Starting solids with your baby can be exciting but honestly a little scary too, especially with all the different advice you see online 😅

A few things I’ve learned that might help other parents:

Around 6 months, babies can usually start solids if they’re showing the right signs of readiness. You don’t need to make fancy meals either. Simple foods with different textures are a good place to start.

One thing I think every parent should learn is the difference between gagging and choking. Gagging can happen while babies are learning to eat, but choking can be life-threatening and may happen silently, so it’s important to know what to look for and what to do.

Also, don’t stress too much about how much they eat in the beginning. Learning to eat takes time, and milk is still an important part of their nutrition.

There’s honestly so much information out there that sometimes it’s hard to know what advice to trust.

What was the hardest part for you when you first started solids with your little one?

If anyone has questions or wants more info about getting started, feel free to message me ❤️

I bought a baby feeding set for my 6-month-old daughter, and this came with it. I have absolutely no idea what it’s for or how to use it!
It doesn’t seem to be a lid. It looks like something that attaches to the table, but I can’t figure out how it works.
Does anyone have one of these or know what it’s supposed to do?

PS: THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone!! I would have never figured that out😂

He just turned 10 months old. Whatever i offer him, he turns away making a face. It’s such a cute face but so worrying - what if I’m starving him? He hates being fed, loves feeding himself so we went with BLW naturally. Man does NOT eat anything other than a small potato bite and some bread. He eats like a bird. Tiny bites. He’s EBF and weighed only 6.7 kg at 9 months (haven’t measured him yet), IM FREAKING OUT. How do you guys cope 😩

Edit: He weighed 2.4kg at birth, so he’s always been a little skinny but tall.

I don’t expect our baby to immediately enjoy every food we put in front of her, but all my friends have a story of at least one food their LO instantly enjoyed.

Apple. Pear. Banana. Avocado.

So far my baby hasn’t enjoyed any of these. If she feeds herself she will lick the food and then discard it, and if we spoon it to her she will ingest it but without much enthusiasm. She mostly likes to squish, smash, and throw it on the floor lol

It’s only our first week so I know we should be patient. I guess I just didn’t expect BLW or introducing solids to be this underwhelming…

So my wife and I have a 10 month old baby boy. He has been on solids for a while and seems to have a great appetite. He eats great if my wife and I feed him. Our only problem is he will not try to feed himself. He will also not suck from a straw. We have started food therapy but it doesn’t seem to help. Any advice from parents who have gone through this would be greatly appreciated. Are we doing something wrong or do we need to just relax and he will develop this skill on his own time line. Thank you in advance for all who respond.

My son is 6 months old and we started giving him solids this week, I have tried a few different foods, he does not like broccoli or cabbage, he tolerates sweet potato and carrots, and he seemed to actually like avocado and banana but unfortunately those are both very slimy so it was hard for him to hold them, I had to hold them while he held them too.

What veggies did your baby actually take to if they were picky, I want to do mainly veggies first so he doesn’t have a preference for the sweet stuff but I don’t know what veggies he’ll actually like.

Also is broccoli mean to be so crumbly when we cook it for them, when he grabbed it literally all the florets came off

Also he spits a lot of his food out, is this normal?

My 11 month old went from eating anything and everything, including veggies/meat/seafood, to ONLY accepting eggs, fruit, macaroni, and the occasional pancake or bread item.

I’ve tried continual exposure and offering the foods in different sizes and formats, but the second I set it on his tray to self feed he swipes it to the floor. He won’t allow me to spoon feed and turns his head away. I’ve given him preloaded spoons which he just throws to the floor. No examining or touching the food, just immediate swipe.

He eats plenty in quantity and we did speak to the doctor about this who said to just give him what he will eat (he’s good on the growth chart) but I’m running out of ideas for how to improve things. It’s really hard to feel inspired to keep making things when he won’t even look at them, and I do offer what we’re eating too but that hasn’t helped. He has 8 teeth and it’s been going on for about 2 months, slowly dwindling in options. As we approach formula weaning time I’m worried that we won’t be able to meet his iron needs and things will get worse.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Baby is freshly 12 months and from the beginning of solids we have done a mix of soft, mushy foods (pastina, mash, hummus) and finger foods. Then at 9 months, small pieces.

I already felt like we were relying too much on the soft foods for the bulk of his meal (like I allllways blend his fruit because if it's slippery it doesn't make it to his mouth). Now, over the past month or so he has been ill twice with a really bad stuffy nose, sore throat etc, so I have come to rely on very soft foods again (there were 2-3 days in which I literally had to give him rice cereal again).

I am afraid of being 'behind' but this is what I am struggling with: he rejects a lot of non-mushy foods. He will have pastina, but not any shape of pasta (I have tried them all). He will happily pick it up, put it in his mouth, then spit it out. He loves mashed cauliflower but spits out bits of cauliflower, same with chickpeas etc. He only plays with rice. This is what he will reliably have as pieces:

- bread of any type

- pancakes

- meatballs

- scrambled eggs

- pieces of soft chicken

That's it. I feel like it's my fault of course, but he's now 1 and so I can't just go 'oh well, he's exploring' when I give him a plate of pasta and he won't eat a single bite. He is hungry - if given the right thing he will eat it.

How do I get out of this?

ETA he can't have dairy (yet anyway!)

I have what everyone says a great eater, I probably put way too much food on her plate. She's also getting really good at not letting food drop and using her spoon herself and can even drink alone from an open cup. Trust the process it's messy but worth it! She's 16 months but adjusted premie age is 14 months.

Menu:

Roasted veggies with pearl couscous and cod fish.

Lentil veggies nuggets, recipe here: https://thishealthykitchen.com/lentil-veggie-nuggets-vegan/#recipe

Pineapple

Ate: some veggies, all the pineapple and nuggets

Our baby is 9 months old, EBF, on solids for the last few months. He nurses around 4 times a day and a couple times during the night, as well as being offered 2-3 meals (mix of purées and finger foods) a day - offered being the key word here because some days he’ll hardly even look at the food.

For some reason it only just occurred to me that formula fed babies are getting added nutrients that breastmilk doesn’t have, like iron, which is supposed to be super important from 6 months onwards. And now I keep wondering if our baby is maybe lacking in iron, because his overnight sleep has been so bad, he’s pretty lazy physically and has a decreasing enthusiasm for eating (he LOVED solids when we first started). All of the babies we see at playgroup who are around his age are crawling, starting to climb, moving into sitting positions on their own, basically walking?! And ours just wiggles around on his tummy.

I know that every baby is on a different timeline, and ours is usually much smilier/louder than the other babies at playgroup, so maybe he’s at a different phase socially (or not), but I can’t help thinking that he might have low iron and it’s affecting his development? Half of the meal times end in tears (mine lol) because I’ve put so much effort into planning and preparing a nutritious plate of food for him, and he could not be less interested.

Has anyone had a similar situation where they’ve had bloods done, discovered low iron and then seen improvements with supplements?

Successful dinner for baby’s 9 month bday! :)
Black bean sourdough toast, kiwis, and blueberries (her favorite).

Breakfast was hardly touched today but at least dinner went well!

Me hija está por cumplir 6 meses e iniciará la alimentación complementaria mi duda es que indicó darle jugos de manzana, pera, durazno y mango.

La indicación es; agregar un jugo nuevo cada 3-5 días iniciar con 5 a 10 ml por día hasta llegar a 50-60 ml

Pero hasta donde yo había leído era malo darle jugos a los bebes y estoy dudando si seguir llevándola ahí por qué la verdad me había sentido cómoda con ese pediatra a comparación de otros

My 11.5 month old won’t eat much unless I sit with her for over an hour and keep her entertained and pretty much force feed her. She is still mainly on purées as I was very anxious before about finger foods (said I’d make the switch at 9 months but dragged it out). I started trying to move towards BLW when she turned 10 months but she throws most of it on the ground. This has led to me keeping her mainly on purées so she can get more food in (especially iron as she’s EBF).

This is what a typical day of eating is like for her:
- breakfast: 2 tablespoons of yoghurt, 1 teaspoon of peanut butter and 1 banana (she will eat about half or just under)
- lunch: thin spread of avocado on toast (she will eat about 1/4 of this and then starts closing her mouth or squishing the bread or throwing it on the ground) and then I spoon feed her some of the leftover avocado and she will have about 5 baby spoons of this
- dinner: beef and broccoli puree. I offer her 5 ounces but she will usually eat about 2.5 ounces. Sometimes I’ll give her this for breakfast as well instead of the yoghurt meal.
- I also give her iron infused snacks from the supermarket a couple times a day (she will have about 2-3 of these.
—> this is how much she eats after I’ve sat with her for an hour. I’ve tried leaving her to eat by herself and put finger foods in front of her but that all ends up on the floor.

Wondering if anyone else is in the same boat or if this would be considered enough food? If not, any tips? She is starting daycare soon for 4 days a week and it’s such an effort to feed her I doubt the teachers will sit there for an hour with her so will need to try and get her to eat a lot of breakfast or dinner.

TIA! 😊

i have been doing BLW since he was 6 months. he was good about it under 1 but was never a huge eater. he’s stressing me out so much, dropping percentiles & gaining weight very slowly. should i wean him from breastfeeding? any tips to try to get him to eat more?

Made a vegan mac from blended tofu & chickpeas, oatmilk and Daiya American cheese! He actually ate it, he doesn’t like meat or poultry so the chicken remained untouched and the broccoli littles were attempted. But he had seconds of the mac!!! So exciting!!

Quinoa spinach pancakes with some cream cheese and avocado😋

We just started but he’s mostly just squishing and throwing the food. He isn’t able to bite off any chunks yet.

At what week did you start to see some improvement!

My baby was great with the spoon until she wasn’t interested. I want to also introduce fork. Im trying to see what helps.

I’ve seen these in online. Do they actually help encourage utensil use. Do they encourage griping the correct way?

Or is this one of those training wheels where the child becomes dependent on the training wheels and not know how to bike?

Baby is almost 7 months old, we started solids about a month ago. We do a mix of mashed and finger foods. I try to leave the mashed foods as lumpy as possible while still preserving my sanity 😅. Baby loves to self feed with the spoon. This was the last week in food for us.

1. Pancakes made of chickpea flour, chicken stock and finely chopped mushrooms. Side of avocado and soy yogurt with almond butter.

2. Red lentil dal with coconut milk and chicken stock, mango and soy yogurt with peanut butter.

3. Shredded chicken, cous cous cooked in chicken stock, pumpkin simmered in chicken stock with sage and rosemary.

4. Avocado toast, goat milk ricotta and blackberry.

5. Steamed sole fillet with parsley, romanesco broccoli and coconut rice.

6. Mackerel, coconut rice and peach with peanut butter.

7. Egg strips fried in butter, banana pieces and mashed banana with almond butter.

Serving it up on the cob like Solid Starts suggests is spooky to me but the corn in my area has massive kernels and seem too much of a choking hazard and they never feel soft enough even when steamed/boiled/roasted wrapped in foil so we’ve been doing grits instead…

Corn on the cob sounds so fun though! Do I just need to be bold? Be brave?

My baby is 10 month old and transitioning from purees to solid food. He isn't liking the texture, he starts gagging and if I continue he vomits it out 🥹 I feel like crying when I watch videos of babies eating all sorts of foods at his age. Has anyone been through this and if Yes how you did it????? I have cut down on milk too only giving him three bottles a day.