Weaning

So I’ve been meaning to write a post about weaning for months. I guess better late than never. I started to give Blake and Ivy solids at 6 months. We were going on our first holiday just after they turned 6 months and ideally I wanted to delay it until after our trip just for ease but in the end I started only 2 weeks before our holiday. I did this as Ivy’s sleeping had regressed and I wondered if solids would help her go back to sleeping through the night.

I looked into baby led weaning (blw) and I did think that seemed like the easier option with 2 babies however I ended up doing a bit of blw and purée.

I followed an Annabel Karmel book which suggests that you start with root vegetables and give the same food 3 days consecutively. If the baby shows no signs of having a reaction, then that food is a safe food and then you introduce the next food. Any new food can be given with a safe food as you know if they have a reaction it must be the new food.

I started with carrot for lunch. They do say to start with a meal further away from bedtime, so if they do get a reaction it’s likely to occur in the day and wont disturb their sleep. As they only take a few spoonfuls (if that) initially I used Ella’s pouches to begin with. I also steamed some carrot sticks so they could experiment with holding the same food that was puréed. Blake and Ivy were not sitting up yet so I started the weaning process in their baby Bjorn bouncers so they were slightly slanted, and therefore didn’t need to concentrate on supporting their heads as well as trying something new. I think this is helpful if you have something like this to use initially, instead of a highchair. So Blake at first was not happy about the purée but once I let him hold the spoon he calmed down a bit. Ivy was putting the carrot everywhere but in her mouth.

By day 2 Blake was loving the carrot purée but showed no interest in the actual carrot. Ivy wouldn’t open her mouth for either form of carrot. This typically continued for a few weeks. Blake enjoying his new food and Ivy putting it in her hair. I decided quite early on to stick with purée. Would I do the same if I started again? I’m not sure. I do sometimes think if they were used to blw then mealtimes would be a bit easier when I feed them out on my own, but at the time they seemed more interested in purée food so I mainly did this.

Once I tried a few different root vegetables I moved onto peas, broccoli and then introduced some fruit. Do try and give loads of vegetables first or you may find that they love the sweetness or fruit and then the vegetables are not sweet enough and they don’t want them. Once I introduced fruit Ivy started to show a bit more interest. At this point I only attempted with blw at dinner times on occasions as I followed what Blake and Ivy seemed to be more happy with and it was clear that that was being fed with a spoon! On holiday I used just pouches as again this made life a lot easier with it being our first holiday. We started giving breakfast at this point too. I gave them their breakfast and lunch after their milk as their milk is still their main source of nutrients at 6 months. On holiday I gave fruit for breakfast which they loved but once I got home I tried babyrice, weetabix and rusks. They both hated babyrice so I never bothered with that again. Although I haven’t ever ruled out anything else if they haven’t seemed keen at first. The only reason I didn’t bother with babyrice again was because they liked the weetabix and it seemed better and easier for them to like an adult cereal which they can continue to eat. Rusks are quite high in sugar so I have typically stuck to weetabix or readybreak for their breakfast. Breakfast has always been their favourite meal and one that never caused much difficulty for me.

Lunches were still currently Ella’s Pouches mainly mixes of vegetables and fruits which now they both really liked. It was so refreshing to see Ivy love food as she never liked her milk. Blake did had times where he would get frustrated an upset during mealtimes which I found tough but just persevered.

I think something that is key when you start the weaning process is to be relaxed. I think babies can feel if we are on edge or anxious. Not only this, but also remember that the food isn’t important at this stage, so really they should just have fun with it and experiment with it. I wish I took this on board in the early stages of weaning. I think I let the stress get to me quite easily if they didn’t open their mouths or wouldn’t eat anything.

Once we got back from holiday I knew I wanted to start giving them homemade meals and introducing protein. I wanted to get them familiar with protein before adding dinner into the equation. This is where I started to struggle. They were so used to the very smooth consistency of the pouches, that anything I made they literally wouldn’t eat. With this happening, I felt I had gone backwards as they were eating so well and loved their lunches when I was giving the pouches. The transition from pouch purées to my food was tough and took at least 2 months. Rather than going from the smoothie vegetable/fruit pouches to my own food containing meat or fish I tried to initially just give them my own vegetables. I had to offer this mixed with the Ella’s pouch and slowly wean them off the pouch. Once they were happier with this I then made meals contain white fish, salmon and eventually chicken and red meat. I had to add pouches to my meals for a long time. Blake would have says where he was fine and would eat it and other days he would scream and cry. It was really tough. Especially because I wasn’t sure why he was getting so upset. He was never like this at breakfast. Once they were eating protein I then also introduced dinner. This meal tended to be slightly lighter than what I gave for lunch. I started to give things like scrambled eggs, toast and avocado. This was the only meal they fed themselves. I also would give crumpets, toast or mashed avocado with banana which was a favourite. Once 3 meals were being eaten and a lot of food was being consumed I noticed they started to show less interest in their 11am bottle. I eventually dropped this around 8 months and replaced this with a small snack at 10am. I then stopped the 3pm bottle at 10 and half months and again gave a snack instead which would be a yoghurt or fruit. Now at the age of one they are still trying new foods and I’m encourage more blw meals but they still love being spoon fed. I stopped blending their food a while ago but I still mush certain things up such as a jacket potato with beans. They love chicken nuggets and fish fingers but Blake can still be picky with certain foods offered to him. Who would have thought that Ivy would be better with her food than Blake. They still have two 8oz bottles along with their 3 meals a day. I’ve used some great weaning products which I would recommend. Munchkin do great cutlery and bowls which is what I used when I first started weaning Blake and Ivy. Beaba do such great freezer silicon storage moulds which I still use when I batch cook.

VitalBaby have a lot of weaning products but my favourite and a must have are their suction bowls. They stick to the tray of the highchair and I have attempted to take it off myself and it is a struggle. These are perfect for when you are giving your baby food in a bowl for them to feed themselves.

Nuby do some great products! We use their overall bibs which cover their arms! A must have when you are feeding out.They have good size containers with lids to take food out on the go. Check out more of their products because there are loads.

Nuk I use their sippy cups for Blake and Ivy which they have used from the start and still love them. Weaning for me was quite challenging. I’m not a fan of change and it obviously made my routine harder but eventually I got into the swing of things and once they liked their food I was more confident feeding them out on my own.

Sorry this post was so late but hope it was useful and if you have any more questions feel free to message me xx