Hi Ladies,

I'm new to these forums, so apologies if this sort of question has been asked before. My little boy is 28.5 weeks and we''ve been weaning him since 17.5 weeks on HV advice. He weighed in at 17lbs when he was weighed at 6 months, and has had a steady weight gain since birth (7lb 15oz born) Ollie is into a really good routine (although now I;ve said that, he'll change lol!).

8:00am breakfast. Currently 3 level dessert spoons of baby breakfast (mostly 4 month plus but have just ried him on a 7m+ and he loves it) and a 4oz bottle. If breakfast needs milk, I use a bit from his bottle, so he might actually on drink 3.75ozs iyswim.

12 midday lunch 2 ice cubes of veg puree mied with a little baby rice, 1/3 of a fruit pot or half a small petit filous type yoghurt, 3oz water/juice

2pm 4oz bottle

4pm either 2 icecubes veg puree or equivalent amount of baby rice, fruit pot/yog as before or a rice cake/half a rusk type thing, 3 oz water/juice

7pm 8oz bottle then bed by half7ish and he'll go through then until the next morning.

Ok, here come my questions (sorry there are a few);

1. Does the above routine sound ok? If he gets a bit whingy between meals I might give him half a rice cake or crust of toast but he really just sucks on these and flaps the soggy bits around until they finally end up on my rug. He also has regular drinks of juice/water throughout the day, not just at meals time.

2. Is he getting enough milk?

3. Besides veg purees, baby rice, breakfast, the odd fruit pot/fruit puree/yoghurt, toast and rice cakes what else can I give him? I feel like I'm not trying hard enough giving him veg twice a day as his sole food. I have tried him on chicken dinner which he loved, but he wouldn't eat the frozen versions I'd made as he doesnt like mash thats been frozen.

4 He doesnt like lumps, whats the best way to move him onto them? The last lot of puree I made him isn't as smooth as before, but he just spits the lumps out. I tried with some baby pasta and spag bol, blended, which he promptly decided to gag on and get himself into such a tizz that it took half and hour to calm him down poor thing. I have also tried him on a jar of 7month food (after the spag bol incident, I thought I'd play it safer instead of wasting food), but the same thing happend, even though he does actually like the 7month breakfast porridge I got for him.

Sorry for all my random questions and for waffling on, I'm just not sure where to go from here, and thanks in advance for any help.

Lou and Ollie x

Hi there,

Hope you are well.

I have a 11 month old so have only just recently gone through the whole puree process!

Judging by your routine I would say he needs a bot more milk then this and he is probably drinking a bit much juice/water in the day.

For breakfast I used to offer Lu bottle first at 7am so she would take a good amount around 7oz and then would wait until 8ish to offer her breakfast. I would then offer her a little snack around 10am before her lunch at 12pm (HV advised me on this as at that age their tummies are far too small to go without food for this long and need a little snack between breakfast and lunch).
As Ollie is now over 6 months you really need to start introducing iron rich foods in his diet as that is the age it depletes from their birth.
I would advise you get Annabel Karmel;s book or have a look on her website for some recipes, her ideas and combinations are great and lots of kids I know love it.

As for lumps I would say you will have to persevere with finger foods, at the beggining they just play with them but as the time goes they actually get a lot of it in, they just need lots of practice. When Lu was 6 months I would give her a rice cake just to keep her quiet for 30min, now she demolishes one in 10 seconds. So keep giving him things like cheese, fruit, celery, pieces of cooked chicken, pasta so he can mush it around and try it....with time he will get a lot of it in and probably start enjoying it.

All the best
xx