on before six months then you can try solids.
Signs of being ready to wean can include:
- Being able to hold their head up
- Being able to stay in a sitting position
- Being able to coordinate their hands (ie being able to grab food and put it in their mouth)
I spoke to my Health Visitor about whether starting to wean before 6 months would be an issue with baby girl being premature and she said if she’s showing signs there’s nothing wrong with giving it a go. My baby girl is showing all of the above signs and watches us intently when we eat so I think the time is certainly right.
As with my first daughter I intend to start to wean with purees of basic individual vegetables and fruit, trying the same flavour over 3-4 days to ensure she has no allergies.
The first tastes I have planned for baby girl include:
- Carrots
- Broccoli
- Sweet Potato
- Parsnip
- Banana
- Apple
- Mango
- Pear
- Peach
I intend to start to wean with vegetables, as fruit can taste sweeter and I’ve read that babies can take to sweet tastes more and then may refuse other tastes. Once I know she is ok with a few different fruit or veg I can then merge them to give different flavour combinations.
Once I’ve tried the basic fruit and veg purees I can move onto other food such as cooked meat, fish, pasta and rice. I intend to make a few of my own meals or her, as well as using baby food from brands such as Plum, Ellas Kitchen, Organix, Hipp and Cow & Gate, all of which I used with my first daughter.
I’ve very kindly been sent some fabulous reusable food pouches from My Pouch and am looking forward to trying these out! I’m also going to stock up on some new weaning spoons, bowls etc too.
Let the fun begin!