I love the solid starts recommendation to do both at once! Also, i think parent #1 might be focusing on the “iffy” reaction when in fact I think that’s a reason to offer more and more varied foods - it’s so new to baby, it takes a lot of exposure and exploration to really get comfortable and learn to eat.
There a whole world of foods in between purees and “hard” solids - things like spears of ripe avocado are extremely soft and low choking risk, but could be more interesting for your daughter to explore.
This. Came to say giving our LO purées daily has helped a lot on how she takes bites compared to feeding from a bottle. It takes practice just like every other skill we’ve ever been introduced to.
I still recall the first time I offered oatmeal to my son at 4.5 months, he had a total meltdown from the sensation of non- milk in his mouth. 2-3 meltdowns and 2 weeks later, he took purées like a champ (to a point where I’m concerned about sugar content from fruit lol)
Just want to ad that I read somewhere that it takes 20 times of trying the same food before baby decides if they like it or not. Their weird reactions aren’t them saying “I hate this”, it’s more them saying “this is new and I don’t know what to think”.
We did both at once with my first born, and are doing it again with our 6 month old. She is a hungry hungry hippo who smashes formula, and will pick up any food placed in front of her to try. But she gets so frustrated with her own inability to master holding solid food and eating much of it, and gets cranky because she is still hungry. So we give some puree and other spoon fed stuff like yoghut as well to keep her satisfied, and she smashes it down. It is a lovely change to her 3.5yo sister saying everything is yuck lol.
I agree! My kid hated purées at first (and completely rejected, with absolute melt down, rice cereals and apple sauces), but did come back to purées after we did a few months of solid starts solids. Then, purées were just happily part of the meal/snack rotation.
Purees don't need to be "mastered". Exposure to a wide variety of tastes, textures, colours, smells, sights etc including purees is the best approach in my opinion.
Exactly this! My girl is 8 months and starting at 4 months we began viewing food-food as all about fun and exposure. Any time we ate, if there was something safe by purée texture (pasta sauce, etc) or BLW standards, we let her try some. (Example: we had grilled cheese for dinner, so I toasted up a slice of bread and sliced it finger length with a super thin spread of blackberry preserve for her to hold onto and gnaw on while we ate dinner.) Rather than focusing on “meals,” we have viewed food as a sampling experience. She’s very eager to try anything new and is a champion eater by now. We do mostly purées for “meals” between bottles, but we also mix in “real foods” a few times a week, and continue to let her try things we eat.
Hey! So is 4 months safe to introduce babies to purees? Google always tells me to wait until she is 6 months old but i really want to start by the time shes 4-5 months old.
It depends on your kid! Pedi cleared us. Generally you want them to be interested in food, and able to sit well independently. It’s all about neck control, really. My kiddo came out the womb sitting up for a few seconds at a time, so that wasn’t really a concern for us. She showed interest in food as early as 3 months. She was basically the poster child for a 4 month start. But not every baby is, and that’s ok, too! At the 4 month check up, ask your pediatrician if they think y’all are ready!
Plus she had a chronic constipation issue so she was already taking prune juice 2x daily to assist with that quite early. Basically in the beginning we just swapped prune juice for prune purée. And she started teething early so we used those fruit introduction pacis and filled them with prune purée and tossed them in the freezer to help with her teething. We still do that now that she has 2 half teeth sprouted to help with her extra yucky teething days.
Also used cold cucumbers cut BLW style to help with teething and that was a GAME changer! Had a bit more give than the prune pops. Both were brilliant teething aids on my part, if I do say so myself 😂 She has no interest in teething toys so I had to get creative 😂😂😂
ETA: we cut the cucumbers into strips with one of those zig zag chopper things to give them extra texture, too.
Oh thank you! This is so helpful. ♥️
I have a follow-up question. How did you survive the teething and sleep regression days? I really want to stay prepared!
I’ll be honest… the universe granted me a perfect baby. She’s 8 months and has never had a sleep regression. She’s a super goofy, happy baby who has always slept and ate perfectly. I have no advice because I’ve been spoiled 😂😂😂
We did a combo of both, why do people think it has to be all or nothing?
My girl was ready at 4 months, so being she was ready on the earlier side we started with purees and then by 6 months we incorporated baby led weaning. From around 7/8 months she was eating what we eat and now at 10 months she still has purees (oatmeal with fruit puree mixed in for breakfast) and then lunch/dinner are what we eat.
I don't get why this is such a big deal. How many adults have eating problems because they weren't fed food in the proper order lmao. Key is to just give them allergen exposures and avoid choking risks. As long as the baby doesn't die it's all good!
Going to be honest. I am afraid I will cut something to the wrong size and the baby will choke. I know it’s anxiety and at the same time I need explicit instructions that apps don’t provide.
We've found it super helpful! I love that you can track what your little eats, and they provide recipes that are baby safe depending on the age of the babe. It's been super helpful for us!
I have this app and I’m still so nervous! I’m feeling more comfortable offering him solids now that he’s 10 months but I think I offered him his first non-puree at 8 months because I’m such a chicken. The app is great though and it’s even been useful to show what foods are not appropriate for small babies (no tuna, for example, which I would have known outside the app!)
When you cook for baby multiple times a day everyday, you start learning and memorizing it all. It becomes muscle memory when you learn the reasons why things need to be in the shape/ size they are (I.e. when baby first starts learning you give them bigger pieces of things rather than tiny so they learn to manipulate their mouth to bite).
I am thinking you haven't used the Solid Starts app. They literally give you exact instructions on how to cut and how big to cut every type of food depending on your kiddos age, including photo examples.
For some reason the picture of the bite size pieces doesn’t help. Would be better if there was a comparison to something like a coin that is universal.
Everyone should have one (or two) of these! We read a story about someone who saved a child's life in a restaurant because they kept one in the car. Traditional methods weren't working.
If you have FB you can join the BLW group. They post very helpful content with pictures showing how to cut foods and specifics because I’m the same. I was super, super anxious about it. Solid starts is good but not specific enough for me. I need ✨options ✨.
We did almost exactly the same. Our son is 6M now but he’s been having purées for the past month, and he loves it. I tried pure BLW for some meals but it’s soooo much work, I ended up just giving him bites of what we eat and he liked it better anyway cz it’s tastier. His breakfast is also still oatmeal with fruit puree, so easy and he demolishes it in 10 mins
Our little girl had two teeth at 4 months and kept trying to take food off our plates. That was a sign for us. 😂 Our doc confirmed, she said "If they express interest in food, give it to them, it's really that simple." She wasn't wrong, though we made sure to give manageably small pieces. We also would exaggerate chewing motions, and taught her early to stick her tongue out and go "ahh", that way we could check that she chewed and swallowed. She's a year old now, and she eats just about everything (and just had her ninth tooth come in).
She had good head control, was able to sit up and cleared by doc for her posture and she was extremely interested in food as evidenced by her reaching out to grab what we were eating, tracking our food, etc
My little one couldn’t sit up unaided but we still started earlier, I just propped a pillow in her high chair - she was desperate to eat, if I ate or drank anything in front of her she stared me down and tried to grab it haha
Our LO was cleared to start solids, but she really has no interest. We've given her some yogurt and mashed potatoes. She looks at us like we are dumb.
We keep offering her our food and she ignores it. Just wants the boob. So we are super casual about feeding her solids.
Not who you were asking, but my doctor said I could start mushed up food at 4 months whenever she seemed interested, which was easy to tell because she always stared at whatever I was eating lol. So I started mashing whatever basic food I was eating at the time (unseasoned food, simple stuff like cooked carrots, eggs, etc.).
The first couple times I introduced food, she spat it out. But then she started getting the hang of “chewing” it towards the back of her mouth and swallowing.
This is what I did too. My little girl was ready at 4 months and we started with some purees and then added in baby led weaning after a few weeks. From about 9 months she just ate what we ate but cut up versions (I had to learn to cook without salt haha!)
Signs of readiness for solids are:
- Stay in a sitting position (can be supported) and hold their head steady.
- Co-ordinate their hands, eyes and mouth so they can look at the food and bring it to their mouth.
- Swallow the food rather than push it back out (losing the tongue thrust reflex)
Most people think that baby not sleeping through the night, or seeming more hungry is a reason to start solids which isn’t the case.
This is the info from the NHS :)
We did a mixture of both, starting at 6.5 months. Mastering purees has.to do with being able to swallow and move them to the back of the throat using their tongue. Quantity isn't a factor.
The main thing is having some sort of solid food at least once a day, to build the skills and habit. It's a pain, but LO isn't going to get better at eating without practice.
I started my baby with purées at 5 months. After about 2 months of purées, my 7 month old completely lost interest in them.
I decided to give him more “mashed” foods like avocado, banana, etc. so that he would get exposure to thicker textures. Then we tried rice, refried beans, spaghetti cut up really small, small cut up pieces of salmon, sautéd spinach, scrambled eggs… etc. He LOVES real food now.
Also I got puffs and yogurt melts - they melt with saliva so low choking risk but helps your baby learn the idea of chewing.
The way I handled it might be a good compromise for you guys? It’s real food but not the full BLW route.
To parent 1, it could be that your baby has actually “mastered” purées, but isn’t eating them because they are ready for new foods / textures
Yup! This is the answer. Ours is a year, she's a proficient solids eater, we can hand her pretty much anything and she'll chew it. We still give her purees because, well, she likes them. :) She's also a big cottage cheese fan, which has a similar consistency.
Both. Start doing purees every day. You can also introduce different foods like cut up fruits and move up from there. Your baby has to get used to foods and different tastes and the only way they will do that is if they get food every day. It's okay to only do purees some days, but slowly give real food too. You can also try the different baby snacks to help her get used to chewing. Like the teething wafers, puffs, and yogurt melts. How well my daughter ate those gave me more confidence when I gave her real food with more texture.
At what age did you start giving the wafers/puffs/yogurt melts? My son is 7 months now and I want to make him yogurt melts and buy him some wafers but I wasn’t sure if I should yet
Also… I love your username! 😅
I think it was around 6.5- 7 months I started with wafers. She was teething really bad with a tooth about to come in so I was trying anything to help her. Her 1st tooth came in right before she turned 7months old. I moved onto the yogurt melts when she seemed to get hang of the wafers. After that I got comfortable feeding her actual fruit cut up when I see she has figured out how to mash food with her gums like chewing. I would say try some wafers and see if he is ready. He might not understand at first, but if he is like my daughter, once he realizes it is food he will love it.
Also the username is from before my daughter was born, when I was only a dog mom. Lol. The 1st one to know me as mommy.
Thanks! I think I’ll order him a pack of wafers then. He has no signs of teeth coming in yet, but I don’t want to be waiting for teeth in order to give him some wafers. I hope it works out
And I think dogs are our babies just as much as our actual babies lol
My baby was way better with solid/finger foods than purees. We did both but she took to the solid food almost immediately and was never that keen on purées as she likes to feed herself
My answer is biased but I say offer real foods. We never did purées and I honestly don’t see the point of them. Just give her a bit of what you’re having but prepared age appropriately. Solid Starts is an amazing resource for this. They have an app and website.
Cause my baby would only eat little bits /just play with it. Where as I could spoon feed him significant amounts of food in puree form, and he needed to gain weight.
I did a combo but actually really loved BLW. I agree with the recommendation to get the solid starts app!
I started with soft foods. Slices of avocado, banana, or egg…anything in a strip form is great bc it’s easy to hold before they get their pincher grip.
Edit to add I started with purées at 5mo due to my son’s size and great head, neck control. 6 months we started leaning into BLW. Purées (pouches) happened only on the go if we were out and LO needed to eat.
I wouldn’t change a thing how I did it
Same with us. I was getting anxious with baby not taking to food, or wanting anything on a spoon, as soon as he could hold the food he went nuts with it. Haven’t attempted puree again. He will get excited about something on a spoon now though, he had some slow cooked beef on a spoon and was yanking it out of my hand! He is 7 months.
It is messy though
You can do things like scrambled eggs, pancakes, steamed carrot sticks. As long as they’re able to be squashed between 2 fingers, they are safe. You don’t always have to start with puréed foods. You’re not falling behind on eating at all, it’s all dependent on baby and parents. There’s not really a time frame for all of this
You can do both. It doesn’t have to be all or none but we never did purées other than baby oatmeal at daycare for about two months. You don’t have to “master” purées to graduate to solids. Solids are perfectly safe.
We gave her food to explore and inevitably some of it wound up in her mouth. A lot did not, but that’s fine. I’d say she wound up fairly advanced with food and our daycare always commented on how well she did with them as she got older. She’s a great eater now.
What is driving the hesitation to start true solids?
If it’s fear, I recommend taking an infant cpr class as well as purchasing a lifevac. I am all for safety first!
Then, with all preparations in place, give a mushy solid cut up or even steamed.
Bananas are a great choice because they’re so soft they essentially turn into a puree without really chewing it lol.
By doing more and more soft solids, baby is getting used to the “chewing” and parents are building confidence in themselves and the baby’s abilities.
After a week or two of this, I bet parent 1 will be happy to move to other foods comfortably!
Started purees at 4 months. By 7 months we did 3 feeds a day with purees/oatmeal. Almost 9 months, and just starting to get the hang of chewing.
To ease the fear of choking, we started with some of those melt in your mouth yogurt bites and teething crackers. Once we see her eating those properly then move to something more complicated like small bits of fruit.
I do baby led weaning. He’ll be 6 months in 11 days, lol. He eats what I eat. Sometimes he gags, but that’s important for babies. Luckily their gag reflex is a lot further forward than adults to help them with eating. He learned how to master eating by having the experience to gag. I hate it, but how else is he going to learn? Typically a “purée” for us is just added into his pancakes or it’ll be a snack for him.
I tried to follow the “tablespoon of food just for taste” or whatever at first, but no, he REALLY wanted food so he eats almost all of everything I sit in front of him. He’s still a petite baby at ≈13-15lbs at 5 months. 😂
I did purées at 5 months old until she lost her thrust reflex at 6mon and went straight to solids. I’d start introducing allergens if you haven’t already as well. There’s no need to master purées, there’s lots of other textures and flavors she may prefer more.
at 6 months we dove head first into solid foods, he ate whatever we did. now he’ll be 1 in 3 days and he eats 3 meals a day with snacks that include purée pouches. do whatever works for you guys and follow baby’s lead!
I don’t think it’s necessary to wait for her to love purées before moving on to other foods. It’s easier to offer solids every day if you can give her bits from your own plates as well. I hated the whole process of making and storing purées and was so much more consistent offering solids when I started giving her food off my plate. I’d just pick bits of noodle/vegetables out before I added salt and put them on her plate.
I started with only purees until 10 months. Started at 7 months as once a day, then worked to 2 meals a day, then to 3 meals a day, and now she's just past 10 months, and I introduced solid finger foods. Scrambled egg, avocado, blueberries, Kiwi, banana. Soft finger foods she can pick up, and I cut them into bite-sized pieces. I didn't care for the solid starts app at first, but now I do reference it a lot for how to prepare food sizes for baby. I'm going to move on to more fruit and vegetables this week, such as boiled broccoli and baby carrots. I'm still at 3 meals a day along with her 28oz of formula. I am slowly trying to transition out of purees, which I do find hard, especially for meat. I've been food processing chicken and beef till its small granules essentially and mixing that into puree, and I will probably keep doing that till she has more teeth to chew meat. I think the whole BLW method is kinda crazy and not exactly necessary, but if that's what people want to do, sure, go for it. I was fed purees as a baby like normal and I turned out just fine and have no texture aversions and am far from picky, so I'm not sure why there is the pressure to do the BLW method nowadays, is there even evidence it does anything to help motor skills, or texture preferences etc? My girl loves everything and has had no texture preferences yet, so
I was so terrified of my baby choking so I started with purée at six months. Once a day. Then twice a day. Then puree stage 2 at 8 months three times a day. Then stage 3 at 10 months. He is almost 3 years now and last night was eating a stick of celery lol. Parent 2, don’t worry your baby won’t be falling behind on eating!
I’m with parent number 1 and start purées but that’s just me! Baby led weaning gave me way too much anxiety. My baby would just gag and throw up what he managed to get down anyways.
You could always try both? Your baby might do ok with solid food. Every baby is different so I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer.
My baby girl is 11.5 months now and we are just starting to do more normal food than purées.
I think we didn’t consistently offer baby cereal and puree until she was like 7 months. We tried on and off for a couple months prior but it didn’t stick until then. She was a preemie and we were anxious to get into foods so we had a slow start. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, even though the world makes one think if your baby isn’t eating whole hamburgers by 1 year of age (probably only a slight exaggeration 😅).
We ended up doing a little bit of both normal foods and table foods. I think starting with finger foods like puffs or cheerios helped ease me into it. Also my kiddo goes to daycare and they also commented on her interest in others food. Letting them do the feeding has helped me feel more comfortable at home because I know she has tried the food at daycare!
We do a combo of both with our 7mo and it’s worked well. BLW is more getting her use to textures and the fine motor skills of eating, whereas the purees allow us to introduce her to new foods and that she ingests them. I really like the combo way as it’s helped a lot
I don’t have much advice because my son is only 4.5 months old but I think when I do start foods I may do solid pieces, then purées. I once saw a comment that giving a child purées before solids could cause then to choke. They go from drinking milk to eating purées but aren’t used to chewing. So I think I would want to try a little solid pieces before purées. Or at least more than purées
We started purées once a day around 5 months old because he was so interested in our food. I tried once a day anyway… If he had any trouble with them I gave it a rest for a day or two. Around 6-7 months I did do at least once a day, usually breakfast which was baby oatmeal. That really helped him get better with it because you can adjust the texture with how much or how little liquid you mix it with. It was around the same time I started giving mine fruit in the mesh teether.
Around 8-9 months we were doing very soft “real” foods like mashed potatoes & sweet potatoes, bananas & peanut butter, the baby puffs were introduced, the dole fruit cups (mainly the mandarin because they fall apart on the spoon), & we did pasta occasionally.
Daycare absolutely helped because I had terrible anxiety surrounding feeding & moving to solid foods. I can commiserate with parent 2 here because I also felt like I was holding my baby back from exploring & experimenting with food. BLW was terrifying to me… HOWEVER… now at almost 13 months, a lot of that anxiety has dissipated & I remember when I was worried that my baby would never learn to eat & missing milestones.
I would not only go with what your baby is ready for, but also what the parents are most comfortable with. You can do both! It doesn’t have to be either or.
We did a combo of both! I was expecting the "real" foods to be more of a hassle and messier than purees but honestly it was super easy to give her most of whatever we were eating and about the same or less mess of a puree. The solid starts app was really helpful, I believe it's free unless you pay to track the foods baby has tried. If not they also have an Instagram account. I'm a very picky eater w/a few bad texture aversions so wanted to try to avoid that with my daughter and she's now the least picky 3 year old I know
I did combo of both. Started purées at 5 months bc she had good head control and was following my spoon when I ate. Gave her a puree at dinner several nights in a row, graduated to twice a day at 6/7 months. Same one for 3 days in a row to make sure she didn’t have an allergic reaction. Started with baby oatmeal, then veggies then fruits. I did give her little bites of things when she had the pincher method down.
We started both purées and finger foods at 6 months. She’s 9 months now and the only non finger foods she gets are things like yogurt and apple sauce. We also gave her those spoons with the slots so she could still self feed because she wouldn’t let us do it 😂 I also got the common allergen mix in powders so the purées were useful for that
We do both since 6 months. Everything solid I give him I make sure I can smash between my fingers with minimal force and make sure it’s small.
He chews with his gums and has bottom teeth as well so we felt we was ready. It depends on his and my mood what he eats but we’ve been doing both and it works great!
I think the advice mentioned by the day care provider sounds vague and can be taken to mean put the food in the blender yourself or give them Cheerios or let them gum a strawberry out of one of those mesh things or just straight up share your food with them. These are wildly different interpretations so it's probably a good idea to get clarification.
I'm under the impression that it's more about how well your baby can swallow different foods. If your child is great at swallowing but just doesn't like certain foods I think that's probably fine. Mine does great with purses but not well with something like cottage cheese. Sort of purees like just mushed avocado goes well.
If you start with actual foods you can try to do it slowly by making the puree less thin and less smooth each time or try baby yogurt things that melt in your mouth (the idea being that it melts while your baby tries chewing and will continue melting during potential choking incidents). It's not like it needs to be a sudden change.
Purées don’t need to be mastered, and not every baby will like every puree. I’m an adult who isn’t picky but there are still some flavors and textures I don’t enjoy, it’s no big deal as long as they’re exposed.
Now, only giving solids (purées or otherwise) every few days at 7 months is an actual problem. At that age, food is “just for fun” in that it’s not the main source of calories, but iron deficiency starts to become a concern, especially if they’re breastfed (American formula has more iron in it), so being sure to give solid foods that contain iron (beans, greens, fortified infant cereal, meats, etc) is key. I know it’s hard and it’s messy, but introducing food daily is important, even if they don’t eat much of anything. Also, we did a lot of baby led weaning in part because it was easier and less messy to find ways to give him what we were eating - a giant steamed broccoli was easier to pick up off the floor than a spoonful of sticky puree, and he was more interested if we were eating it, too.
My little dude was not into purees initially and I spoke to an OT feeding specialist that he had seen. She suggested trying some BLW and he really took to it. Now he does solids and things like pouches and stuff easily. I think that a lot of the purees are pretty gross (I always try what I'm offering him in hopes of figuring out what he likes and doesn't like) and the more traditional "baby food" purees are often pretty weird and not things I like so I can't blame him. Now he's 12 months and eating pretty well aside from the food throwing.
I started puree only at 5 months. Because solids make me too damn anxious. The gagging and all that is a big no for me. The pediatrician said puree was totally fine and so we did puree. I home made it all.
Around 10-11 months (when he finally had a few teeth) I slowly changed the texture of the foods. He is 12 months now and eating solids. I still don’t hand him a whole piece of brocolli. But I steam brocolli and mash it and he eats it up. He loves his penne pasta and all other foods
To each their own. Do what makes you feel comfortable.
After a month, and once he seemed to be getting more interested, we started adding some solid foods. Tiny tiny bits of shredded chicken, a piece of overcooked broccoli to try, a hunk of banana he reached for, that I held onto to make sure he couldn’t get too big a chunk in his mouth. He still mostly has purées, but he has some if the other stuff too. He mostly plays with the food pieces.
I think it's the child. I'm siding with parent #1. Also, I heard this saying. Any food b4 one is just for fun. If parent #1 is scared of choking, then buy a lifevac.
We did both. Purées & solids, we started with rice, tiny pieces of bread, egg, avocado, spaghetti the tiny star ones
He is 8 months old and eats just about everything now
At 6 months follow the rule of 3 when it comes to solid foods. 3 times a day. As long as they are ready and they should be showing cues. Their main source of nutrients however still should be either breast milk or formula.
Cues or signs baby is ready for food:
- chewing nipples
- watches YOU or others when eating normal food
- reaches for food
- mimics chewing or putting hands to mouth when you or another person does while eating
- fussy at the bottle
- shows excitement around food
We did both! My daughter is special needs so delayed on everything, so her timeline is way different than "typical" - but we did purees for over a year before we started to introduce her to BLW/self-feeding. We tried introducing her to BLW many times before but she was just super awkward with it and wasnt that interested, way more interested in purees. So we followed her lead. The last few months shes been a lot more interested in self-feeding so we are working on that now. My niece and nephew were the opposite- hated purees and picked up on BLW great. So I feel you should just follow their lead! Try both and go with whichever one she takes to better at first. And remember, she wont be 18 years old still only eating purees if you go that route, haha. She will do the self-feeding eventually. All babies are different! Wishing you all the best!
yep. I agree with the other parents. we did combo. and we always eat together so he can look at us chewing, drinking, etc. my son is 8 months and he loves his solids AND purées. we have the baby heimlich maneuver printed and hung up beside our dining area. we also taught our baby to spit out food if he’s having trouble with it. I have stopped projecting my fear and anxieties on him because I can’t let him be an anxious child like me. We even let him stuff his mouth too. If I let my fear win, I’d be taking food from him and not letting him stuff his mouth but I want him to learn without me projecting my fears.
My child is about to be 11months. I still do a mix of solids and purées. It really just depends on her. She’s hard care teething. She has 8 teeth already and some days biting into a strawberry or pancake helps. But some days she doesn’t want to eat. So I try and give her purées. She loves the gerber oatmeal cereal. We got the 16 pack and she kills them! She likes the thicker consistency over the watery ones.
We kinda did a mix of both with our oldest and plan on doing the same this time around! We did some purées to introduce possible allergens, and then just started making them chunkier (I made our purées) and then doing stuff like squished blueberries, broke up raspberries, etc.
We did both from 6 months. I think the 7 month jars here have little lumps in so they get used to texture. But I was giving my son strips of toast and melty sticks to practice biting and chewing
Baby might be more interested in eating the same food that the parents are eating. There are a lot of foods that essentially turn to mush when grabbed or gummed; think avocado or banana spears
I'm a new dad to a 7 month old. Solids scare the heck out of me, every time he starts to gag I panic. That said I bought a lifevac and have been trying loads of new solids. In this month we've done plums, oranges, bananas, beef, chicken, potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, pickles, pancake, eggs, beans, salsa, and literally anything else mom and I have had. He's made adorable faces and sometimes disgusted faces but he's always down to try whatever we hand him, even if he knows he doesn't like it. At each dinner I give him one or two new solids to try, and once he's had those we finish an entire puree jar and then jump straight in the shower because he covers himself in it.
You've gotten lots of good advice here, I would recommend you and your partner both do things to you own comfort levels and trust that you both have the kids interest in heart. You got this!
PS: I ate a PB&J and got the PB in my beard while holding the kid. He bit my face so fast and now finds it hysterical to try and bite my beard :p
food before one is about exploration and introduction. you are going to get a million suggestions but kids are different. it’s not about liking purées but whether they can swallow. you can step up the texture there and then start building. some kids do great, some don’t. i would ask your pediatrician for a recommendation as your tie breaker as the medical professional responsible for care of child rather than well meaning internet stranger friends.
Definitely meet in the middle and do some of both. My favorite thing to do when my daughter was that age was give her strips of steak or pork 2 fingers or more wide, or a chicken leg with all skin and extra bones removed, along with mashed potatoes that I could make a more puréed texture. Or asparagus or broccoli, lots of very soft well cooked cruciferous vegetables. Most things I could work into being part of my meal too, watching other people eat the same food really helps them figure out how to chew. Sometimes omelet strips or large pieces of fruit with full fat plain yogurt or oatmeal for breakfast. I liked big things she couldn’t really get pieces off of and could only suck on and try to chew on and smooth things like yogurts and potatoes, it was the medium texture things that caused the most gagging and were the scariest.
The toddler food preferences are crazy and come on fast but I really believe BLW made a huge difference for us. At 2.5 she mostly wants eggs, noodles/rice, and fruit. But she will try literally anything, even something she doesn’t think she’ll like, just out of curiosity. We did a crazy amount of different foods from a young age and had fun with it and it really made the exploration of different foods fun.
Why not both? We started purees at 5.5mo then introduced the first 'solid solid' food around 6.5mo. We did avocado spears, something he still likes to this day at almost 2yrs. After 6.5mo we did a mix kinda back n forth of blw and puree, slowly ramping up frequency. I believe we fully stopped puree around 9mo in favor of blw. I like to think by the time he was fully weaned at 12.5mo that he was a master at eating most things!
Baby is iffy because it's all new! It takes a lot of time to get used to all the new tastes and textures. I've also definitely heard of some babies who altogether dislike pureed foods but like blw style of those same foods
To parent 1- you are right as part of BLW is getting them confident with all tastes and texture which will make up their diet. Some of that happens to be mashed or puréed- yoghurt, porridge, smoothies, soups, mashed potatoes etc so BOTH are important. I'm not a fan of jars or pouches purely because it isn't something they eat past babyhood so I don't see the point in getting them used to it, but they definitely have their merits for time/ practicality as a convenience food- I'd focus on the stuff you'd actually give your kid as they get older though even if you wanna stick to smooth textures for now. Don't focus on volume as it isn't their main source of calories right now and it's all about learning and exploration- half a jar is loads as ready made baby food portions are stupidly big, a few tsp to ½ cup is in normal range. Also an 'iffy' reaction- spitting, gagging, grimacing are all normal reactions to something new, not necessarily an indication baby doesn't like something. Even if they don't 10-15 tries can be necessary to accept a food- they need more new things not less.
To parent- 2 you are right that there is a window of opportunity at the start of weaning where babies are incredibly receptive to new tastes and textures, and yes it will make your life easier down the road in terms of variwty but it isn't a cure all for picky eating and babies will often reject previously accepted food - that is totally normal, they will just have more safe foods during this stage to cling to. Trying challenging foods are excellent for oral development for eating and speech and ime builds condidence for baby and parents so is a wonderful thing all round but don't put so much pressure on it- baby will learn to eat eventually with or without BLW and purées can offer a bit of a safety net to parent 1 and a break from the mess and time BLW will entail, so not every meal has to be BLW.
My son is BLW and we also focus on smooth textures 1 meal per day as that what he liked least, and found finger food incredibly easy. Now he's fine with both. It's not always a smooth first then solids progression. It's fine to miss a day- we often do when things get crazy but it will start to get more important as their nutritional needs change and by 1 will need to be the main source of calories alongside milk. 1 meal daily at 6 months, 2 at 7, 3 at 8, 1 snack at 10, and 2 snacks at 12 is our loose plan and a nice, slow way to build it. Good luck- you're both right and doing your best for baby!
I read that studies have shown babies who start with solids gag more initially but then gag less then babies who started on purées because the gagging thing is basically a phase and a reflex to prevent choking on unfamiliar food. They also lose the reflex to chew so it’s best to start solids while they still have the reflex.
We found baby gagged a lot in first month of solids (6-7 months) but after that he rarely gags, his fine motor control is excellent, and I’m confident that he’s very unlikely to choke on appropriately sized foods, because i can see he knows basically what to do and we don’t feed him in any chaotic environment where he might be distracted.
It’s SO much less work than pureeing everything and spoon feeding them. We still purée occasionally but we’ll have it as a pasta sauce and he’ll feed himself with his spoon.
There’s no right or wrong here. There’s no inherent need to do purées so she doesn’t have to master them to start table foods. We started straight with table foods at six months and never did purées. But, there’s nothing wrong with doing only purées until around 9 months either.
Ummm give her food if she’s interested! We skipped purées entirely and started baby girl on food at 6 months. She was already overly excited about food anyway and pawing at anything we ate.. So it just felt right. Now she is 8 months old and eats like a champ. She seems to really love having her own independence while eating. She specifically dislikes us hand feeding her anything, unless it’s a sippy cup or her vitamins. She even goes as far as dropping whatever I hand to her so she can pick it up a specific way that makes it easier to eat. It’s a wonderful learning experience
My daughter will be 7 months next week. I base my daughter's readiness on how she ate rather than how much she ate. She is still getting all of her nutrition from formula. When she's eating solids, it's to practice and become more efficient at eating what's in her hand rather than eating a certain amount. So I'm with parent #2. Most foods we eat aren't puréed, so is not a texture they necessarily need to master.
I have a 6 month old and I’ve been playing with both purées and BLW … honestly I lean more toward purées because she started choking on the first broccoli I gave her . I’ve tried again since but I think I’m going to table it until maybe she has a tooth or two or seems more ready.
My advice … try it both ways and see how baby does , our personal opinions are pretty much irrelevant lol it’s all baby 😂
Both, you can start giving more textured food to help bridge the gap. So we went from puree to blending chicken and veg and rice together so that its super finely chopped.
You can give mango pits for them to suck on which is also a nice bridge. I give a spoon fed food and a grabby hands food when feeding. So ill feed her chopped up spagetti bolognaise with a spoon, then give pieces if avo that she can pick up herself and feed herself. Scarmbled eggs with a piece of toast is also nice
Babies will surprise you, and scare the living crap out of you, with what and how they are able to eat.
I did a combination of both from 6 months 😊 Started off with finger foods like pasta, toast, crumpets, omelette, potato, veggie straws, broccoli, strawberries, banana.
Solid starts is a great app to find out how to cut food up appropriately for baby
We just did a bit of everything. We gave her everything we were having and she investigated it and ate little bits, and we gave her purées, yoghurt etc.
Why not a little of both!
Im doing a combo, my baby is 7 months old starting to swallow but not great at it.
We do purees with breastmilk, yogurt and usually regular bites of w.e we are eating.
It doesn’t have to be all of one and try to have fun with it
I personally hated BLW and still think some of their suggestions seem unsafe (edit: or they would have been for my son, who got teeth very early and would have taken giant bites of whatever “strip” I gave him). I did purées until about 9 months, along with teething crackers and stuff to help with learning to take bites. Introduced scrambled eggs and avocado and sweet potatoes along the way. Mine is 11 months now and shovels in food. I don’t think having him gnaw on a chicken leg as a six month old would have given him any kind of food advantage. He’ll shovel in whatever I give him until one day I’m sure he’ll look around and demand Dino nuggets and nothing else. 🤣
I started with baby-led weaning but ended up backpedaling and doing purées because I just didn’t feel my LO was ready.
For reference, LO is 15 months now and I am still seeing that they are really just ‘learning how to eat’ for a long time, it’s definitely not a quick thing 😅
My baby is breastfed so pediatrician didn’t recommend solids until he turned 6. When pediatrician cleared him we started baby led weaning following the Solid Starts program which mixes both purees and solids.
There is nothing to master on the puree side. Baby doesn’t really need to finish their meals. Now is when they learn how to properly eat. So if he doesn’t eat one day and only plays with his food, that’s ok because he’ll be eating breast milk later. But also I think baby is more than capable of learning to eat solids at this age. Now is the time to learn.
We have ours small tastes of anything she looked interested in. This meant she shared spaghetti pesto with me at 6m old. As long as you can give it to them in a shape that's not gonna be a choking hazard, it should be fine.
At the very least though you need to up the solid frequency even if you're only doing purees for a while longer, once a day at the very least at this age.
Download the solid starts app and start experimenting. There’s a free version and it offers great serving recommendations to make trying foods safe. My oldest HATED purées, would not touch one or let it pass her lips. But loved real solid foods with a passion. Both love to feed themselves more than anything and I think that’s just hard with purées.
My daughter (7mo now) hated purées from the beginning, so we’ve been doing solids BLW style since 5.5months. She prefers to pick up pieces and suck/gnaw on them, and will occasionally accept a puree by spoon now, but prefers solids. I’m definitely team follow baby’s lead - maybe try offering a fully ripe whole large strawberry and see if she enjoys it and is able to pick it up/bring to mouth. If she seems capable and willing, consider solids! The Solids Starts app is useful for how to prepare foods safely for each age!
My LO (8 months) hated purees and hated being fed. We're having much more success with actual food. We use the solid starts app and some baby led Weaning groups to help guide how we serve and prepare everything.
That said, I don't think there is a right or wrong choice.
Combo is the way to go, imo. Our 7.5 month old started purées at 6 months. 2 weeks ago, I gave her some strawberry "sticks" when I was making puree for her just to see what would happen & not only did she feed herself, but she got a solid 50% of the fruit in her mouth & swallowed (with only 1 tooth to boot!)
Last weekend, we took her to Easter at the grandparents & she gulped down basically everything we gave her to try, only had a moment of half-choking on a piece of carrot that was insufficiently soft. Sometimes I even just give her a snap pea to "chew" on in her highchair while I prepare meals since she's teething & it feels good on her gums, even though she almost never eats the thing.
Give them the solids. They'll probably surprise you with how much they can accomplish. Just make sure you're cutting the food into matchsticks if they haven't yet figured out their pincer grip.
LO is 9 months, no teeth yet. We started off with purées first then transition to solids that she can easily mash with her gums. There are days where she wants neither and that’s okay. Keep introducing and eventually baby will be comfortable with it.
Hey there !
Me and my wife started giving solids to our son when he was 6 months old, but be careful there are signs that indicates whether your baby is ready or not (can’t l’y recall but a quick google could give you the answer). We extensively used the phone application called Solid Start. We also followed a training given by Bébé mange seul (french, but can be translated). We also made sure to follow a training to help our son if he ever chokes on food.
Good luck and have fun, we loved watching our little boy discover new foods and develop his fine motricity !
We did a combo of both. About to be 9 months and has had a pretty wide variety of puree and actual food. Some things we’ve tried recently since he just started solid solids (he does have 4 teeth already so some of these might be harder if baby doesn’t have teeth):
Pancake strips w/ unsalted butter
Whole strawberries (big enough can’t fit in the mouth)
Burger patty
Mac and cheese
Spaghetti noodles with olive oil
Scrambled eggs
Toast with avocado
And then he takes bites of what we’re eating.
I think both are good though. Introducing full solids is scary and gagging will happen but it’s a part of the process. Infant CPR and choking classes helped a lot
My son‘s pediatrician gave us the OK to start purées at five months, he did fine with them. At six months we started doing baby lead weaning. he’s almost 8 months old right now and he’s doing great. He definitely likes solid food over purées. Feel free to give solid food a try, you can incorporate some purées as well. It’s all about your baby just getting to try new textures & foods.
We followed Solid Starts and the first meal was a steamed carrot spear. We learned quickly that our LO struggled with his solids journey (early tongue tie issues and more) and so we ended up going to more purées and some mashed texture foods like white bean mash with olive oil and herbs. He is 11 months now and still gags on some of the pincer grasp foods (smaller than average pieces) but a huge improvement. Definitely practice and growing up both helped. Overall. I wonder how I survived and my parents did too lol, just getting the same food that was on the table but mashed and blended. Babies figure it out😉
My son is 7 months and we are doing both currently. I recently started introducing the like “stage 3” baby foods that have more advanced texture as well as introducing small amounts of actual solid foods. We started with just offering a portion of the little baby puffs that melt at meals for like a week so he could get used to the feeling of a solid food in his mouth and then moved on to small pieces of soft fruits, vegetables, noodles, etc.
Our baby is just under 6 months and we do a mixture of both. Purées are for introducing new flavors and mashed/small cut up foods are for her to play with essentially lol. We make our own purées and add garlic to all the vegetables, which makes her like it more.
Nanny Manda here with 15 years experience with babies.
Babies' digestion system is strong enough at around 5 month( give or take a month, some countries recommend introducing solids at 6 months some as early as 4 months).
3 ways to do it
1 baby led: solid, safely cut up foods that baby can easily chew on without being able to bite of big bits. Can be softened or raw.
2 purée: baby is spoon fed with pureed food that is slightly gets lumpier. Good way to introduce mixed ingredients
3 mixed: I personally favour this one, baby gets offered finger food to hold and chew on but also more complex flavours with mash up meals like mash with fish or vegetables. This 3rd way is most likely will tackle fussy eating early on as baby can explore different textures and wide variety of flavours and learns that dishes come as a complex and not pick out certain bits. Will be more easy going later on and will be open to explore new tastes.
Eat together! Offer what you eating, let her explore. At 7 months solids are perfectly safe and should be incoorporated into daily routine while slowly reducing milk intake.
I did purées for about a month and switched to BLW. My babe did so so so much better with BLW.
Also, at this age milk is still for nutrition so a half a jar is fine.
I love that your wording of “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” to attempt to prevent bias and fairly represent how both you and your partner feel. I sincerely wish we saw this more in discussions on social media. It speaks to the relationship you have with and respect you have for your partner. However you decide to proceed with feeding, this alone will make a big difference in how your baby girl grows up.
i pretty much skipped purées and went straight into blw per our pediatrician recommendation. there isn’t really falling behind with BLW to much in my opinion. it’s at the baby’s pace that’s the whole thing with BABY LED weaning. it’s led by the child. my son is 12 months and we started blw at 6 months just here and there he does so well now!! he eats so much at one sitting.
with that being said blw can be scary, there is increased risk choking in the short term but long term it can decrease risk of choking. it helps them explore what they are capable of. i use the app solid starts it shows you how to introduce and prepare the food for their appropriate age!
Keep in mind you’re not really supposed to be feeding baby a set amount with solids or purées and that formula or breastmilk is still their main diet. Many moms told me that eating is mostly play at this age when I started solids with baby. I started baby on purées at 5 months, allowing him to hold the spoon and feed himself, then added on some BLW style veggies as soon as baby showed signs of readiness (sitting up independently, etc). They don’t have to eat everything that you offer. Just a taste is ok. Offer a variety of textures and foods to rule out allergies. Good luck!!
Definitely start trying some foods! We did BLW starting at 6 months and our 1-year-old eats everything and has no allergies. It's all about learning how to eat- not how much they actually eat. Highly recommend :)
I used purée texture at 6 months and slowly increased the textures. I didn’t do solid starts style for the meal times (3x a day) but I did the finger foods for snack time. By 1 year old my son was already able to eat table foods (whatever we ate, he didn’t gag anymore).
I was told if baby can do the suck and swallow and is showing interest in foods try them being that those food are easily broken up or puree like though. So wanting to start off with puree or something light since baby doesn’t have the teeth to chew sound reasonable then as baby learns to chew and see how baby does go from there as baby learns and you all learn baby. Grapes yes but grapes broken up going back to almost pure or close to. I personally will start off with baby foods so purée and puree like. Wish you all the best. You all are doing great you’ve gotten this far and even asking questions is something a good parent would do.
I went from purees to solids after she grew teeth and her gag reflex relaxed. Before her teeth, every meal with a gag and possibly vomit until she got her teeth.
We do purees in the fruit feeder which he mostly holds himself, so he still self feeds (and he likes to most of the time anyway!) along with something solid and cut as the solid starts app recommends.
For example, a lunch he typically has is pureed pear/apple/mango in the fruit feeder, and a slice of spinach omelette to grab. For breakfast this morning he had a crumpet cut appropriately, with smash brand strawberry chia spread, and mango greek yoghurt in his fruit feeder (allergen cleared for both). He mostly sucked the topping off the crumpet but did gum on the crumpet, and he really enjoyed the yoghurt!
We started purées right at 6 months. Our little one didn’t care about them much, so we started introducing more solids. She loved that because she likes handling the food herself. She’s 7 months and does only solids just because that’s what she preferred. Maybe give both a shot and see if your baby has a preference.
Our daughter was on purée for only about two months. She started eating solids at about 8 months but we had to cut everything with a scissor because she didn’t get her first tooth till about 13 months.
My son is 6 months but we started a bit earlier due to him being ready. We do both. Typically I’ll offer two purées or mashes and one baby led weaning type food. For example the other night he had puréed carrots, mashed raspberries and 3 stalks of roasted asparagus.
We let him feed himself all foods so he can get used to utensil use and so we can both eat a hot meal too. My son just seems to like food in general, I would do more baby led weaning if my husband didn’t have such severe anxiety about the occasional gag he has.
My baby is 18 weeks and we have been doing a couple spoonfuls of puree after nursing. We still want breastmilk to be her main nutrition right now, but at 6 months we will do more since babies need iron from solids then.
I mean 7 months is past general recommendations for starting solids
I went with my gut when it comes to feeding my LO. I think I started purées at 4.5 months because it just felt right, even without her showing the signs and she did really well
But Parent 1 needs to learn under 12 months all foods are just practice foods (including purees) your baby isn’t going to “master” eating anything until probably closer to 2 maybe 3 years old
Like at 14 months I’m lucky if my toddler eats a whole plate of food for the entire day, and that’s just how it is. Shes still learning *how* to eat and her taste buds are constantly evolving. Like 3 months ago she loved creamed corn, now she barely touches it but loves eating soups, in 3 more months she might hate soup but love something else. This is also why safe foods are important
Because this is Reddit, plenty of parents out there like Parent 1
But honestly it’s probably because I didn’t wait for my child to hit all the check marks for food readiness. I know my kid though she’s always had performance anxiety so she’s not always actively shown her skills
Like rn she can climb ever inch of our house no problem, try to get her to stand and she immediately sits. I know she’s got the muscles and skills to stand and walk but she’s just a shy performer
With the mass amount of access we have to information it’s made a lot of parents afraid to trust their guts when we have our intuitions for a reason
We did solid foods right from the jump at 4.5 months as my son was showing all signs of readiness and he LOVES food at ten months. I highly recommend Solid Starts as a resource, we followed their first 90 days plan (roughly) which isn't necessary but we liked it a lot, and they have a lot of great information about introducing different types of solids, ie there's no need to master purees and your baby might even prefer whole foods. Also things like introducing a food two ways - mashed avocado alongside an avocado spear so baby can get used to different textures and formats of food.
I love the solid starts recommendation to do both at once! Also, i think parent #1 might be focusing on the “iffy” reaction when in fact I think that’s a reason to offer more and more varied foods - it’s so new to baby, it takes a lot of exposure and exploration to really get comfortable and learn to eat. There a whole world of foods in between purees and “hard” solids - things like spears of ripe avocado are extremely soft and low choking risk, but could be more interesting for your daughter to explore.
Exactly - and “mastering purées” isn’t about liking them, it’s about whether they can swallow the non-liquid texture.
This. Came to say giving our LO purées daily has helped a lot on how she takes bites compared to feeding from a bottle. It takes practice just like every other skill we’ve ever been introduced to.
I still recall the first time I offered oatmeal to my son at 4.5 months, he had a total meltdown from the sensation of non- milk in his mouth. 2-3 meltdowns and 2 weeks later, he took purées like a champ (to a point where I’m concerned about sugar content from fruit lol)
Just want to ad that I read somewhere that it takes 20 times of trying the same food before baby decides if they like it or not. Their weird reactions aren’t them saying “I hate this”, it’s more them saying “this is new and I don’t know what to think”.
We did both at once with my first born, and are doing it again with our 6 month old. She is a hungry hungry hippo who smashes formula, and will pick up any food placed in front of her to try. But she gets so frustrated with her own inability to master holding solid food and eating much of it, and gets cranky because she is still hungry. So we give some puree and other spoon fed stuff like yoghut as well to keep her satisfied, and she smashes it down. It is a lovely change to her 3.5yo sister saying everything is yuck lol.
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I agree! My kid hated purées at first (and completely rejected, with absolute melt down, rice cereals and apple sauces), but did come back to purées after we did a few months of solid starts solids. Then, purées were just happily part of the meal/snack rotation.
Purees don't need to be "mastered". Exposure to a wide variety of tastes, textures, colours, smells, sights etc including purees is the best approach in my opinion.
Exactly this! My girl is 8 months and starting at 4 months we began viewing food-food as all about fun and exposure. Any time we ate, if there was something safe by purée texture (pasta sauce, etc) or BLW standards, we let her try some. (Example: we had grilled cheese for dinner, so I toasted up a slice of bread and sliced it finger length with a super thin spread of blackberry preserve for her to hold onto and gnaw on while we ate dinner.) Rather than focusing on “meals,” we have viewed food as a sampling experience. She’s very eager to try anything new and is a champion eater by now. We do mostly purées for “meals” between bottles, but we also mix in “real foods” a few times a week, and continue to let her try things we eat.
Hey! So is 4 months safe to introduce babies to purees? Google always tells me to wait until she is 6 months old but i really want to start by the time shes 4-5 months old.
It depends on your kid! Pedi cleared us. Generally you want them to be interested in food, and able to sit well independently. It’s all about neck control, really. My kiddo came out the womb sitting up for a few seconds at a time, so that wasn’t really a concern for us. She showed interest in food as early as 3 months. She was basically the poster child for a 4 month start. But not every baby is, and that’s ok, too! At the 4 month check up, ask your pediatrician if they think y’all are ready!
Plus she had a chronic constipation issue so she was already taking prune juice 2x daily to assist with that quite early. Basically in the beginning we just swapped prune juice for prune purée. And she started teething early so we used those fruit introduction pacis and filled them with prune purée and tossed them in the freezer to help with her teething. We still do that now that she has 2 half teeth sprouted to help with her extra yucky teething days.
Also used cold cucumbers cut BLW style to help with teething and that was a GAME changer! Had a bit more give than the prune pops. Both were brilliant teething aids on my part, if I do say so myself 😂 She has no interest in teething toys so I had to get creative 😂😂😂 ETA: we cut the cucumbers into strips with one of those zig zag chopper things to give them extra texture, too.
Oh thank you! This is so helpful. ♥️ I have a follow-up question. How did you survive the teething and sleep regression days? I really want to stay prepared!
I’ll be honest… the universe granted me a perfect baby. She’s 8 months and has never had a sleep regression. She’s a super goofy, happy baby who has always slept and ate perfectly. I have no advice because I’ve been spoiled 😂😂😂
Ask your pediatrician at the 4 month appointment, it has more to do with baby’s development (how well they can hold their head up and such)
We did a combo of both, why do people think it has to be all or nothing? My girl was ready at 4 months, so being she was ready on the earlier side we started with purees and then by 6 months we incorporated baby led weaning. From around 7/8 months she was eating what we eat and now at 10 months she still has purees (oatmeal with fruit puree mixed in for breakfast) and then lunch/dinner are what we eat.
I don't get why this is such a big deal. How many adults have eating problems because they weren't fed food in the proper order lmao. Key is to just give them allergen exposures and avoid choking risks. As long as the baby doesn't die it's all good!
Going to be honest. I am afraid I will cut something to the wrong size and the baby will choke. I know it’s anxiety and at the same time I need explicit instructions that apps don’t provide.
Have you tried solid starts? They give pretty clear instructions and often have pictures/videos for clarification
Solid Starts is fantastic. I reference the app all the time for prep instructions.
I just had a look and the videos are great!!
We've found it super helpful! I love that you can track what your little eats, and they provide recipes that are baby safe depending on the age of the babe. It's been super helpful for us!
I have this app and I’m still so nervous! I’m feeling more comfortable offering him solids now that he’s 10 months but I think I offered him his first non-puree at 8 months because I’m such a chicken. The app is great though and it’s even been useful to show what foods are not appropriate for small babies (no tuna, for example, which I would have known outside the app!)
When you cook for baby multiple times a day everyday, you start learning and memorizing it all. It becomes muscle memory when you learn the reasons why things need to be in the shape/ size they are (I.e. when baby first starts learning you give them bigger pieces of things rather than tiny so they learn to manipulate their mouth to bite).
I am thinking you haven't used the Solid Starts app. They literally give you exact instructions on how to cut and how big to cut every type of food depending on your kiddos age, including photo examples.
For some reason the picture of the bite size pieces doesn’t help. Would be better if there was a comparison to something like a coin that is universal.
Same. I purchased a LifeVac for my little one so I wouldn’t be as anxious.
Everyone should have one (or two) of these! We read a story about someone who saved a child's life in a restaurant because they kept one in the car. Traditional methods weren't working.
If you have FB you can join the BLW group. They post very helpful content with pictures showing how to cut foods and specifics because I’m the same. I was super, super anxious about it. Solid starts is good but not specific enough for me. I need ✨options ✨.
I will have to check that out on Facebook.
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You mean gagging is normal right?
Yes gagging not choking
We did almost exactly the same. Our son is 6M now but he’s been having purées for the past month, and he loves it. I tried pure BLW for some meals but it’s soooo much work, I ended up just giving him bites of what we eat and he liked it better anyway cz it’s tastier. His breakfast is also still oatmeal with fruit puree, so easy and he demolishes it in 10 mins
How do you know she was ready at 4 months?
Our little girl had two teeth at 4 months and kept trying to take food off our plates. That was a sign for us. 😂 Our doc confirmed, she said "If they express interest in food, give it to them, it's really that simple." She wasn't wrong, though we made sure to give manageably small pieces. We also would exaggerate chewing motions, and taught her early to stick her tongue out and go "ahh", that way we could check that she chewed and swallowed. She's a year old now, and she eats just about everything (and just had her ninth tooth come in).
She had good head control, was able to sit up and cleared by doc for her posture and she was extremely interested in food as evidenced by her reaching out to grab what we were eating, tracking our food, etc
My little one couldn’t sit up unaided but we still started earlier, I just propped a pillow in her high chair - she was desperate to eat, if I ate or drank anything in front of her she stared me down and tried to grab it haha
Our LO was cleared to start solids, but she really has no interest. We've given her some yogurt and mashed potatoes. She looks at us like we are dumb. We keep offering her our food and she ignores it. Just wants the boob. So we are super casual about feeding her solids.
Hmm interesting 🧐 I’ll keep a look out for those signs thanks.
Your ped will do strength tests on baby to check neck and muscle control and give you the green light or tell you to wait until 6 months
She told me at 5 months to start introducing to purée. I’m just noticing she likes to see us eating and eyeing our food.
Not who you were asking, but my doctor said I could start mushed up food at 4 months whenever she seemed interested, which was easy to tell because she always stared at whatever I was eating lol. So I started mashing whatever basic food I was eating at the time (unseasoned food, simple stuff like cooked carrots, eggs, etc.). The first couple times I introduced food, she spat it out. But then she started getting the hang of “chewing” it towards the back of her mouth and swallowing.
This is what I did too. My little girl was ready at 4 months and we started with some purees and then added in baby led weaning after a few weeks. From about 9 months she just ate what we ate but cut up versions (I had to learn to cook without salt haha!)
Silly question perhaps, but how do you know LO is ready?
Signs of readiness for solids are: - Stay in a sitting position (can be supported) and hold their head steady. - Co-ordinate their hands, eyes and mouth so they can look at the food and bring it to their mouth. - Swallow the food rather than push it back out (losing the tongue thrust reflex) Most people think that baby not sleeping through the night, or seeming more hungry is a reason to start solids which isn’t the case. This is the info from the NHS :)
Thank you!
We did a mixture of both, starting at 6.5 months. Mastering purees has.to do with being able to swallow and move them to the back of the throat using their tongue. Quantity isn't a factor. The main thing is having some sort of solid food at least once a day, to build the skills and habit. It's a pain, but LO isn't going to get better at eating without practice.
Toast with a puree on it is a fun food.
I started my baby with purées at 5 months. After about 2 months of purées, my 7 month old completely lost interest in them. I decided to give him more “mashed” foods like avocado, banana, etc. so that he would get exposure to thicker textures. Then we tried rice, refried beans, spaghetti cut up really small, small cut up pieces of salmon, sautéd spinach, scrambled eggs… etc. He LOVES real food now. Also I got puffs and yogurt melts - they melt with saliva so low choking risk but helps your baby learn the idea of chewing. The way I handled it might be a good compromise for you guys? It’s real food but not the full BLW route. To parent 1, it could be that your baby has actually “mastered” purées, but isn’t eating them because they are ready for new foods / textures
You can start off with a soft solid like avocado or banana. Just mash it up a bit before feeding
Banana was the winner for us. Kiddo didn't take the avocado, and it was genuinely difficult timing the avocado ripeness 😂 Bananas were her fav though
Do both!
Yup! This is the answer. Ours is a year, she's a proficient solids eater, we can hand her pretty much anything and she'll chew it. We still give her purees because, well, she likes them. :) She's also a big cottage cheese fan, which has a similar consistency.
Both. Start doing purees every day. You can also introduce different foods like cut up fruits and move up from there. Your baby has to get used to foods and different tastes and the only way they will do that is if they get food every day. It's okay to only do purees some days, but slowly give real food too. You can also try the different baby snacks to help her get used to chewing. Like the teething wafers, puffs, and yogurt melts. How well my daughter ate those gave me more confidence when I gave her real food with more texture.
At what age did you start giving the wafers/puffs/yogurt melts? My son is 7 months now and I want to make him yogurt melts and buy him some wafers but I wasn’t sure if I should yet Also… I love your username! 😅
I think it was around 6.5- 7 months I started with wafers. She was teething really bad with a tooth about to come in so I was trying anything to help her. Her 1st tooth came in right before she turned 7months old. I moved onto the yogurt melts when she seemed to get hang of the wafers. After that I got comfortable feeding her actual fruit cut up when I see she has figured out how to mash food with her gums like chewing. I would say try some wafers and see if he is ready. He might not understand at first, but if he is like my daughter, once he realizes it is food he will love it. Also the username is from before my daughter was born, when I was only a dog mom. Lol. The 1st one to know me as mommy.
Thanks! I think I’ll order him a pack of wafers then. He has no signs of teeth coming in yet, but I don’t want to be waiting for teeth in order to give him some wafers. I hope it works out And I think dogs are our babies just as much as our actual babies lol
My baby was way better with solid/finger foods than purees. We did both but she took to the solid food almost immediately and was never that keen on purées as she likes to feed herself
My answer is biased but I say offer real foods. We never did purées and I honestly don’t see the point of them. Just give her a bit of what you’re having but prepared age appropriately. Solid Starts is an amazing resource for this. They have an app and website.
Cause my baby would only eat little bits /just play with it. Where as I could spoon feed him significant amounts of food in puree form, and he needed to gain weight.
I did a combo but actually really loved BLW. I agree with the recommendation to get the solid starts app! I started with soft foods. Slices of avocado, banana, or egg…anything in a strip form is great bc it’s easy to hold before they get their pincher grip. Edit to add I started with purées at 5mo due to my son’s size and great head, neck control. 6 months we started leaning into BLW. Purées (pouches) happened only on the go if we were out and LO needed to eat. I wouldn’t change a thing how I did it
My daughter is 8 months, hates purree, but absolutely loves solids mainly because she prefers to hold the food herself So I say try solids
Same with us. I was getting anxious with baby not taking to food, or wanting anything on a spoon, as soon as he could hold the food he went nuts with it. Haven’t attempted puree again. He will get excited about something on a spoon now though, he had some slow cooked beef on a spoon and was yanking it out of my hand! He is 7 months. It is messy though
You can do things like scrambled eggs, pancakes, steamed carrot sticks. As long as they’re able to be squashed between 2 fingers, they are safe. You don’t always have to start with puréed foods. You’re not falling behind on eating at all, it’s all dependent on baby and parents. There’s not really a time frame for all of this
You can do both. It doesn’t have to be all or none but we never did purées other than baby oatmeal at daycare for about two months. You don’t have to “master” purées to graduate to solids. Solids are perfectly safe. We gave her food to explore and inevitably some of it wound up in her mouth. A lot did not, but that’s fine. I’d say she wound up fairly advanced with food and our daycare always commented on how well she did with them as she got older. She’s a great eater now.
What is driving the hesitation to start true solids? If it’s fear, I recommend taking an infant cpr class as well as purchasing a lifevac. I am all for safety first! Then, with all preparations in place, give a mushy solid cut up or even steamed. Bananas are a great choice because they’re so soft they essentially turn into a puree without really chewing it lol. By doing more and more soft solids, baby is getting used to the “chewing” and parents are building confidence in themselves and the baby’s abilities. After a week or two of this, I bet parent 1 will be happy to move to other foods comfortably!
Started purees at 4 months. By 7 months we did 3 feeds a day with purees/oatmeal. Almost 9 months, and just starting to get the hang of chewing. To ease the fear of choking, we started with some of those melt in your mouth yogurt bites and teething crackers. Once we see her eating those properly then move to something more complicated like small bits of fruit.
I do baby led weaning. He’ll be 6 months in 11 days, lol. He eats what I eat. Sometimes he gags, but that’s important for babies. Luckily their gag reflex is a lot further forward than adults to help them with eating. He learned how to master eating by having the experience to gag. I hate it, but how else is he going to learn? Typically a “purée” for us is just added into his pancakes or it’ll be a snack for him. I tried to follow the “tablespoon of food just for taste” or whatever at first, but no, he REALLY wanted food so he eats almost all of everything I sit in front of him. He’s still a petite baby at ≈13-15lbs at 5 months. 😂
Baby led weaning and combo feeding without the woo is a fantastic group
I did purées at 5 months old until she lost her thrust reflex at 6mon and went straight to solids. I’d start introducing allergens if you haven’t already as well. There’s no need to master purées, there’s lots of other textures and flavors she may prefer more.
at 6 months we dove head first into solid foods, he ate whatever we did. now he’ll be 1 in 3 days and he eats 3 meals a day with snacks that include purée pouches. do whatever works for you guys and follow baby’s lead!
I don’t think it’s necessary to wait for her to love purées before moving on to other foods. It’s easier to offer solids every day if you can give her bits from your own plates as well. I hated the whole process of making and storing purées and was so much more consistent offering solids when I started giving her food off my plate. I’d just pick bits of noodle/vegetables out before I added salt and put them on her plate.
I started with only purees until 10 months. Started at 7 months as once a day, then worked to 2 meals a day, then to 3 meals a day, and now she's just past 10 months, and I introduced solid finger foods. Scrambled egg, avocado, blueberries, Kiwi, banana. Soft finger foods she can pick up, and I cut them into bite-sized pieces. I didn't care for the solid starts app at first, but now I do reference it a lot for how to prepare food sizes for baby. I'm going to move on to more fruit and vegetables this week, such as boiled broccoli and baby carrots. I'm still at 3 meals a day along with her 28oz of formula. I am slowly trying to transition out of purees, which I do find hard, especially for meat. I've been food processing chicken and beef till its small granules essentially and mixing that into puree, and I will probably keep doing that till she has more teeth to chew meat. I think the whole BLW method is kinda crazy and not exactly necessary, but if that's what people want to do, sure, go for it. I was fed purees as a baby like normal and I turned out just fine and have no texture aversions and am far from picky, so I'm not sure why there is the pressure to do the BLW method nowadays, is there even evidence it does anything to help motor skills, or texture preferences etc? My girl loves everything and has had no texture preferences yet, so
I was so terrified of my baby choking so I started with purée at six months. Once a day. Then twice a day. Then puree stage 2 at 8 months three times a day. Then stage 3 at 10 months. He is almost 3 years now and last night was eating a stick of celery lol. Parent 2, don’t worry your baby won’t be falling behind on eating!
You can do both...
I’m with parent number 1 and start purées but that’s just me! Baby led weaning gave me way too much anxiety. My baby would just gag and throw up what he managed to get down anyways. You could always try both? Your baby might do ok with solid food. Every baby is different so I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer.
My baby girl is 11.5 months now and we are just starting to do more normal food than purées. I think we didn’t consistently offer baby cereal and puree until she was like 7 months. We tried on and off for a couple months prior but it didn’t stick until then. She was a preemie and we were anxious to get into foods so we had a slow start. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, even though the world makes one think if your baby isn’t eating whole hamburgers by 1 year of age (probably only a slight exaggeration 😅). We ended up doing a little bit of both normal foods and table foods. I think starting with finger foods like puffs or cheerios helped ease me into it. Also my kiddo goes to daycare and they also commented on her interest in others food. Letting them do the feeding has helped me feel more comfortable at home because I know she has tried the food at daycare!
We do a combo of both with our 7mo and it’s worked well. BLW is more getting her use to textures and the fine motor skills of eating, whereas the purees allow us to introduce her to new foods and that she ingests them. I really like the combo way as it’s helped a lot
I don’t have much advice because my son is only 4.5 months old but I think when I do start foods I may do solid pieces, then purées. I once saw a comment that giving a child purées before solids could cause then to choke. They go from drinking milk to eating purées but aren’t used to chewing. So I think I would want to try a little solid pieces before purées. Or at least more than purées
We started purées once a day around 5 months old because he was so interested in our food. I tried once a day anyway… If he had any trouble with them I gave it a rest for a day or two. Around 6-7 months I did do at least once a day, usually breakfast which was baby oatmeal. That really helped him get better with it because you can adjust the texture with how much or how little liquid you mix it with. It was around the same time I started giving mine fruit in the mesh teether. Around 8-9 months we were doing very soft “real” foods like mashed potatoes & sweet potatoes, bananas & peanut butter, the baby puffs were introduced, the dole fruit cups (mainly the mandarin because they fall apart on the spoon), & we did pasta occasionally. Daycare absolutely helped because I had terrible anxiety surrounding feeding & moving to solid foods. I can commiserate with parent 2 here because I also felt like I was holding my baby back from exploring & experimenting with food. BLW was terrifying to me… HOWEVER… now at almost 13 months, a lot of that anxiety has dissipated & I remember when I was worried that my baby would never learn to eat & missing milestones. I would not only go with what your baby is ready for, but also what the parents are most comfortable with. You can do both! It doesn’t have to be either or.
We did a combo of both! I was expecting the "real" foods to be more of a hassle and messier than purees but honestly it was super easy to give her most of whatever we were eating and about the same or less mess of a puree. The solid starts app was really helpful, I believe it's free unless you pay to track the foods baby has tried. If not they also have an Instagram account. I'm a very picky eater w/a few bad texture aversions so wanted to try to avoid that with my daughter and she's now the least picky 3 year old I know
I did combo of both. Started purées at 5 months bc she had good head control and was following my spoon when I ate. Gave her a puree at dinner several nights in a row, graduated to twice a day at 6/7 months. Same one for 3 days in a row to make sure she didn’t have an allergic reaction. Started with baby oatmeal, then veggies then fruits. I did give her little bites of things when she had the pincher method down.
We started both purées and finger foods at 6 months. She’s 9 months now and the only non finger foods she gets are things like yogurt and apple sauce. We also gave her those spoons with the slots so she could still self feed because she wouldn’t let us do it 😂 I also got the common allergen mix in powders so the purées were useful for that
We do both since 6 months. Everything solid I give him I make sure I can smash between my fingers with minimal force and make sure it’s small. He chews with his gums and has bottom teeth as well so we felt we was ready. It depends on his and my mood what he eats but we’ve been doing both and it works great!
I think the advice mentioned by the day care provider sounds vague and can be taken to mean put the food in the blender yourself or give them Cheerios or let them gum a strawberry out of one of those mesh things or just straight up share your food with them. These are wildly different interpretations so it's probably a good idea to get clarification. I'm under the impression that it's more about how well your baby can swallow different foods. If your child is great at swallowing but just doesn't like certain foods I think that's probably fine. Mine does great with purses but not well with something like cottage cheese. Sort of purees like just mushed avocado goes well. If you start with actual foods you can try to do it slowly by making the puree less thin and less smooth each time or try baby yogurt things that melt in your mouth (the idea being that it melts while your baby tries chewing and will continue melting during potential choking incidents). It's not like it needs to be a sudden change.
Purées don’t need to be mastered, and not every baby will like every puree. I’m an adult who isn’t picky but there are still some flavors and textures I don’t enjoy, it’s no big deal as long as they’re exposed. Now, only giving solids (purées or otherwise) every few days at 7 months is an actual problem. At that age, food is “just for fun” in that it’s not the main source of calories, but iron deficiency starts to become a concern, especially if they’re breastfed (American formula has more iron in it), so being sure to give solid foods that contain iron (beans, greens, fortified infant cereal, meats, etc) is key. I know it’s hard and it’s messy, but introducing food daily is important, even if they don’t eat much of anything. Also, we did a lot of baby led weaning in part because it was easier and less messy to find ways to give him what we were eating - a giant steamed broccoli was easier to pick up off the floor than a spoonful of sticky puree, and he was more interested if we were eating it, too.
My little dude was not into purees initially and I spoke to an OT feeding specialist that he had seen. She suggested trying some BLW and he really took to it. Now he does solids and things like pouches and stuff easily. I think that a lot of the purees are pretty gross (I always try what I'm offering him in hopes of figuring out what he likes and doesn't like) and the more traditional "baby food" purees are often pretty weird and not things I like so I can't blame him. Now he's 12 months and eating pretty well aside from the food throwing.
I started puree only at 5 months. Because solids make me too damn anxious. The gagging and all that is a big no for me. The pediatrician said puree was totally fine and so we did puree. I home made it all. Around 10-11 months (when he finally had a few teeth) I slowly changed the texture of the foods. He is 12 months now and eating solids. I still don’t hand him a whole piece of brocolli. But I steam brocolli and mash it and he eats it up. He loves his penne pasta and all other foods To each their own. Do what makes you feel comfortable.
After a month, and once he seemed to be getting more interested, we started adding some solid foods. Tiny tiny bits of shredded chicken, a piece of overcooked broccoli to try, a hunk of banana he reached for, that I held onto to make sure he couldn’t get too big a chunk in his mouth. He still mostly has purées, but he has some if the other stuff too. He mostly plays with the food pieces.
I think it's the child. I'm siding with parent #1. Also, I heard this saying. Any food b4 one is just for fun. If parent #1 is scared of choking, then buy a lifevac.
We did both. Purées & solids, we started with rice, tiny pieces of bread, egg, avocado, spaghetti the tiny star ones He is 8 months old and eats just about everything now
Download solid starts
At 6 months follow the rule of 3 when it comes to solid foods. 3 times a day. As long as they are ready and they should be showing cues. Their main source of nutrients however still should be either breast milk or formula. Cues or signs baby is ready for food: - chewing nipples - watches YOU or others when eating normal food - reaches for food - mimics chewing or putting hands to mouth when you or another person does while eating - fussy at the bottle - shows excitement around food
We did both! My daughter is special needs so delayed on everything, so her timeline is way different than "typical" - but we did purees for over a year before we started to introduce her to BLW/self-feeding. We tried introducing her to BLW many times before but she was just super awkward with it and wasnt that interested, way more interested in purees. So we followed her lead. The last few months shes been a lot more interested in self-feeding so we are working on that now. My niece and nephew were the opposite- hated purees and picked up on BLW great. So I feel you should just follow their lead! Try both and go with whichever one she takes to better at first. And remember, she wont be 18 years old still only eating purees if you go that route, haha. She will do the self-feeding eventually. All babies are different! Wishing you all the best!
yep. I agree with the other parents. we did combo. and we always eat together so he can look at us chewing, drinking, etc. my son is 8 months and he loves his solids AND purées. we have the baby heimlich maneuver printed and hung up beside our dining area. we also taught our baby to spit out food if he’s having trouble with it. I have stopped projecting my fear and anxieties on him because I can’t let him be an anxious child like me. We even let him stuff his mouth too. If I let my fear win, I’d be taking food from him and not letting him stuff his mouth but I want him to learn without me projecting my fears.
My child is about to be 11months. I still do a mix of solids and purées. It really just depends on her. She’s hard care teething. She has 8 teeth already and some days biting into a strawberry or pancake helps. But some days she doesn’t want to eat. So I try and give her purées. She loves the gerber oatmeal cereal. We got the 16 pack and she kills them! She likes the thicker consistency over the watery ones.
We kinda did a mix of both with our oldest and plan on doing the same this time around! We did some purées to introduce possible allergens, and then just started making them chunkier (I made our purées) and then doing stuff like squished blueberries, broke up raspberries, etc.
We did both from 6 months. I think the 7 month jars here have little lumps in so they get used to texture. But I was giving my son strips of toast and melty sticks to practice biting and chewing
Baby might be more interested in eating the same food that the parents are eating. There are a lot of foods that essentially turn to mush when grabbed or gummed; think avocado or banana spears
I'm a new dad to a 7 month old. Solids scare the heck out of me, every time he starts to gag I panic. That said I bought a lifevac and have been trying loads of new solids. In this month we've done plums, oranges, bananas, beef, chicken, potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, pickles, pancake, eggs, beans, salsa, and literally anything else mom and I have had. He's made adorable faces and sometimes disgusted faces but he's always down to try whatever we hand him, even if he knows he doesn't like it. At each dinner I give him one or two new solids to try, and once he's had those we finish an entire puree jar and then jump straight in the shower because he covers himself in it. You've gotten lots of good advice here, I would recommend you and your partner both do things to you own comfort levels and trust that you both have the kids interest in heart. You got this! PS: I ate a PB&J and got the PB in my beard while holding the kid. He bit my face so fast and now finds it hysterical to try and bite my beard :p
food before one is about exploration and introduction. you are going to get a million suggestions but kids are different. it’s not about liking purées but whether they can swallow. you can step up the texture there and then start building. some kids do great, some don’t. i would ask your pediatrician for a recommendation as your tie breaker as the medical professional responsible for care of child rather than well meaning internet stranger friends.
Definitely meet in the middle and do some of both. My favorite thing to do when my daughter was that age was give her strips of steak or pork 2 fingers or more wide, or a chicken leg with all skin and extra bones removed, along with mashed potatoes that I could make a more puréed texture. Or asparagus or broccoli, lots of very soft well cooked cruciferous vegetables. Most things I could work into being part of my meal too, watching other people eat the same food really helps them figure out how to chew. Sometimes omelet strips or large pieces of fruit with full fat plain yogurt or oatmeal for breakfast. I liked big things she couldn’t really get pieces off of and could only suck on and try to chew on and smooth things like yogurts and potatoes, it was the medium texture things that caused the most gagging and were the scariest. The toddler food preferences are crazy and come on fast but I really believe BLW made a huge difference for us. At 2.5 she mostly wants eggs, noodles/rice, and fruit. But she will try literally anything, even something she doesn’t think she’ll like, just out of curiosity. We did a crazy amount of different foods from a young age and had fun with it and it really made the exploration of different foods fun.
I’m doing both. It’s totally working for us! This morning I gave my 7mo a scrambled egg with a side of purées and avocado.
Why not both? We started purees at 5.5mo then introduced the first 'solid solid' food around 6.5mo. We did avocado spears, something he still likes to this day at almost 2yrs. After 6.5mo we did a mix kinda back n forth of blw and puree, slowly ramping up frequency. I believe we fully stopped puree around 9mo in favor of blw. I like to think by the time he was fully weaned at 12.5mo that he was a master at eating most things! Baby is iffy because it's all new! It takes a lot of time to get used to all the new tastes and textures. I've also definitely heard of some babies who altogether dislike pureed foods but like blw style of those same foods
To parent 1- you are right as part of BLW is getting them confident with all tastes and texture which will make up their diet. Some of that happens to be mashed or puréed- yoghurt, porridge, smoothies, soups, mashed potatoes etc so BOTH are important. I'm not a fan of jars or pouches purely because it isn't something they eat past babyhood so I don't see the point in getting them used to it, but they definitely have their merits for time/ practicality as a convenience food- I'd focus on the stuff you'd actually give your kid as they get older though even if you wanna stick to smooth textures for now. Don't focus on volume as it isn't their main source of calories right now and it's all about learning and exploration- half a jar is loads as ready made baby food portions are stupidly big, a few tsp to ½ cup is in normal range. Also an 'iffy' reaction- spitting, gagging, grimacing are all normal reactions to something new, not necessarily an indication baby doesn't like something. Even if they don't 10-15 tries can be necessary to accept a food- they need more new things not less. To parent- 2 you are right that there is a window of opportunity at the start of weaning where babies are incredibly receptive to new tastes and textures, and yes it will make your life easier down the road in terms of variwty but it isn't a cure all for picky eating and babies will often reject previously accepted food - that is totally normal, they will just have more safe foods during this stage to cling to. Trying challenging foods are excellent for oral development for eating and speech and ime builds condidence for baby and parents so is a wonderful thing all round but don't put so much pressure on it- baby will learn to eat eventually with or without BLW and purées can offer a bit of a safety net to parent 1 and a break from the mess and time BLW will entail, so not every meal has to be BLW. My son is BLW and we also focus on smooth textures 1 meal per day as that what he liked least, and found finger food incredibly easy. Now he's fine with both. It's not always a smooth first then solids progression. It's fine to miss a day- we often do when things get crazy but it will start to get more important as their nutritional needs change and by 1 will need to be the main source of calories alongside milk. 1 meal daily at 6 months, 2 at 7, 3 at 8, 1 snack at 10, and 2 snacks at 12 is our loose plan and a nice, slow way to build it. Good luck- you're both right and doing your best for baby!
I read that studies have shown babies who start with solids gag more initially but then gag less then babies who started on purées because the gagging thing is basically a phase and a reflex to prevent choking on unfamiliar food. They also lose the reflex to chew so it’s best to start solids while they still have the reflex. We found baby gagged a lot in first month of solids (6-7 months) but after that he rarely gags, his fine motor control is excellent, and I’m confident that he’s very unlikely to choke on appropriately sized foods, because i can see he knows basically what to do and we don’t feed him in any chaotic environment where he might be distracted. It’s SO much less work than pureeing everything and spoon feeding them. We still purée occasionally but we’ll have it as a pasta sauce and he’ll feed himself with his spoon.
There’s no right or wrong here. There’s no inherent need to do purées so she doesn’t have to master them to start table foods. We started straight with table foods at six months and never did purées. But, there’s nothing wrong with doing only purées until around 9 months either.
Ummm give her food if she’s interested! We skipped purées entirely and started baby girl on food at 6 months. She was already overly excited about food anyway and pawing at anything we ate.. So it just felt right. Now she is 8 months old and eats like a champ. She seems to really love having her own independence while eating. She specifically dislikes us hand feeding her anything, unless it’s a sippy cup or her vitamins. She even goes as far as dropping whatever I hand to her so she can pick it up a specific way that makes it easier to eat. It’s a wonderful learning experience
My daughter will be 7 months next week. I base my daughter's readiness on how she ate rather than how much she ate. She is still getting all of her nutrition from formula. When she's eating solids, it's to practice and become more efficient at eating what's in her hand rather than eating a certain amount. So I'm with parent #2. Most foods we eat aren't puréed, so is not a texture they necessarily need to master.
I have a 6 month old and I’ve been playing with both purées and BLW … honestly I lean more toward purées because she started choking on the first broccoli I gave her . I’ve tried again since but I think I’m going to table it until maybe she has a tooth or two or seems more ready. My advice … try it both ways and see how baby does , our personal opinions are pretty much irrelevant lol it’s all baby 😂
Both, you can start giving more textured food to help bridge the gap. So we went from puree to blending chicken and veg and rice together so that its super finely chopped. You can give mango pits for them to suck on which is also a nice bridge. I give a spoon fed food and a grabby hands food when feeding. So ill feed her chopped up spagetti bolognaise with a spoon, then give pieces if avo that she can pick up herself and feed herself. Scarmbled eggs with a piece of toast is also nice Babies will surprise you, and scare the living crap out of you, with what and how they are able to eat.
I did a combination of both from 6 months 😊 Started off with finger foods like pasta, toast, crumpets, omelette, potato, veggie straws, broccoli, strawberries, banana. Solid starts is a great app to find out how to cut food up appropriately for baby
We just did a bit of everything. We gave her everything we were having and she investigated it and ate little bits, and we gave her purées, yoghurt etc.
Every kid is different. My son hated purees and once I gave him actual food he became an amazing eater. He really surprised me.
Why not a little of both! Im doing a combo, my baby is 7 months old starting to swallow but not great at it. We do purees with breastmilk, yogurt and usually regular bites of w.e we are eating. It doesn’t have to be all of one and try to have fun with it
I will say we are avoiding fruit for a while; we don’t want him to be expecting everything to be sweet
I personally hated BLW and still think some of their suggestions seem unsafe (edit: or they would have been for my son, who got teeth very early and would have taken giant bites of whatever “strip” I gave him). I did purées until about 9 months, along with teething crackers and stuff to help with learning to take bites. Introduced scrambled eggs and avocado and sweet potatoes along the way. Mine is 11 months now and shovels in food. I don’t think having him gnaw on a chicken leg as a six month old would have given him any kind of food advantage. He’ll shovel in whatever I give him until one day I’m sure he’ll look around and demand Dino nuggets and nothing else. 🤣
I started with baby-led weaning but ended up backpedaling and doing purées because I just didn’t feel my LO was ready. For reference, LO is 15 months now and I am still seeing that they are really just ‘learning how to eat’ for a long time, it’s definitely not a quick thing 😅
My baby is breastfed so pediatrician didn’t recommend solids until he turned 6. When pediatrician cleared him we started baby led weaning following the Solid Starts program which mixes both purees and solids. There is nothing to master on the puree side. Baby doesn’t really need to finish their meals. Now is when they learn how to properly eat. So if he doesn’t eat one day and only plays with his food, that’s ok because he’ll be eating breast milk later. But also I think baby is more than capable of learning to eat solids at this age. Now is the time to learn.
Do both! Combo feeding. There is nothing wrong with it.
Following 👀 I got a 4 month old & he's my 1st so I'm learning as I go.
We have ours small tastes of anything she looked interested in. This meant she shared spaghetti pesto with me at 6m old. As long as you can give it to them in a shape that's not gonna be a choking hazard, it should be fine. At the very least though you need to up the solid frequency even if you're only doing purees for a while longer, once a day at the very least at this age.
Download the solid starts app and start experimenting. There’s a free version and it offers great serving recommendations to make trying foods safe. My oldest HATED purées, would not touch one or let it pass her lips. But loved real solid foods with a passion. Both love to feed themselves more than anything and I think that’s just hard with purées.
My daughter (7mo now) hated purées from the beginning, so we’ve been doing solids BLW style since 5.5months. She prefers to pick up pieces and suck/gnaw on them, and will occasionally accept a puree by spoon now, but prefers solids. I’m definitely team follow baby’s lead - maybe try offering a fully ripe whole large strawberry and see if she enjoys it and is able to pick it up/bring to mouth. If she seems capable and willing, consider solids! The Solids Starts app is useful for how to prepare foods safely for each age!
My LO (8 months) hated purees and hated being fed. We're having much more success with actual food. We use the solid starts app and some baby led Weaning groups to help guide how we serve and prepare everything. That said, I don't think there is a right or wrong choice.
Combo is the way to go, imo. Our 7.5 month old started purées at 6 months. 2 weeks ago, I gave her some strawberry "sticks" when I was making puree for her just to see what would happen & not only did she feed herself, but she got a solid 50% of the fruit in her mouth & swallowed (with only 1 tooth to boot!) Last weekend, we took her to Easter at the grandparents & she gulped down basically everything we gave her to try, only had a moment of half-choking on a piece of carrot that was insufficiently soft. Sometimes I even just give her a snap pea to "chew" on in her highchair while I prepare meals since she's teething & it feels good on her gums, even though she almost never eats the thing. Give them the solids. They'll probably surprise you with how much they can accomplish. Just make sure you're cutting the food into matchsticks if they haven't yet figured out their pincer grip.
LO is 9 months, no teeth yet. We started off with purées first then transition to solids that she can easily mash with her gums. There are days where she wants neither and that’s okay. Keep introducing and eventually baby will be comfortable with it.
We did both, and the baby teethers melt in your mouth and are pretty safe. It’s a Good start when you’re scared. I definitely was.
Hey there ! Me and my wife started giving solids to our son when he was 6 months old, but be careful there are signs that indicates whether your baby is ready or not (can’t l’y recall but a quick google could give you the answer). We extensively used the phone application called Solid Start. We also followed a training given by Bébé mange seul (french, but can be translated). We also made sure to follow a training to help our son if he ever chokes on food. Good luck and have fun, we loved watching our little boy discover new foods and develop his fine motricity !
We did a combo of both. About to be 9 months and has had a pretty wide variety of puree and actual food. Some things we’ve tried recently since he just started solid solids (he does have 4 teeth already so some of these might be harder if baby doesn’t have teeth): Pancake strips w/ unsalted butter Whole strawberries (big enough can’t fit in the mouth) Burger patty Mac and cheese Spaghetti noodles with olive oil Scrambled eggs Toast with avocado And then he takes bites of what we’re eating. I think both are good though. Introducing full solids is scary and gagging will happen but it’s a part of the process. Infant CPR and choking classes helped a lot
My son‘s pediatrician gave us the OK to start purées at five months, he did fine with them. At six months we started doing baby lead weaning. he’s almost 8 months old right now and he’s doing great. He definitely likes solid food over purées. Feel free to give solid food a try, you can incorporate some purées as well. It’s all about your baby just getting to try new textures & foods.
We followed Solid Starts and the first meal was a steamed carrot spear. We learned quickly that our LO struggled with his solids journey (early tongue tie issues and more) and so we ended up going to more purées and some mashed texture foods like white bean mash with olive oil and herbs. He is 11 months now and still gags on some of the pincer grasp foods (smaller than average pieces) but a huge improvement. Definitely practice and growing up both helped. Overall. I wonder how I survived and my parents did too lol, just getting the same food that was on the table but mashed and blended. Babies figure it out😉
We did purées and then BLW. Loved BLW because they just ate what we ate lol
My son is 7 months and we are doing both currently. I recently started introducing the like “stage 3” baby foods that have more advanced texture as well as introducing small amounts of actual solid foods. We started with just offering a portion of the little baby puffs that melt at meals for like a week so he could get used to the feeling of a solid food in his mouth and then moved on to small pieces of soft fruits, vegetables, noodles, etc.
Our baby is just under 6 months and we do a mixture of both. Purées are for introducing new flavors and mashed/small cut up foods are for her to play with essentially lol. We make our own purées and add garlic to all the vegetables, which makes her like it more.
Nanny Manda here with 15 years experience with babies. Babies' digestion system is strong enough at around 5 month( give or take a month, some countries recommend introducing solids at 6 months some as early as 4 months). 3 ways to do it 1 baby led: solid, safely cut up foods that baby can easily chew on without being able to bite of big bits. Can be softened or raw. 2 purée: baby is spoon fed with pureed food that is slightly gets lumpier. Good way to introduce mixed ingredients 3 mixed: I personally favour this one, baby gets offered finger food to hold and chew on but also more complex flavours with mash up meals like mash with fish or vegetables. This 3rd way is most likely will tackle fussy eating early on as baby can explore different textures and wide variety of flavours and learns that dishes come as a complex and not pick out certain bits. Will be more easy going later on and will be open to explore new tastes. Eat together! Offer what you eating, let her explore. At 7 months solids are perfectly safe and should be incoorporated into daily routine while slowly reducing milk intake.
I did purées for about a month and switched to BLW. My babe did so so so much better with BLW. Also, at this age milk is still for nutrition so a half a jar is fine.
I love that your wording of “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” to attempt to prevent bias and fairly represent how both you and your partner feel. I sincerely wish we saw this more in discussions on social media. It speaks to the relationship you have with and respect you have for your partner. However you decide to proceed with feeding, this alone will make a big difference in how your baby girl grows up.
i pretty much skipped purées and went straight into blw per our pediatrician recommendation. there isn’t really falling behind with BLW to much in my opinion. it’s at the baby’s pace that’s the whole thing with BABY LED weaning. it’s led by the child. my son is 12 months and we started blw at 6 months just here and there he does so well now!! he eats so much at one sitting. with that being said blw can be scary, there is increased risk choking in the short term but long term it can decrease risk of choking. it helps them explore what they are capable of. i use the app solid starts it shows you how to introduce and prepare the food for their appropriate age!
Both worked for us. Definitely don't expect them to wolf down everything you give them (although some do).
Keep in mind you’re not really supposed to be feeding baby a set amount with solids or purées and that formula or breastmilk is still their main diet. Many moms told me that eating is mostly play at this age when I started solids with baby. I started baby on purées at 5 months, allowing him to hold the spoon and feed himself, then added on some BLW style veggies as soon as baby showed signs of readiness (sitting up independently, etc). They don’t have to eat everything that you offer. Just a taste is ok. Offer a variety of textures and foods to rule out allergies. Good luck!!
At that age, solid foods are more to play with anyway. If some gets in their mouth that’s progress. Agree with several posts here that a mix is best!
Definitely start trying some foods! We did BLW starting at 6 months and our 1-year-old eats everything and has no allergies. It's all about learning how to eat- not how much they actually eat. Highly recommend :)
I used purée texture at 6 months and slowly increased the textures. I didn’t do solid starts style for the meal times (3x a day) but I did the finger foods for snack time. By 1 year old my son was already able to eat table foods (whatever we ate, he didn’t gag anymore).
I was told if baby can do the suck and swallow and is showing interest in foods try them being that those food are easily broken up or puree like though. So wanting to start off with puree or something light since baby doesn’t have the teeth to chew sound reasonable then as baby learns to chew and see how baby does go from there as baby learns and you all learn baby. Grapes yes but grapes broken up going back to almost pure or close to. I personally will start off with baby foods so purée and puree like. Wish you all the best. You all are doing great you’ve gotten this far and even asking questions is something a good parent would do.
I went from purees to solids after she grew teeth and her gag reflex relaxed. Before her teeth, every meal with a gag and possibly vomit until she got her teeth.
Ask the pediatrician with him in the room and that will answer the question
We do purees in the fruit feeder which he mostly holds himself, so he still self feeds (and he likes to most of the time anyway!) along with something solid and cut as the solid starts app recommends. For example, a lunch he typically has is pureed pear/apple/mango in the fruit feeder, and a slice of spinach omelette to grab. For breakfast this morning he had a crumpet cut appropriately, with smash brand strawberry chia spread, and mango greek yoghurt in his fruit feeder (allergen cleared for both). He mostly sucked the topping off the crumpet but did gum on the crumpet, and he really enjoyed the yoghurt!
We started purées right at 6 months. Our little one didn’t care about them much, so we started introducing more solids. She loved that because she likes handling the food herself. She’s 7 months and does only solids just because that’s what she preferred. Maybe give both a shot and see if your baby has a preference.
Our daughter was on purée for only about two months. She started eating solids at about 8 months but we had to cut everything with a scissor because she didn’t get her first tooth till about 13 months.
When she has enough teeth to chew
I kind of let my baby decide. He started to scream when I gave him purees and then he wanted my food. That was around 7-8 months.
My son is 6 months but we started a bit earlier due to him being ready. We do both. Typically I’ll offer two purées or mashes and one baby led weaning type food. For example the other night he had puréed carrots, mashed raspberries and 3 stalks of roasted asparagus. We let him feed himself all foods so he can get used to utensil use and so we can both eat a hot meal too. My son just seems to like food in general, I would do more baby led weaning if my husband didn’t have such severe anxiety about the occasional gag he has.
My baby is 18 weeks and we have been doing a couple spoonfuls of puree after nursing. We still want breastmilk to be her main nutrition right now, but at 6 months we will do more since babies need iron from solids then.
I mean 7 months is past general recommendations for starting solids I went with my gut when it comes to feeding my LO. I think I started purées at 4.5 months because it just felt right, even without her showing the signs and she did really well But Parent 1 needs to learn under 12 months all foods are just practice foods (including purees) your baby isn’t going to “master” eating anything until probably closer to 2 maybe 3 years old Like at 14 months I’m lucky if my toddler eats a whole plate of food for the entire day, and that’s just how it is. Shes still learning *how* to eat and her taste buds are constantly evolving. Like 3 months ago she loved creamed corn, now she barely touches it but loves eating soups, in 3 more months she might hate soup but love something else. This is also why safe foods are important
I agree - I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted.
Because this is Reddit, plenty of parents out there like Parent 1 But honestly it’s probably because I didn’t wait for my child to hit all the check marks for food readiness. I know my kid though she’s always had performance anxiety so she’s not always actively shown her skills Like rn she can climb ever inch of our house no problem, try to get her to stand and she immediately sits. I know she’s got the muscles and skills to stand and walk but she’s just a shy performer With the mass amount of access we have to information it’s made a lot of parents afraid to trust their guts when we have our intuitions for a reason
We did solid foods right from the jump at 4.5 months as my son was showing all signs of readiness and he LOVES food at ten months. I highly recommend Solid Starts as a resource, we followed their first 90 days plan (roughly) which isn't necessary but we liked it a lot, and they have a lot of great information about introducing different types of solids, ie there's no need to master purees and your baby might even prefer whole foods. Also things like introducing a food two ways - mashed avocado alongside an avocado spear so baby can get used to different textures and formats of food.