



Weaning
At Aunty Sue's Day Care, your key person will meet with you in order to discuss your babies requirements as to when and how you want to wean them.
When to start giving solid foods
It is recommended to start your baby on solid foods when they are around six months old. All babies are different so you might want to ask your health visitor or GP for advise when is best for your baby (some babies may be ready to start earlier or later than this)
Tips on getting started
* Start giving solid foods when you and your baby are calm and your baby is alert
* Remember your baby will need to learn how to eat sold foods
* Start by offering just a few teaspoons once a day
* If your baby doesn't seem to want to eat, stop and try again the next day
* Build up to offering food twice a day, then three times a day
* Give more if they want more
Remember all babies are different - don't worry if they don't want much to start with
First foods from about 6 months - Exploring new tastes and textures
* Once a baby has learned how to take soft food from a spoon, you can start to introduce mashed food with soft lumps
* At this stage babies will start to pick up finger food, so offer these too (see list below)
* Offer foods rich in vitamins and minerals such as meat, fish, eggs, fruit and vegetables, make sure eggs are thoroughly cooked until both the white and yolk are solid
* Use some starchy foods as well such as potatoes, rice, pasta, couscous
* Keep introducing new foods, so your baby gets used to different textures and tastes, and to widen the range of foods they eat
Finger foods
These encourage babies to chew, even if they have no teeth, this helps speech muscles to develop, some babies don't like being spoon fed and are happier with food they can hold them self , examples include;
* Fingers of toast, bread, pitta bread, chapatti
* Slices of peeled soft ripe fruit such as pear, peach, melon, banana
* Cooked and cooled green beans, carrot sticks, small florets of cauliflower or broccoli
* Bread sticks or rice cakes (choose lower salt varieties)
* Cooked and cooled pasta shapes


Moving on to family meals - from about 9 months onwards


