I've always seen weaning as a big milestone. I've always imagined it to be fun and i was so excited to give Sienna her first taste of food and see what she thought. We started her on Hipp Organic 100% Baby Rice on Thursday night. She was 19 weeks old and some people would say that was too young and my health visitor strongly urged me to wait until 6 months. Apparently the reason is they are more prone to food allergies the earlier you wean them. My reasoning is that if i just give her baby rice made with her normal milk until 6 months, is it really going to hurt?
She has always loved her milk and drained nearly every bottle we give her, she was on 8oz every 3 hours and still cry for more when she was finished (every 3 hours only during the day) because she is a hungry baby. With Sienna being on Infasoy milk, i couldn't use the hungry baby milks and have heard they are a marketing ploy anyway! Even though she was only 19 weeks, she was showing all the signs they say to look out for to start weaning such as these below.
Signs your baby is ready to wean;
- Demanding feeds more regularly,
- Wanting more after their feed, not satisfied,
- Weight gain slows down or stops because they are not getting enough,
- Co ordinating their hands to mouth and putting things in their mouth,
- Becoming 'interested' in your food.
Sienna was definitely doing all of these, like i said above she never seemed happy with her 8oz of milk, i even tried to give her water incase she was just thirsty but that didn't work, she would spit it out. She was ALWAYS shoving everything into her mouth and chewing her hands, i know sometimes this is teething but she would do it all the time and seem happy/not in pain.
I held off for a few weeks but when she became interested in our food, it was hard to not wean her. She became aware of what food was, she would/does just stare if you are eating/drinking anything, she tries to grab food/drink if you are holding it and she is close. She even opens her mouth and does a chewing action when you open yours to put it in and eat it. It was funny to begin with but she would get frustrated as to why we were essentially teasing her. I used to 'trick' her and when we were eating, give her some teething granules, this normally made her feel like she had eaten too and would let us eat in peace, haha! I just wanted to add as well that she was sleeping 6-7pm until 5-6am. Well she started waking at 10pm and 2am for food during the night so i knew that she was starting to get more hungry.
You can see from above, Sienna loved her baby rice once she got used to it. I knew she would have no problem eating it because she eats everything! She was so excited and clearly just wanted to do it herself, she even grabbed the spoon & pot from daddy, naughty little monkey!
Sienna seems happier on this and i am slowly building it up, she still only has 2-5 spoonfuls once a day (in the morning, after her bottle) but it will soon be more. I am following the guide on the leaflet HiPP Organic sent me but essentially they are all the same, starting of with just a taste and building it up. I am looking forward to trying her with new tastes after 6 months!
For some entertainment, watch the video of her making a mess below :)
PS. I have kept this a secret from my health visitor.. sometimes mummy knows best!
What age did you wean? How did you find it?
Personally I think every baby is different, foods say from 4 months anyway. I've been looking at them in advance (i'm due to give birth in 2 weeks). Personally I feel that if they're showing all the signs of wanting to eat solids then just start them on it. I do think that to begin with I'll be doing what you're doing & just feeding him baby rice.
ReplyDeleteShe looks like she really is enjoying it :)
We weaned at 5.5 months as we went down the route of baby led weaning. Personally I don't want to give my kid something that I wouldn't eat myself and that baby rice tastes rank!
ReplyDeleteHaving said that from about 4.5 months he was having a stick of cucumber and carrot whenever he showed signs of teething as it really helped.
They say to wait as early weaning can affect health problems later in life but I'm pretty sure thats only from weaning at 2/3 months.