Purée

It isn’t recommended until 6 months, her digestive system isn’t ready and it can cause issues later down the line. Have you tried upping her milk instead?

@Levi Ella’s kitchen state from 4 months..surely they can’t advertise that if it’s been proven unsafe ? She has 8oz every 3hours, if me and my partner sit down to eat, she’s staring while pulling her dummy out, trying to grab it and just licking her lips the whole time🤣

The licking her lips and grabbing could be her trying to explore not actually an interest in the food. As Levi said it isn't advised to wean before 6 months, I'd seek out the advise from a HV before trying to wean as sometimes health professionals may give you the go-ahead in special circumstances.

It was advised at 4 months until recent years, when new research showed the issues with their digestive systems. My health visitor said they still advertise it at 4 months because they only care about money, and if you read the fine print most of them say ‘weaning isn’t recommended until 6 months’, but they purposely put it in small letters so you don’t see it unless you’re looking 😅

@Levi makes sense, I’ll be giving that a miss then 😅

I was speaking to a dietitian and said research suggests 17 weeks is the best time and can reduce allergies in future x

@Dreia at the end of the day the best thing she can do is talk to a medical professional, like a dietitian etc. We can advise her with our opinions but it’s always better to check with people that are trained to answer questions like this 😅

@Dreia how did you go about introducing purée alongside bottles? X

@Dreia would you please be able to send me a link about introducing wheat in babies diet as I am allergic and want to get some more info on this! Xx

Yes 4 months old and we are doing a mix of banana, broccoli and apple purées he is loving them a few spoons a day before milk

@Dreia aw bless her! It’s so nice to see them enjoying flavours isn’t it. My boys favourite is the broccoli even though it looks awful 🤢 haha!

I started about 5.5 months with my first and will prob do the same this time round. It’s prob best to stick to nhs advice if possible…but then we were all probably weaned at 4 months by our parents so it can’t cause that many issues with digestive systems 🤷‍♀️

I personally wouldn't this young. My baby is just over 4 months and no way ready for that yet, she only has 5floz per bottle, occasionally 6! 8 floz at that age is alot of fluid!

@Dreia I think I weaned my others at around 4-5 months, but I will wait until 6 with my 3rd as research suggests its just not good for them. Plus, formula is easy!

@Rebecca some babies are just hungrier than others. I know 8oz is a lot but I’m not going to give her any less than what she wants 🤷‍♀️

@Rebecca did it negatively affect the 2 children you weaned earlier?

@Gabriella you say that but I know so many people with issues like IBS and Crohn’s. My brother has ulcerative colitis and I have IBS, we are both 80s babies that were most likely weaned around 4 months, same as a lot of my friends.

@Lauren yeah potentially…I just don’t know enough and I don’t think the researchers even know enough! So prob is best to follow the guidance now. But I know other people have different opinions so it’s up to them when they want to wean their children…as long as they feel fully enough informed..

@Dreia literally the reason I’ve posted anonymously, people love to judge no matter what you do..and as a young, first time mum, the last thing I need is to feel even more judged for how I choose to raise my child. I think mums/dads just don’t communicate about this out of fear of being judged and some of these comments have definitely proven that x

@Dreia Thankyou! I definitely will be doing what I think is right by my baby.. I’m only 21 but was weaned at 4months along with my siblings and none of us have any health issues, allergies etc. the saying ‘go by the baby not by the book’ is definitely one I’ll be sticking to x I know not to ask on this app about any more ‘controversial’ subjects 🤣

@Dreia that’s fair, you do you. I don’t think my comments have been judgy, I was just reiterating the advice from the NHS and Allergy UK. I just think there are a lot of people on this app that haven’t done their research (on all sorts of things, vaccines, breastfeeding etc) and are easily swayed by what they see on here. We’ll be doing baby led weaning starting with bitter vegetables as we did with my first, and we won’t be buying processed purées etc. it’s all pointless when they get to the fussy toddler stage and all they want are packaged snacks cos that’s what everyone else gives their kids 🤣 but we’ll try for a balanced diet as much as possible. My 2 year old happily eats most vegetables so far and I do think that’s down to weaning her with bitter vegetables before anything else.

OP, I would say if you’re going to start weaning your baby, I would see if your local family wellbeing service does a workshop on starting solids as our ones do a free course. Also, I would recommend doing an infant first aid course so you know what to do if your baby is choking, as the procedure is different for babies and toddlers.

@Dreia but there are some people that don’t use this app as much as we do, they might have only just joined and not seen any of the other weaning posts and not know this info. We have no idea who this person is as she’s incognito so she might have joined specifically to ask this question.

@Dreia well yeah it is but clearly a lot of people don’t do their research 🙈

@Lauren my post was about purée not solids, I was just looking to hear from other mums who had introduced purée before 6 months. I never expected to get such a reaction on this post. Of course I’ve done my own research, but it’s always good to hear from other people’s real experiences rather than just reading information about it too :)

When you do introduce purees, I wouldn't use shop-bought anyway. Blend it at home, starting with bitter veggies like broccoli or peas then move to sweeter veggies like cauliflower, or sweet potato. Introduce fruits a good few weeks later. Basically, you don't want to wake up the sweet taste buds too early otherwise your child will start craving sweet more and reject the other flavours. With my firstborn born, I introduced fruit purees even after mixing flavours. The only time I used shop-bought purees was when we went on holiday when he was over 1. At that point, he was eating properly and I was adding purees in to his Weetabix to give it flavour

Purées count as solids, solids aren’t just finger foods. I just meant there may be a free weaning workshop available to you in your area. These posts often blow up if they’re going against NHS advice.