Starting Solids

Good morning guys. The other week I talked a little about introducing solids to Millie, and so many of you wanted to know more so today I put together a blog post on the subject.

First off, before changing your babies diet, you should first discuss with your doctor, I am just sharing what we did and I am not recommending this to anyone, just sharing our journey.

When we introduced:

Current recommendations indicate that breast milk or formula should be the baby's primary source of nutrition for the first six months. Some pediatricians recommend starting solids between 4-6 months of age.

Ours had told us when the baby sits up well with head control and starts showing an interest in food, we could start solids.

What we introduced:

We decided to skip boxed cereal entirely, I am not even sure if pediatricians are recommending it, ours didn't.

We were told to start with avocado, sweet potato, banana, or pears. Introducing one food at a time, we would wait at least a week before introducing another food to watch for any allergic reactions.

We are not in a huge hurry though, so for the last couple weeks, she had only had avocado, took maybe 4-6 tries before she really started liking it. We tried banana for the first time last week, but she didn't like it, so we will keep working at it. I am expecting it to take 5 or so tries before she starts liking it.

We will stick to this single food puree until she is at least seven months old, we then will start with mixed puree meals and maybe add meat, will check with our doctor at our 6 months check up.

The technique we use:

A lot of you had asked if we do Led Weaning (encourages baby to self-feed rather than receive purees via spoon). We do a little I guess, for example when we are at a party or something I will give you a carrot to suck on, or in her highchair, I will put mashed up food in front of her (mostly to keep her busy) but I wouldn't say that's a technique we do. We mainly feed purees.

Making baby food:

I make 90% of the baby food. With Liv, I had a pretty good system, so I will do the same with Millie.

No more than once a week, I would take an hour and prep baby food. Super easy, I would steam veggies, puree them in my Vitamix and then store them in the freezer with this silicone container, or these glass containers. I really only prep veggies, because I feel like fruit is so easy just to mash and give whenever so we save fruit for when we are on the go, or I don't have the time or opportunity to defrost one of her veggie meals.

Once she is old enough (maybe 8-12 months, I will check with my doctor), we will throw whatever we are eating for dinner into the Vitamix for her, just being conscious of making sure we are preparing healthy dinners with no added salts or sugar.

How often:

Right now we are giving Millie solids just once a day (if that) at dinner time. But whenever introducing a new food we first do it the morning so that I can watch her during the day for a reaction.

Our sleep consultant recommends giving solids at least 45 minutes before sleep.

We will increase to twice a day probably around 7 months or so to twice a day.

What we use:

I just recently did a big clean out and got rid of most of our plates, cups, and spoons (getting rid of all the plastic), so I am still restocking all of this stuff but have made a switch over to Cink brand for both of the girls. Cink is made from recycled organic bamboo and colored with water-based, food-proof color pigments.

For seating right now we are just using Millie's bumbo seating, we also have the hight chair from Ikea we will use when she sits up a little better.

If I had to recommend a high chair though I would recommend this Stokke Tripp Trapp chair from 0-6years, we have in Montreal and love it! We got ours from Petit Cocon.

Much Love,