[Guest_EllieMayLee1_*]

My dd is only just turned six months. She is my first baby. So far we have tried pumpkin, apple and farex. We are going slow as I have allergies to foods so am a little nervous....

Just interested as to when you introduced solids to your baby? When, how and what meats did you introduce?

Also, what websites and books etc. have you found useful when introducing solids?

Look forward to your replies.

[~~HappyMummy~~]

I introduced pureed meat dishes (chicken, mince, fish) after 6 months for my DD.

I love Annabel karmel's cookbooks - try 'feeding your baby and toddler'. It's great. Many baby and toddler cookbooks are available in local bookstores.

This post has been edited by ~ jen ~: 14/02/2012, 01:14 PM

[aphraell]

we started solids around 5.5 months I think it was as DD was showing an interest. Tried rice cereal but she wasn't very interested so we moved onto finger foods such as steamed carrot and beans. Since then have done a combination of spoon feeding and BLW although recently DD went on a spoon strike , only taking her weetbix and yoghurt from a spoon so basically just doing BLW now.

We stuck to veg, fruit and cereals until about 7months when we introduced chicken - which DD loves!! She is not really wild on lamb and beef but I think that is more the fact that they tend to be a little harder to eat (as we are doing BLW she gets strips of meat or little cutlets not purees). We did try fish once in one of the mashed type meals (before the spoon strike) but DD refused to eat it, At this point the only foods we haven't introduced are nuts, eggs and honey . Will probably do egg over the next week or so and then nuts after that. Honey not until after 12 months and not sure about when we will try fish again.

We introduced one new food at a time leaving a couple of days between new foods to look for any allergies or intolerances - for example I think DD got bad colic/wind from rock melon last week
But almost everything else she has tried she will eat and seems to tolerate - yoghurt, pasta, stone fruit, berries, pear, oranges, tomato, banana and avocado (both very messy!!), quinoa, grainy bread, all sorts of veges, rice pudding, home made custard, weetbix, chickpeas, pancakes etc etc .

I found the whole BLW idea very appealing and logical which is why we have done finger food from the start. Giving her the spoon food in addition meant that she didn't get hungry and frustrated and that we could do a quick spoon meal if we needed to (BLW meals take a LONG time). Since the spoon strike we are jumping fully into BLW and for the last week or so DD has been eating what we eat (just watch the sugar, salt etc that you cook with). I have found the BLW Recipe book to be fantastic - even DH loves the meals!! Its very messy but a lot of fun and is great to be eating at least some meals together as a family already.

Best of luck!

[noisytractor]

We've been doing BLW since 5.5 months and we tried my DS on fish straight away. He loved it.

We started giving him beef at about 6m, first time we slow cooked it in a caserole.

He's 7m now and he happily chews/mushes most meats like roast chicken, salmon patties, rissoles, homemade sausages. He's favourite is spag bol.

The only thing we're a bit wary of giving him is roast beef and lamb. They may be a little dry for him.

No purees here, just chunks of food. Very messy, but a lot of fun.

Good Luck



ETA: I'm a big fan of the BLW cookbook. Friends recommend The Baby Bowl cookbook if you're interested in pureed foods.

This post has been edited by noisytractor: 14/02/2012, 08:51 PM

[SqueakInCanada]

We've been doing BLW since 5.5 months, and our first meat were probably about a month after starting, and was a homemade egg-free rissole (egg-free because we haven't tried egg yet, this is to be our next new food I think). It was a good consistency for DD to pick up and she was able to swallow some. Mince is a also a hit (eg. taco mince or spaghetti bolognaise). We've tried chicken/steak but she more sucks on those rather than eats them.

I have been somewhat careful in introducing new foods, with waiting a few days between foods to see for any reactions (have been more vigilant with this with the more common potential allergy foods, whereas things like pears, potatoes, and carrots I didn't worry too much about).

I second the BLW cookbook, I find it really useful. It has a section at the front which explains baby led weaning, and offers suggestions of different types of foods/shapes for the babies development level; and then a cookbook of recipes that are low in salt/sugar that the whole family can eat.

I also saw a reference to this website in a different baby food thread recently, and I've bookmarked it (haven't read through in depth yet, but from what I've seen it seems to be a good resource):
Homemade baby food recipes

[Flutter Bug]

Ditto on the Annabel Karmel books - they are a great guide. I have 'New Complete baby and Toddler Meal Planner' which I found very useful with baby number 1 when I had no idea what to do!!

[jindy poss]

We introduced our DS at about 6 months (he started solids at 4). We tried chicken first, with things like sweet potato and carrots to give it a nice sweet flavour. He has had beef, lamb and fish now, especially loves chicken and fish. To make it easier make sure the pureed meat is fairly runny because I found it goes quite dry when pureed and its hard for them to swollow at first.
Annabel Karmel Top 100 Meals in Minutes has some great ones in it.

[Ella'n'alex]

A bit before six months. I made stews and pureed them to start with, then just mashed them up a bit for a while after that. He's 11 months, and he has rissoles a lot now, and white fish (because it's easy for him to get into).

There's been some really interesting things coming up in research in the couple of years, so a bit of a journal search might be interesting for you to do?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb43...3/ai_n42549668/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16456417

Melbourne uni had a really good study about egg allergies come out last year, if that's one of your worries:

http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/9671