Baby Led Solids dilemma - WWYD
DS will be 6 months on August 6th. I don't want to wait much past that point to start him on solids, but we'll be in the process of moving from England to Oklahoma during that time. I want to make the transition as easy as possible for him, and to me that means not introducing anything new for that period. We'll be flying, staying with family and in hotels, and it's just generally not conducive to starting a messy new phase of development.
The problem is that if I wait until we're at least IN Oklahoma and somewhat settled, he'll be hitting 7, 7 1/2 months. I'm concerned that's too long to wait, since he's been giving me small indicators that he's mentally ready for solids and I've just been waiting for his physical development and age to catch up before I start.
WWYD? I am really leaning towards waiting, but I wanted to see what other's opinions were.
Re: Baby Led Solids dilemma - WWYD
I guess I am going to be different and say go ahead and get started. We started solids at 6 months, but DS didn't really care one way or the other whether or when he had solids for about 2 more months. For a couple of months, it's just practice anyway, not nutrition, so if we skipped a solid meal here and there, it didn't matter. For example, my grandfather died in January, and we were out of town in a hotel for three days. We didn't bother with solids in the hotel at all, and it didn't make a bit of difference. So, I don't see any reason not to get him started getting used to it if he shows you he's ready. I don't think it ever stressed him out; he thought it was kind of cool to be trying it out. He seemed like he thought it was pretty exciting.
I understand not wanting to do anything that messy in a hotel, but I don't think it will be an issue at all with family. It's just messy on the face at first, not anywhere else.
Of course, I don't think not starting solids would be any big deal either.
We had a lot of travel going on around 6 - 6.5 months so we waited. I don't think we got started until closer to 7 + months.
Either way, it'll be fine. Just a matter of preference
Thanks ladies. We're going to wait. It's not so much the messiness/inconvenience of it that's got me (I can deal with that), but the thought of trying to introduce him to something so new while flying, crossing time zones, living in strange places, etc. I really just want to keep things as much on routine for him as I can.