Starting solids at what age
Show your support
You can start as early as 4 months as long as it gets cleared by a pediatrician. I would recommend downloading the app Solid Starts, it gives you examples of how to know when baby is ready to start solids. But again it’s best to check with her pediatrician so they can give the green light. Hope that helps 🙏🏼☺️
Sterting next month- 4 months
The evidence as to how early is too early is mixed and you're going to get a lot of different answers. I can say that 6 months is advised because ideally, we want most people to hit that mark, but it does not mean everyone will. If we said 4 months or 5 months, then more people would start then, and some may start even earlier, which definitely isn't ideal, so we say 6 months with the understanding that MOST babies will be ready around that time, and because if they do start a little earlier it likely won't hurt any. You know your baby, you can decide if they're ready or not if you know the signs. As for time of day, I don't think there is a "right" time - we tried doing mornings, but my girl was so hungry she would scream bloody murder for her bottle and then not be hungry anymore. The best time is when baby is kind of hungry, but not SO hungry they scream the house down, and ideally during their best wake window when they are alert, aware, and interested. Pick a time that works for you.
@Melissa thank you for that ! I appreciate it
I started at 5.5m. I started with pureed food instead of straight to BLW. I did avocado, pumpkin, carrot, spinach etc at first. I didn’t do rice cereal but I made my own rice porridge (it’s a comfort food in my culture, and many babies start with that food). I didn’t really do allergens first, except for egg yolk, I put egg yolk in her rice porridge regularly. I did oatmeal cereal once and she was allergic so no more cereal. Now she’s 8 months and she actually does not want pureed anymore but want to do BLW. I’m assuming it’s because she has 2 teeth now and she wants to explore texture (I mean pureed food is pretty boring). So I didn’t plan on doing BLW full on so quickly but now my baby is actually leading her weaning her way, interestingly! You can totally start at 5.5m if you want and totally ok to skip cereal foods. Edit to add I do have the Solid Starts app and don’t pay for subscription but I still check to see how to serve different foods to my baby since she only likes BLW
As for time of day, I actually first did afternoon when I started and still had 3-4 hours to observe before she sleeps so I felt that was ok. I didn’t do morning cause I felt overwhelmed with adding solids to the mix at first (now I got a hang of it so I moved the heaviest solid meal to morning so her poop also got synched to the morning too). Make sure you have children Zyrtec on hand and ask your ped in advance how much to give in case of allergy (based on your baby’s weight curve). Just to add too, when I started at 5.5m my baby was sitting very wobbly and I fed her in the bouncer or play pen with the Bobby pillow behind her. I felt it was ok since she was curious to eating food then. And honestly at first she ate so little it was just like for fun. She still doesn’t eat a ton at 8 months. But every baby is different. Best wishes! It’s fun to watch them experience new food :)
I started at 5 months with daughter due to her barely drinking any milk, but I was aiming for 6 months. Planning to wait the whole 6 months with son.