🚨 Advance warning 🚨 This forum will be closing on 1st May – please see our pinned thread for more information.
when to start on finger foods if weaned from 16 weeks?
millie has been having food for nearly 3 weeks now and is loving it so much she will eat anything i give her! and will eat it all! i make my own foods for her and freeze them she has things like sweet potato carrot and cauliflower. they r normally purred really well but a few times they have been a little lumpy mainly the ones with brocolli in and shes taken it fine. when would i start on finger foods??? 6 months? or after 6 months?? shes on 2 meals a day at the minute and taking quite a lot of food. thanks xx
0
Replies
The idea of 'baby led weaning' is that a baby will show they are ready for food by being able to take/pick up food with thier hand and be able to put it in thier mouth.
I offered Louise the odd finger food to see what would happen from about 5 months and on christmas eve she suddenly could pick up a stick of cucumber and put it in her mouth! She was 6 months exactly yesterday. She chews on things like bread sticks now too.
In my postnatal group on weaning we were told that if a baby has a lump of finger food in thier mouth it will naturally come out of their mouth. Because thier swallowing relex is still developing they don't try to swallow the lump. And it is true! Loiuse has started biting lumps out of cucumber sticks and it does fall out after she's chewed it a bit!
Apparently giving finger foods earlier than lumps helps babies to deal with lumps when they come.