Hi Everyone
I have been weaning my baby for the past couple of weeks and so far we have had baby rice, sweet potato, carrot, Broccoli, Apple, Papaya and banana porridge. Parsnip was a disaster and we had a big shudder so won't be going there again for a while! I have a few questions I hope someone can help me with.
1. Most of the above he will only take when mixed with baby rice and milk - is this normal? He just won't eat apple on it's own as it's too tart.
2. How much should he be eating at a meal? At the moment he will have about 2 tablespoons and most of the time we stop because we run out of food rather than him give up. Should I be giving him much more?
3. In the Annabel Karmel book it says for first stage weaning you can mix broccoli with cheese sauce. When I make a cheese sauce I make it using butter, milk and cheese. Am I ok to do this as I thought they weren't allowed milk for a while? (my son is over six months but was 7 weeks early).
Thanks for the advice!

milk is ok cooked in food, I think you are not meant to introduce it as a drink, because then it would take from the more nutritious milk they were having, but in food they wouldn't associate it with milk drinks so thats ok.

Hi!

1. An idea with is food is to try adding some pear , that sounds odd I know lol, but it is quite a sweet fruit and can make things a whole lot more appealing, then you can gradually reduce the amount of pear (can even put it in savoury things)

2. At first like you I just gave the small amount advised by Annabel, I didnt do it for long, as soon as she seemed happy with the whole food thing I basically fed her as much as she wanted, I don't worry that she will over feed as she is bang on the 50th centile..and keeps her lips shut when she is full!

3. Yes as beancounter has said it fine in cooking - makes life easier doesnt it, full fat is best as they can do with the fat, but it isn't an issue if you only have semi in the house!

I have to say I find it hard to understand why they say to try parsnip, it is a funny owd taste!

Is this true? Where did you find this out? I thought that skimmed or semi skimmed milk was actually unsuitable for children under 5 and 3 respectively... It'd make my life easier if I could use semi to make her porridge, as I share it with her and don't want to eat full fat milk myself!
Thanks

It was my HV who told me, basically she said that they mustn't have it as a drink til 3/5 (as you said above) as when they start to have cows milk to drink they need the calories and they must have full fat.

She said that semi was okay in cooking (like cheese sauce etc) because it isn't counted as part of their daily milk intake, so they are still getting what they need from formula, yoghurt, cheese etc (whereas after 1 when they stop formula they need the stuff in full fat to replace what was in the formula) .

It is much easier knowing that - once they get to 1 we can buy a small carton of full fa and it will go quite quick as they are drinking it, but right now I only use a tiny bit in cooking, so would end up wasting alot!

I still use formula in her porridge though, the 4oz she has with that adds nicely to her daily requirements :-)

I just found some interesting info
''Normal whole dairy milk is 3.5 per cent saturated fat. Semi-skimmed, which accounts for 60 per cent of all sales, has 1.5 per cent, while many stores now offer a 1 per cent fat milk. Skimmed milk has only trace levels.

All these milk options contain the same amount of calcium, which is vital for growing bones and teeth.''

So the semi has 2% less saturated fat than full fat, but the same calcium :-) So there isn't a huge amount of fat in milk anyway.