An early start to baby weaning

The Boy is completely unlike his big sister. Weaning her onto solids was a slow, strenuous process, and I often found myself at my wits’ end, as she would be so hard to get to eat anything, and after toiling for what seemed like hours in the kitchen, she would refuse any of the food I had so lovingly cooked… In contrast, the Boy has shown an interest in food ever since he was about four months, possibly even a bit before: he would stare intently at us whenever we had any food, he would try to grab it, sometimes he would even cry… And this obvious interest, as well as his insatiable hunger and repeated requests for feeds every 2 hours (3 at the very most), made us all wonder whether this was just his way of demanding that we put him onto solids as soon as possible.

I first caved when he was about four and a half months, and on a visit to my family, I let him try a bit of watermelon – he sucked on it with such delight that I was convinced we were onto something, but I didn’t quite dare to break the official rule of not starting weaning before six months… Then, a week or two later, we were staying with my mother-in-law, and she also suggested I put him onto solids. Again, I caved and gave him some baby porridge (of the sort that can be mixed with boiled water, as I didn’t want to have the hassle of expressing in order to be able to try out baby rice). He took to it immediately and ate it with gusto, but after giving him baby porridge for two days in a row at lunch, I read up on it online and started panicking that I was damaging his not yet ready liver and kidneys by starting him out too soon… So, I stopped again, and initially resolved to wait until he was six months to try again. However, after I had him weighed at 21 weeks and learned that he had dipped off his curve slightly (from being on the 75th gentile almost since birth, he was now somewhere between the 50th and the 75th), and after talking it through with the Health Visitor, who told me that, unless we had a history of family allergies (which we don’t), there would be nothing to worry about, I decided to start again and, from the day when he turned 22 weeks (the day after his fifth monthly), I started feeding him solids in earnest. So far, we haven’t looked back, and I am thrilled with how the process is going – clearly, this is the best sort of baby-led weaning, as I am taking my cue from the Boy himself, which makes me certain that I am doing the right thing for him.