Truly Scrumptious Baby: My complete feeding and weaning plan for 6 months and beyond. Holly Willoughby
you are finally sitting face to face with your baby, who’s had just enough milk to appease his rumbly tummy, be prepared to melt as that first teaspoon of solid food touches his lips. There’ll be a lot of gurning, tongue pushing and grimacing for the first few goes until he realizes that it’s quite nice really.
At this stage, don’t even expect to get more than a teaspoon’s worth of food into your baby. And even that will be delivered via half a dozen spoonfuls with the tiniest amount on the edge of the spoon. Just be patient. It’s all about building up your baby’s confidence, taste buds and capacity for food, and it will take time for him to learn. Remember, at the earliest stages, weaning is predominantly about getting your little one familiar with food.
Texture
Initially, purées should be smooth and not too thick – about the same consistency as double cream. Start with one or two single-ingredient vegetable purées (see here), and once your baby accepts those, then slowly introduce others. You can dilute with the vegetable-cooking water to maximize the nutrients, or with your baby’s regular milk to produce something with familiar back notes.
Once you get going, you’ll get a sense for what’s the ideal consistency for your baby. Stick to super-smooth for the first couple of weeks, then gradually start to thicken to a consistency that doesn’t quite pour off the spoon, but rather sticks to it. Think more of a mush/mash than a purée. And I mean gradually. If you try to change too soon, before he’s ready, you risk a meal being rejected altogether. If your baby looks like he’s starting to move the purée around his mouth, as if he’s trying to chew, then it could be a sign he’s ready for thicker textures. Harry loved really smooth purées; it took him longer to eat foods with lumps in it. The bottom line is not to rush it but do remember that moving on to thicker textures is important because it’s good for their digestive system. Also the longer you linger on a texture the more reluctant your baby might be to move on.
Some babies will be eager to hold food and feed themselves from six months of age, while others will need a bit more encouragement. If you’re allowing your little one to experiment with sticks of soft veg or fruit, the texture should be adjusted as your little one develops and they’re ready for something slightly firmer and sturdier.
Breastfeeding/milk
Up until approximately six months, your baby’s exclusive source of nourishment is milk (whether breast, formula or a mix) and so long as he’s drinking well, keeping most of it down, and his weight is going up nicely on the scales, you can be confident he’s getting all the nutrients he needs. Breast milk by its very nature is bespoke to the nutritional requirements of your baby, and the milk formulas on the market today are so highly developed, they’re as close to Mum-made as possible.
It can be trickier to move an exclusively breastfed child on to solids, simply because you are removing that mother–baby intimacy, which can be a bigger wrench than for bottle-fed babies. It’s a good idea to start by cutting out one of the least ‘cosy’ feeds and replacing it with a solid feed. Distraction is the name of the game! Don’t attempt to spoon-feed your breastfed baby on your lap, as he’ll immediately associate it with breastfeeding. You need to try to gradually diminish breast association as you continue to cut the milk feeds.
To begin with, your milk feeds won’t change. A six-month breastfed baby will continue feeding on demand. A six-month bottle-fed baby should be having 4–5 formula feeds with a total of 840–960ml/29fl oz – 11/2 pints during the course of 24 hours. Once you start weaning your baby, the most important milk feeds of the day are the waking feed and last feed before bed, so make sure your baby takes full bottles at these times.
WEANING MYTHS
There are a fair few myths associated with moving your baby on to solids sooner rather than later, and I’d like to dispel them!
‘The quicker you start him on solids the quicker he’ll sleep through the night.’
Babies – just like adults – wake for all sorts of reasons, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they are hungry. Their tummies are so tiny in the first few months, you can’t possibly hope to stuff them full enough to keep them going for hours on end. It’s also worth noting that weaning coincides with a huge number of new things your baby is experiencing in his first year of life: growth spurts, teething, sitting up, crawling, walking, etc. You can put sudden changes in sleep/waking patterns down to any or all of the above. Sadly, weaning isn’t a miracle cure for any of these.
‘She’s a big girl for five months. She needs more than milk to fill her up.’
‘That baby needs to put some weight on! Give him some solids.’
‘That’s baby’s so hungry, she’s chewing her hands off! She should have some solids!’
During the early weaning stages, milk is and should still be the main source of nutrition for your baby. Whether breast or formula, milk has more calories in it than the limited amount of solid food a baby’s tiny stomach can hold. Between four and eight months, weaning is more about the introduction and exploration of food and getting your little one used to the physical act of eating, rather than satisfying hunger and aiding development. If your baby appears starving at four months, try an extra milk feed before introducing solids if you feel it’s too early. It might just be the top-up he needs for the moment.
VERY FIRST FOODS
At six months, keep offering the usual milk feeds. Food is merely a complement at this stage, rather than any sort of sustenance, so your baby still needs the calories and nutrition in milk.
Once you start weaning, you’ll need to start giving your baby a little water at mealtimes. It’s a good idea to get him used to a sippy or free flowing cup at this stage. This is a beaker with a lid and a hard spout (see here). It’s the first step to getting your baby used to drinking from a normal lidless cup, so what better time to start than at a meal.
The following are some ideas for first foods you can try:
Baby rice
These fine, powdery flakes of rice, which you mix up in a bowl (never add to your baby’s bottle) with breast milk or formula, are the perfect first taste of food. As a first solid, it’s not too big a leap from what your baby will be used to flavourwise as you’re mixing it with his milk. It’s also gluten-free, so allergy safe, and is fortified with vitamin B1, which helps little bodies turn the carbohydrate into energy. In the first few days, he might not take any rice down, but day by day you’ll notice him take a little more, building up to a few teaspoons and maybe rejecting a milk feed completely.
Baby Cereal
Baby cereals are fortified with vitamins and minerals, and most are low in sugar and salt, although be careful to check the label. In fact, be careful when selecting cereals for your children in general. It would be healthier to give them a doughnut for breakfast for all the sugar that’s in some!
Vegetable purées
All the vegetables included in the recipes in Chapter 1 (see here) are jam-packed with health-boosting nutrients. They are all excellent first foods, and most are naturally sweet and appeal to young palates. You can experiment by mixing two vegetables together, then thicken with a little baby rice or thin with your baby’s usual milk, which will give it a familiar flavour. And if you’re struggling with certain vegetable flavours, you can try adding a dash of apple purée or another sweet combination. This might just take the edge off any bitterness. But remember that, generally, it’s best to get your baby used to vegetables before introducing sweeter, often more appealing, fruit.
Fruit purées
Babies love fruit purées (see here).