How do you fit solids into your day

[Eva's Mummy]

My LO has started solids and had been having porridge with fruit for a week now. I have been giving her it at the same time as her second bottle (11am) but now i am going to start lunch i will have to shift things.

Should i be giving solids and bottles and differnt times of the day and not together as now she has started to take more porridge she won't finish her bottle?

Also when do i start giving 2 courses for lunch, do i do this before i introduce dinner or afterwards?

Once again thank you all for the great advice i will get, this forum is my life saver 

[creations]

Many people give a solids meal one hour after milk.  This means they get all they need from the milk (because milk is the most important food at this age) but do have a little time to gain an appetite before tyring out the solids, which is really about experience, tastes and textures etc.  So try:
WU milk
1hr later breakfast solids plus sippy cup of water
11am milk (should go back to a more normal amount now the solids has moved)
12pm solids lunch plus sippy cup of water

You might find with having the solids and milk separate that she might ask for milk in addition to the solids.  My LO did this a lot at first, asking for milk even though he'd had his full milk one hour before.  I just let him have the milk he wanted.  Gradually he just took water with the solids instead of milk.

There's no set rules on weening so it's up to you to introduce 2 courses or dinner.  you might want to designate one of the meals as a finger food time, maybe dinner and LO can have something the same as the family and feed herself.  Eventually you'll be giving 3 solids meals between the milk feeds and then (long time off yet) those day time milks become a solid snack with milk or water in a sippy cup rather than bottle.

hth

[Eva's Mummy]

Thanks honey that makes more sense.

What kind of things do you give as finger foods then and is it ok at 5 months?

[Texomamama]

The finger foods I always started out with were Cheerios (and Gerber puffs), blueberries (cut in half initially), and very soft fruits like pear, apple and banana.  Sometimes, I also used those little rice cakes (just turned to mush as they suck on them).  Their pincher grasp is not really well developed at 5 mo, but once their little fingers get wet, lots of stuff just sticks

I used the jarred Stage II fruits like apple and pear and drained them well to reduce the sugary liquid, but if you don't want to go that route, you can just prepare your own fruit. 

[creations]

I started at 5.5 months and offered things like steamed carrot fingers, lightly steamed apple wedges or baked sweet potato or baked pear wedges.  I avoided small round things like peas blueberries and cherry tomatoes because of the difficulty of picking up and also the additional choke hazard.  But you can offer just about anything the family eats so long as your cook with no salt, sugar, honey, raw egg, whole nuts.  It's ok to offer 'sloppy' foods too like mashed potato, fish pie etc as they can get fist fulls to their mouth.  it's just about exploration and tasting so it doesn't matter if not much goes in.
There's a great thread for finger foods and BLW if you get short of ideas.

[Eva's Mummy]

oh now that sounds like fun fistfulls of mashed potato  , i'm gonna try that i'm sure she would love it as she is always tyring to grab what i am eating.

Sorry i don't even know your name and your always giving me so much good advice 

[creations]

I am an anonymous BWer and very rudely don't give my name out to anyone   

I altered my cooking so that everything was suitable for LO, no salt etc.  For example with mash pot I would boil the pots without salt, then remove a small portion and mash those separately with unsalted butter or milk added.  The rest of it I would season to adult's taste.  I did the same with stews etc, used larger than normal chunks of veg, put them to one side to cool for LO then spiced/seasoned up the rest for the adult meal.  This way you are gradually introducing LO to the regular meals your family eats so the transition to family meals is a slow gradual one rather than jumping from puree to full meals.

[Eva's Mummy]

oh how mysterious i like it 

I will have a wee look at that thread, it sounds like a much better idea than just purees all the time.