When we started solids with Charlie, we followed all the “rules.” We waited until he was 6 months old, we started with rice cereal and purees, we gave vegetables before fruits so he wouldn’t develop a sweet tooth (turns out there’s no merit to this), we didn’t use any salt, and we fed each food for 3 days straight to discover any allergies he might have. The exact order with which we introduced solids was: rice cereal, butternut squash, peas, carrots, avocado, oatmeal cereal, pear, yams, green beans, and acorn squash.
Since Charlie has always been such a picky eater, I wanted to approach solids differently with Olive. I wasn’t too worried about allergies since Charlie only had a mild milk allergy, and I had the benefit of being a less anxious second-time mom, so I wanted to give baby-led weaning a try. The idea of feeding Olive what we eat just sounded so awesome! The only things that were off-limits were honey until the age of 1, and nuts — just in case — even though Charlie isn’t allergic to them. Since Olive was born 5 weeks early, we waited until she was a little older than 6 months old to start solids.
Charlie feeding Olive sweet potatoes in her Bjorn Bouncer.
I remember how much of an event it was starting solids with Charlie. I bought Super Baby Food along with several puree cookbooks. I bought a Beaba Baby Food Maker and a bunch of feeding gear. I thought long and hard about what food besides rice cereal to feed first. I checked out the Wholesome Baby Foods website and followed all the recommendations of which foods to introduce at 6 months, 8 months, 10 months, etc.
With Olive, I gave her some pureed sweet potato because it was what we had at home. We continued with purees for another 2 weeks or so. I made a bunch of different fruits and veggies at once and froze them into 2 oz portions. Since she was only eating once a day, feeding her purees didn’t require much work or thought, but I knew I didn’t want to stick to purees for much longer.
While Olive didn’t have the fine motor skills to feed herself small pieces of food, she was able to hold onto larger pieces of food like a slice of bread or a frozen mini bagel. Bagels are not recommended for babies because they can be a choking hazard, but Olive was never able to bite off a big chunk as long as they were frozen.
We also introduced a mesh fresh food feeder* at 6 months, which allowed Olive to safely gnaw sweet juicy fruits like cold Asian pear. You can fill the feeders with frozen fruit or ice cubes to help with teething pain. Vegetables and meat are fine too, but vegetables can be hard to chew and meat can be kind of gross, so I think fruits tend to work best. We really didn’t use this except a handful of times though, because we quickly moved onto small pieces of regular food.
Baby-led Weaning
After about 2 weeks of purees, I started feeding Olive bits of food off my plate. Once Olive had a taste of finger foods, she absolutely rejected purees. She liked purees ok, but she loved finger foods. In fact she would turn her head away when you tried to put a spoon in her mouth because she knew it was purees, but she would open her mouth like a little bird if you had a piece of food in your hand. I didn’t worry about the order I introduced foods and really fed her what we were eating, as long as it wasn’t too spicy or chewy. That was the beginning of baby-led weaning for us, and Olive has eaten regular food ever since.
Emily did a great overview of baby-led weaning here. The general premise is that you skip purees and give your baby small chunks of soft finger foods that they feed themselves, which helps them control how much food they want to eat. Olive’s fine motor skills were so poor even at 9 months, that she still couldn’t feed herself. So we did a modified baby-led weaning approach by holding food in the palm of our hand and letting her grab it with her mouth. We never coaxed her to eat more when she didn’t want to. Some days I wondered how a little baby could eat so much! Some days she just wasn’t in the mood to eat that much, and that was ok too since breastmilk was still her primary form of nutrition.
Introducing a Sippy Cup
Many people introduce a sippy cup the same time they start solids. We introduced a sippy cup around 7 months — the Tilty — and Olive loved drinking water out of it but could only do it with our help. We recently introduced a straw cup, and Olive took to it the first time she used it, so now we exclusively use straw cups and she doesn’t need our help to drink out of it. In fact Olive has been on a bottle strike since she got sick after our trip to the Philippines, so she’s been drinking milk out of a straw cup instead of a bottle.
A Typical Meal
This was a recent lunch that I packed for Charlie and Olive. Olive ate almost all the steamed butternut squash, avocado, baked sweet potato, boiled peas, and roast chicken all by herself. The broccoli, sausage, strawberries and oranges were for Charlie, but he was having too much fun at a birthday party and didn’t eat a bite. That’s what it’s been like for some time — Olive eats way more than Charlie, and she eats much healthier food too.
Starting Solids
There have been lots of posts on the boards lately about starting solids, and I think a lot of people are forgoing rice cereal as the first food. In fact, many nutritionists actually believe that it’s a bad first food because grains are very difficult for babies’ underdeveloped systems to digest. We completely skipped rice cereal with Olive, and I now believe that you can skip purees too.
I know baby-led weaning isn’t for everyone, but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Many foods are so soft when cooked, that you really don’t need to puree them. Ripe avocados and bananas require no cooking – just cut them up into little pieces. Steaming or baking butternut/acorn squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots gets them melt-in-your-mouth soft. Egg yolks** and boiled chicken are great super soft proteins, and perfectly fine as first foods. You can still follow the 3-day allergy rule too, so it’s really not that different from doing purees, except it’s easier since your baby can eat off your plate when you’re out and about, you don’t have to buy a baby food maker, and it’s more fun for your baby too!
Even though we kind of do baby-led weaning, Olive still loves being fed so we often feed her, especially when we’re out and about. But when she doesn’t want anymore, she definitely lets us know (she’s very opinionated) and we never push it.
I made a beef stew with sweet potatoes and carrots above. Olive picked out all the beef only!
First foods
Although chicken was very easy for Olive to eat from the get go, it was a little harder for her to chew ground beef and ground turkey until she was a little older and had more practice chewing food. You really know your baby best, so follow their cues as to when they’re ready for chunkier/chewier food. Chicken is still Olive’s protein of choice, but she also eats eggs, ground turkey, beef (ground, boiled or cooked until very soft), and even tilapia. I try to give her some form of protein in every meal.
Olive eats most vegetables if I sautee them in butter, including mushrooms, zucchini, squash, spinach, sweet potato, asparagus, and broccoli. Would you believe she loves mushrooms best? And I make them with balsamic vinegar!
She also loves garlic and herbs, and I’m not afraid to use pepper and a little bit of salt either. I didn’t use any salt at all for Charlie’s first year of life and beyond. But salt is impossible to avoid when Olive is eating off our plate. A friend of mine who’s a nutritionist also told me that sodium chloride deficiency is one of the most common reasons she sees kids, so I don’t stress out about using some salt. I do try to use less salt in general though now, since we eat together.
Left: turnip and beef, Right: asparagus
Olive’s diet lately mostly consists of protein and vegetables, and a little bit of fruit. She actually doesn’t like much fruit other than bananas and Asian pears. She also loves little chunks of cheese, and likes (but doesn’t love) yogurt. And though she adores bread and pasta, we’ve pretty much cut most breads, pastas, and carbs out of her diet so that she’ll fill up on lean proteins and veggies instead. That’s actually kind of tough because pasta, bagels, pancakes, etc. are so fast and easy! We’ve also really cut back on rice — she eats it maybe once a week and Charlie eats it more often than that — but that’s a tough one to eliminate since I eat so much of it!
Olive ate one meal a day from months 6-7, 2 meals from months 8-9, and she’s been eating 3 meals a day since she was about 10 months old. This is a typical day:
Wake up, nurse
Breakfast: egg fried in butter, banana or a yogurt
Nap, nurse
Lunch: chicken, mushrooms (Olive loves mushrooms!)
Nap, nurse
Dinner: tilapia w/ garlic butter & parmesan cheese, broccoli
Bedtime, nurse
1 middle of the night waking, nurse
We don’t really give her any snacks, except an occasional mum mum or puffs as a bribe. Sometimes it’s so hard to get her to leave the playground, a snack is the only way!
So that’s how we’ve approached solids with Olive. My thoughts on childhood nutrition have changed so much in the past couple of months because of what I’ve learned through Hellobee, and through my research trying to get Charlie to be a better eater. I’m still figuring out what’s best for our family, but I hope to share much more about nutrition, recipes, pickiness in the upcoming months.
For more great posts on baby-led weaning, check out Mrs. Superhero’s post here, and Mrs. Stroller’s post here!
Would you ever consider skipping purees when starting solids?
* We had the Munchkin Fresh Food Feeders left from when Charlie used them, but if I were purchasing some today I would buy these silicon ones from Kidme which have a better design and are easier to clean.
** Some people are allergic to eggs (usually the whites) so you can start off with just the yolks, but we’ve given Olive whole eggs since she was 6 months old.
Baby Led Weaning part 6 of 11
1. Baby-Led Weaning by Food2. BLW Gear Faves & Fails by Mrs. Stroller
3. BLW - The First Few Months by Mrs. Stroller
4. Getting Started With Baby Led Weaning by Mrs. Superhero
5. Baby Led Weaning by Mrs. Superhero
6. Getting Started with Solids, Purees, and Baby-led Weaning by Mrs. Bee
7. Time for Big-Boy Food by Mrs. Yoyo
8. My Modified Baby-Led Weaning Approach by Mrs. Pen
9. Little Tea Cup versus the spoon - part 2 - favourite first finger foods by Mrs. Tea
10. Starting Solids with Baby Led Weaning: A Conservative Approach by Mrs. Markers
11. Starting Baby Led Weaning by Mrs. Chipmunk
Start Puree Solids – How To part 1 of 7
1. Getting Started with Solids, Purees, and Baby-led Weaning by Mrs. Bee2. Operation Solids by Mrs. Yoyo
3. feeding an 8 month old by Mrs. Jump Rope
4. My Modified Baby-Led Weaning Approach by Mrs. Pen
5. Introducing Baby to Herbs and Spices by Sarah Crowder
6. Figuring Out Food at 9 Months by Mrs. Hopscotch
7. "Bad" BLW: Feeding with a Loaded Spoon by Mrs. Sketchbook
cherry / 111 posts
Our little lady totally rejected purees, so we started BLW at about 6.5 months. It’s been fun and VERY messy introducing her to stuff. We’ve been hesitant to do the carb thing- but she does get bits of bagels or toast every now and then. Otherwise, her diet is pretty close to Olives at almost 10 months. Her favorite are whole pieces of string cheese, avo, and peaches. Now I want to introduce a straw!
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
sounds very similar to us!! I started with purees, bananas, pears, peas and avocados. But I wanted him to start eating more on his own and he is getting so good at it at only 7 months. He still bites off chunks too big to chew though and we have to watch him carefully since we usually have to fish it out of his mouth lest he choke. DH is a little over protective about it though and still purees his food to a very fine consistency haha!!
He loves gnawing on food though!! It’s made life soo much easier since I don’t usually have to pack special food for him. Like yesterday at my SIL’s wedding he could eat all the vegetables during dinner and all the fruit during cocktail hour and dessert. He loved participating in dinner too.
Oh and we’ve completely avoided any grain up to this point. However I’m not opposed to quinoa and he can have that soon. But I did avoid rice, wheat etc. Even for his first birthday I think I’ll be making him a GF cake.
coconut / 8305 posts
She’s looks so cute!
We plan to forgo purees and start baby-led weaning here soon. DD will be 6 mths at the end of this week but still can’t sit unassisted so I want to wait.
Really though, I’m in no rush to start solids since they include us getting a diaper sprayer and smelly poo. lol That and she isn’t interested in table food in the slightest yet.
Probably by the end of her 6th month we’ll start. I am getting anxiously excited! =)
grapefruit / 4049 posts
We fed DD 2 similarly… she went straight to table food pretty early on.
pomegranate / 3383 posts
I love this post and how you’ve totally changed your approach to solids with Olive! I never thought of boiling chicken to get a better consistency…I’ll definitely try it!
@Coco Bee: quinoa is actually a seed and not a grain
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@Sammyfab: I actually did know that
but most people don’t and its generally classified as a “super grain”
cherry / 119 posts
i would totally consider skipping purees with #2. my LO didn’t like purees for very long. i also wish we skipped the sippy cup and went straight to the straw. she pushes away her straw cup and only wants the sippy cup. now i’m trying to figure out how to get her to drink out of the straw.
btw, she has such long eyelashes!! so cute!
pomegranate / 3383 posts
@Coco Bee: great! I just thought I’d mention it so it wouldn’t be like you were making an exception to your no-grain rule since quinoa is fair game! Are you planning on blending it or serving it as-is?
pomegranate / 3716 posts
What a great post, definitely bookmarking for future reference!
And thanks for addressing one of my big questions: seasonings. We cook with a lot of seasoning salt, pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, to name a few. Just wondering how much we would need to adjust our diet in order to go this route? (probably would be a food thing anyway…)
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@Sammyfab: it’s already pretty fine. I make it into hot cereal,’like cream of wheat, by grinding it and then blending it. Cook it and then top with fruit. But if I make it without grinding it I think it’s still fine enough for him to eat, I guess we’ll see!!
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@sweetchic: babies can have pure maple syrup- perhaps you can use that instead of sugar?
Also many seasonings are perfectly done for them! Just not too much salt and nothing spicy.
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
@sweetchic: i use a lot of seasonings. mostly dried or fresh herbs like parsley, salt, pepper, TONS of garlic, charlie loves parmesan cheese (not the kraft kind) so we use a lot of that, sesame oil, and butter makes everything better. i used to use a lot of soy sauce until i found out that it has wheat in it and i’ve been trying to eliminate wheat to see if charlie eats better.
but i discovered through kristin’s paleo diet post that there is gluten-free soy sauce called tamari. i bought it at the korean market recently — there was an organic version too!
and cocobee is right. instead of sugar, i use maple syrup!
pomegranate / 3716 posts
@Coco Bee: bummer, I love salty and especially spicy…
@Mrs. Bee: Hrmm does maple syrup work in Asian food??
pomegranate / 3388 posts
Thanks for this post! We’re just starting DD on solids. She already loves her solid food. Right now we’re doing about half BLW and half purees while she figures out the mechanics of eating, but we’re planning on switching over to pure BLW soon. For now DD loves her purees, and she lunges at the spoon when she wants more.
I love feeding oatmeal w/ maple syrup for Sunday breakfast. For DD I make it with formula instead of water or cow’s milk. If I were still breastfeeding, I would probably make it with breastmilk!
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
Similar to you, we started N off with a mix of purees and BLW bc I wanted her to get the swallowing thing down. Then at 7-months we completely transitioned to BLW and it’s so much easier! I never have to stress about what to feed her because she usually can eat whatever we eat. She isn’t a huge fan of chicken or beef though, but she will do fish. I think the texture just doesn’t appeal to her yet.
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
Thank you so much for this post!!! It came at a perfect time for us. I’m just too uncomfortable with starting with BLW from the get go. I think I would be more comfortable when she’s a few months older.
wonderful olive / 19353 posts
Another successful story related to BLW! That’s great Olive is taking it so well. It’s because of HB that I’m sold on the concept and will implement with our future kiddos! Thanks for sharing!
honeydew / 7488 posts
I love this post. We also did a combo of purees and BLW with LO..mainly since he rejected purees quickly like Olive. BLW made my life easier in some ways and harder in others. It’s easy to just toss some fruit and steamed veggies onto the high chair. It’s also easy to just whip out a pack of puree or defrost a cube. What was hard was realizing that our family eating habits are pretty poor and that I didn’t want LO eating any of what we were eating. We have had to make major adjustments, but for the better!
@Mrs. Bee: Braggs liquids amino is another gluten-free seasoning which is kind of like soy sauce. I think it’s pretty good but DH hates it.
hostess / wonderful honeydew / 32460 posts
It’s great that Olive’s such a good eater!
LO didn’t start eating well until she was 13 months old?
I can’t wait til DD starts feeding DS food. It’ll be so cute
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22646 posts
Love this post. Can’t wait to try BLW — am kind of worried with my going back to work… but we’ll see how it goes. And seriously, I can’t believe Olive is already one!!!
pomegranate / 3053 posts
I just started with solids with Skyler. I am doing the brown rice cereal and he seems to like it but I give him so very little. I tried sweet potatoes last night and total fail. He was spitting it out left and right and as soon as I made him another bowl of just brown rice cereal he ate it all. Not sure if he didn’t like the mixture of the two or just didn’t like sweet potato. Going to try just sweet potato today and see. I’m not sure how I’m going to go about this with him b/c he doesn’t have any teeth yet. Nicholas didn’t cut his first tooth until 11 months so he was on purees for a very long time as he couldn’t really chew or I never gave him the opportunity to chew much. This is probably why he is still not a huge fan of meat. He’ll eat tofu any day though but I can’t always feed him tofu.
How many teeth did Olive have when she started solids? I’m thinking about trying a modified version of baby-led weaning as I’m still going to do some purees with Skyler. I’m just worried that since he has zero teeth and probably won’t teeth until later like his brother that it would be hard to do baby-led weaning. But I do love the idea of not having to make purees all the time. It’s not a lot of work but I do have two to take care of now and between doing that and trying to feed me and my husband healthy food can be hard sometimes. I eat pretty crappy these days. Nicholas always eats way better than we do. Kids are so lucky!
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
@erwoo: olive didn’t have teeth when we started solids. they don’t need teeth to eat solids. chewing would be done by molars anyway, and they don’t get those until they’re much older. you can still to blw with no teeth!
pomegranate / 3053 posts
@Mrs. Bee: Okay, good to know. I thought that he would need some kind of teeth.
persimmon / 1255 posts
We went the conventional way also with LO (rice cereal, purees) but then switched over to BLW about two months later. For baby #2, we’ll be following the GAPS diet guideliness for at least the first year.
BTW, another soy sauce option: Coconut aminos.
http://www.amazon.com/Coconut-Secret-Organic-Vegan-Aminos/dp/B003XB5LMU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349812150&sr=8-1&keywords=coconut+aminos+soy-free+seasoning+sauce
pea / 10 posts
my son doesn’t take purees well. he will be 7 months in couple of days. I was thinking about going straight to finger food but i’m nervous. even though i have read so much about BLW, I still don’t know where to start. i did try giving him banana, avocado, and watermelon, but he doesn’t seem that interested. I guess i’ll try again and be patient about it.
grapefruit / 4669 posts
You make BLW seem so easy! In a year or so, I look forward to trying it.
persimmon / 1135 posts
Just curious… why are all the pieces of food so small? I find Linus has an easier time with larger pieces that he can easily grab and manipulate into his mouth. I also worry less about choking with bigger stuff because he has to intentionally chew stuff as opposed to smaller things that could be aspirated.
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
@MegWag: it’s because olive loves to stuff her mouth full of food even when she has plenty in there, so we have to give her small pieces and not too much at once!
pea / 7 posts
This is a great post! Thank you!!
guest
Wow I just came across your blog while writing an article about introducing herbs and spices into baby’s diet and I love it! I know I’m late to the game but I wanted to let you know that you’ve got a new reader! Thanks for the wonderful ideas, you’ll be another reference of mine for my baby-led weaning article too! Thanks!