Are they ready? Thinking probably not.

[*beannaithe*]

Hiya, little misses E & G are almost 5 1/2 months old and despite the fact that they are thriving and happy on breast milk alone, I am getting a lot of pressure from DH and his family to start solids even though they know I want to bf for the full six months. DH keeps trying to give G in particular food but I am noticing that whenever he tries anything other than really soft stuff, she is gagging and vomiting, plus she still seems to have some tongue thrust going on.

Am I right in thinking that if she is gagging, she is not ready for solids? Both girls will watch when we eat but are making no moves to physically try and grab our forks/spoons. And when they are ready, will they choke and gag less or is that something I have to be extremely vigilant about?

TIA

[Artechim]

I would say they aren't ready yet. You know the signs to look for - grabbing, putting it in their mouth and then swallowing it. They won't gag much when they are ready to eat, although some kids do gag more than others. My DS was 8 months before he was interested in eating, my DD1 was 6.5 months and my DD2 was 4.5 months when she started stealing food off my plate to eat. There is a huge range of when they are ready so if your girls aren't showing any signs at 6 months they just need more time and BM will be perfectly sufficient in the mean time.

[Heaven]

No they're not ready. When they are they will still gag a bit sometimes when getting used to new things but they won't have the tongue thrust reflex

[*beannaithe*]

Great, that was what I was thinking but just needed to check. I think DH thinks cos G will eat ice cream that he feeds her when I'm not looking (grrrrrr) then she must be ready (rolling eyes!!)

[Olive]

I hate when people think just because a baby watches you eat means they are ready for solids.....they'd watch you wipe your bottom, does that mean they're ready to toilet train??
You know them best.
Xxx

[*beannaithe*]

Olive On Christmas Day, MIL comes up to me and says how Gemma was watching her eat, then she asked me where we kept the ice cream so she could feed it to her - WTF? Uh, no.

[BellyBelly]

So agree Olive! DD2 is grabbing everything now at 4.5 months and the comments have started! Argh! She's just interested in it all

[Traveller]

A friend of mine always says that a baby at this age would poke razor blades in their eyes if they saw you do it first! Babies show interest in everything you do but it sounds like you are very tuned into their needs and they are probably not ready for food.

[onthefly]

oh dear! ice cream
Yeah. My DD was like this. Absolutely insistent that she wanted solids from 4-ish months, but she gagged and vomited every. single. time till she was well over 7 months (we didn't let her get her hands on any food till she was nearly 6 months, mind).
Healthy full-term babies don't need anything but breastmilk for at least the first 6 months - no need to mess with that.

[mrscricket]

I lived by the mantra of "Food before 1 is just for fun!" with the twins. It helped me get past the "Ohh she wants some of my icecream/coffee froth/chicken' comments Ours didn't start until after 6 months and probably didn't really 'get it' for a few months.

[Ryatha]

Even though I tried to keep my lot on milk before 6 months, by 5 months they were all stealing food off my plate and eating it with no issues. Only if I tried to feed them with a spoon would they gag. If they fed themselves there were no issues and the could control what and how much they ate.