Advice on Weaning PDF  | Print |
Your baby is over 4 months old and you are excited to start the next step - Weaning.  But don't rush into it, you are ready but are they? 

The advice I found is that your baby is preferably over 6 months old, however weaning can start earlier - but no earlier than 17 weeks old.

Annabel Karmel (http://www.annabelkarmel.com) lists some tell tale signs that your baby is ready for weaning:

  • still hungry after a full milk feed
  • wakes at night for a feed when previously went through the night
  • demands feeding more often

The equipment you might need:

  • freezable/microwavable pots and containers with leak proof lids - some cheap alternatives are ice cubes trays or small yoghurt pots which you can put in plastic bags. I found a selection of pots came in very useful as my son's appetite grew.
  • food processor -a hand held food processor is just the job for making purees.
  • food grinder/mouli as some foods are better through a mouli than a food processor - maybe wait until you have started weaning to see if you will use it, some people swear by them for preparing left over vegetables for their babies dinner the next day.

As you start introducing new flavours you will initially need a very small amount of food, the size of an ice cube or small yoghurt pot.  It may take a few attempts before your baby is comfortable taking food from a spoon and they may turn their nose up at certain tastes but persevere because the third or fourth time they may like it. 

The first few tastes are very simple foods with no added salt or sugar, such as:
  • pear
  • apple
  • carrot
  • sweet potato
Next you can start combining the foods such as apple and pear, carrot and swede, carrot and sweet potato. I enjoyed making my own foods and thought that some smelt so good we now eat them as a family meal.
If you are stuck for inspiration there are some excellent books to help you gain confidence:
I found that varying food from homemade to shop bought jars helped my son to be less fussy and occasionally when i was visiting family i could turn to jars without any worry that he wouldn't eat them.
 
 

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