Readiness is a cluster of signs, not a date
A kitten is ready to begin weaning when several things coincide: she walks steadily, her small teeth are coming through, she watches and sniffs at her mother's or her carer's food with intent, and she can lap liquid from a shallow surface even if she does it messily by standing in it. Starting before that cluster appears usually means food smeared on an uninterested kitten, while starting much later can make the transition harder because lapping habits are entrenched. Orphaned kittens follow the same signs rather than a calendar, and a kitten who is unwell, losing weight or struggling to feed should have her weaning guided by a veterinarian instead of a timetable, since her reserves are too small for experimentation.
Stage one: a gruel she can lap
Begin with a shallow, heavy dish she cannot tip, containing a warm, soupy mixture of her usual milk feed and a little thoroughly softened kitten food, offered a few times a day alongside her normal feeds. Let her investigate it entirely at her own pace, lapping, pawing and inevitably wearing some of it. Dabbing a little on her lips once can introduce the taste, but never push her face into the dish, which frightens kittens and risks her inhaling liquid. Keep sessions short, clean her up gently afterwards with a warm damp cloth as her mother would, and record how much interest and actual swallowing each session produced, because enthusiasm at the dish and nutrition taken are two different measures in the first days.
Stage two: thicker food, more often, milk stepping back
As lapping becomes reliable eating, thicken the mixture gradually over days until she is eating soft kitten food with only a little liquid, and increase the number of solid meals while spacing her milk feeds further apart. Watch the litter tray during this stage, since a change in diet commonly loosens stools for a short while; persistent looseness, blood, vomiting or a kitten who goes off food altogether during weaning means pausing the step she is on and seeking veterinary advice rather than pushing onward. Weigh her several times a week through the whole transition, because steady gain is the clearest proof that the calories she is losing from milk are genuinely being replaced by food rather than by optimism.
Stage three: meals like a young cat
By the end of a successful weaning she is eating solid meals from her own bowl several times a day, drinking water independently, and treating milk as an occasional extra rather than a necessity. Move her onto the feeding schedule she will keep as a young cat, with food formulated for growth, fresh water always available, and meals at predictable times she can anticipate. Some kittens regress briefly during illness, a house move or another stress and ask for comfort feeding; meeting that need for a few days and then stepping forward again is kinder and more effective than refusing. If she is weaning alongside littermates, feed them at individual bowls in this stage so the slowest eater's intake is visible rather than guessed.
Shared feeding keeps the stages honest
Weaning goes wrong most often when several carers feed from memory, one thickening the mixture early, another offering extra milk feeds out of sympathy, and nobody sure what she actually ate today. Write the current stage and the plan for the day where everyone feeds from it. KinsLe Care Teams supports exactly that, assigning each weaning feed to a named person with a completion mark, so the kitten's transition moves at her pace rather than at the pace of whoever happens to be holding the dish.