More essential tips to introducing solid foods.
Make weaning fun
We bring you more tips to starting your baby onto solids. Here’s how…
Give her a cold spoon
"When my daughter is teething, she refuses to eat," says Tania Goh, 33, mum to Isabelle, 7 months. "I keep spoons in the fridge. Then, when I use one to feed her, she happily takes it."
Start early with meat and fish
Meat and fish are suitable for babies from six months, and introducing them earlier will help your baby be more receptive to their strong flavours. But don't worry if the new textures cause problems — before they get the hang of chewing and swallowing, many babies will suck meat dry, then spit it out.
Combine finger food and puree
There is nothing wrong with combining purees and finger food — don’t feel like you have to be firmly stuck with either baby-led weaning or the more traditional method of spoon-feeding. If your baby is having carrot puree, give him a stick of cooked carrot to play with, too.
Shape up
Make food pieces wide enough to grasp and long enough to poke out of your baby's clenched fist, so he can gnaw on them. This is the basis of baby-led weaning, where you bypass purees and let your little one feed himself.
Mealtime = playtime
Allow your baby to ‘play’ with and explore his food while eating. The exploration of different shapes and food textures is a great way to help him develop his hand-eye coordination and chewing skills.
Watch for fatigue
When it comes to feeding, it’s best to avoid introducing new foods when your baby’s tired or cranky. It can be easy to misread your baby's tired signals and think he's hungry, but you'll soon realise that, if he's grouchy and refusing to eat, then it's sleep he probably needs.
Keep up the milk
Milk feeds are still an important part of your baby’s diet until he’s a year old. It will be his main source of nourishment so solids during the first year are only meant to complement milk feeds, not to replace them.
Photo: INGimage/ClickPhotos
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