shycloud,
actually starting solid food at 6mths i find is fine. in fact my boy pick up the chewing quite fast, soon after he tried 2 days then i pass over to my mil and my mil say he can take quite a lot ored. then 1 week later manage to eat without much drip. if earlier than 6mths n he is not ready with the tongue reflex, i dun tink it be ideal.
for water, i only feed some after cereal. before start solid food, we didn't feed him any water, despite pressure from my mil and my mum. only recently he didn't poo so often so i tell mil to feed him 20ml water.