EBF baby ready for solids? but I'm not :(

[muslimahmama]

My little boy is 5 and a half months, 17 pounds and 25.5 inches tall (that was two weeks ago..) he is gaining very well on my milk alone! He has been making chewing motions with his mouth and reaching for our food for a while now.. I know the ideal is to wait until AT LEAST 6 months, but the other day I gave him a taste of the pear I was eating (he sucked on it) and he loved it.. then yesterday I gave him a small bit of banana and he went crazy. TODAY, he literally was crying when we were eating dinner, reaching for our food, chomping at the bit. I know I shouldn't have even given him a taste of food.. and now I realize I am so not ready for him to start solids. I LOVE breastfeeding him, he nurses very frequently but has started sleeping longer at night. He doesn't seem that 'into' nursing, but when I ask him if he wants to nurse he does get a little excited. Nothing like today with our dinner though!! Is it right to deny him solids when he clearly wants to eat? My first born was formula fed and I waited until he was 6 months to start him on table food.. we had WIC at the time and they were really rude to me about his weight and said I should have started feeding him solids earlier and less formula...I don't remember him being very interested in solids at all. I am worried that he will prefer solids over nursing and start to wean himself. I want to nurse him for as long as possible.. at least 2 years.

[PatioGardener]

There are a couple of 'tricks' that can be used to placate baby and delay solids until 6 months.

• give baby a spoon at the table. SO MUCH FUN! Often a spoon is as good as or better than food!
• give baby a breastmilk popsicle - a frozen cube of breastmilk in a mesh feeder bag. Again, lots of fun!
• Feed breastmilk off a spoon. Messy, but again, lots of fun!
• Nurse baby before you eat/sit at table, so you know that it is not hunger, but exploration taht makes him want the food/spoon/plates

I understand the feeling of wanting to nurse baby forever! My little one was not ready for solids until 7 months, and then I felt sad that he was no longer EBF. But he is still nursing really well and is over a year now

[Anna Phor]

We started our son on solids at 5.5 months when he showed a bunch of signs of being ready. Now at 18 months, he can tell me what foods he finds delicious (MMMMMM!!) but he will also ask to get down from dinner and immediately demand "ne-ne".  He loves to eat AND he loves to nurse.

good luck!

[KempsMama]

My almost 9 month old does seem to prefer table food to nursing, but he still loves to nurse.  I just can't eat anything while he's nursing anymore!  It's sad some days, but I see how much he is learning and how excited he gets and I get just as much joy from that as I do from cuddling and nursing him.  Plus, I no longer have to nurse through my own dinner.  :)

[crunchy_mommy]

My DS was like that but even though we gave him the opportunity to eat, he didn't have more than a bite or two a day until he was 14mos, and at 27mos still nurses 10+ times a day. I actually now wish he would just eat food more and nurse less

One thing that made me more comfortable with offering food when we first started, was doing baby-led solids. Are you familiar with that? Basically I just gave DS a small plate of what we were eating, and let him determine whether & how much to eat. There was no spoon-feeding, no purees or cereals or mush, just regular food. For some reason I felt much better about using this method, we tried spoon-feeding once and I wasn't comfortable with it and that's when I discovered baby-led weaning. Most of the time he just pushed the food around, made a big fun mess with it, sometimes he chewed things & then spit them out, sometimes he swallowed a bit (rarely, though, until he was older)...

[Mama2Kayla]

My dd is the same way. I started letting her taste things at 5.5 months and she loves it. She has shown all the signs of being ready, so I just went with it. Its not an everyday thing at this point, just a bit of banana or soft fruit here and there.

My older 2 were exclusivly bf until 8-9 months.

Some kids really are ready a little bit earlier.

[D_McG]

i started my DD around that age for the same reasons. I love when my kids start eating real food. Gives us way more flexibility.