Weaning Your Baby | My Experience

Every time I talk to a parent about weaning I get a different reaction, and I get it,I have had 3 very different experiences of weaning so far and they all come with so many emotions. 

I wanted to talk you through my experiences in the hope that it might help you feel reassured and maybe give you the confidence that you might be looking for in your own journey.

Weaning your first born

So lets go back to my first born, Alfie who was a lockdown baby which I feel is a label I need to let go of for him, but in this instance I think it is important because I was a lockdown Mum.  It felt very much like we were navigating these firsts on our own. I bought all the books, I read all the blogs but nothing really prepares you for these things with YOUR child as now I know, they are all so different. 

Alfie was very cautious with food right from the very beginning, anything I put in front of him he analysed for a good few minutes before maybe putting it in his mouth, but often he didn’t and don’t even get me started on the spoon. He would purse his lips every time a spoon would come close to his mouth so I had to think of creative ways to get him to try any sort of puree, like putting it on a rice cake or a melty stick in the hope that it might end up in his mouth. Starting with baby led weaning wasn’t my plan, but it ended up being the only option so we went with it, mushing up things we had on our plate and just giving him lots of things to explore. He did lots of exploring with his hands but did a piece of broccoli or avocado ever enter his mouth? Absolutely not, and if I ever tried to encourage it there were lots of tears and things being thrown on the floor - by him mostly but sometimes me too!!

I was comparing us to everyone on social media who seemed to be nailing it, and their babies would eat anything and everything and if i’m honest I started to dread mealtimes and I know he felt it - it was not fun for either of us. I did that typical parent thing of seeing him like a certain food, I would give it to him the very next day and of course he decided actually he didn’t like it anymore. I would tear my hair out over it. He went to nursery a few days a week when he was 10 months and the report would come back each day saying “he tried lunch, he tried dinner” but he basically went on a food strike for about 3 weeks there and lived off milk and sometimes a pea or two!! 

Eventually he started to become more adventurous at nursery - peer pressure can be a wonderful thing - and this began to translate to meals at home but he still had a very limited palate and I so wished that he would eat these colourful plates that I’d see others giving their kids but we were very beige over here with carrots and peas being the only veg he would eat and everything had to have grated cheese on otherwise it was a no go! 

After a while we just accepted our “fussy eater” and then along came number two!! Barney’s weaning journey started off in a similar way in that he would absolutely not be fed by a spoon (unless it was yogurt!) so back down the baby lead weaning road we went. This time I felt more confident and actually just didn’t have the time to fuss about it. I would give him a version of whatever Alfie was having and chuck in all sorts of vegetables that we were having so he got a variety on his plate whether he ate it or not. To start with he ate avocado, beetroot, tomatoes, scrambled egg and all sorts but bit by bit he started to show preference to things that were drier, things with a bit of a crunch, nothing with sauce on and became more and more like Alfie in his eating. I was gutted.

I can’t help but think there was some brotherly pact they had made to make mealtimes a real point of stress in the day for me. Interestingly though, at 2.5 now he is just not that into food, he can go all day without snacks and doesn’t eat a huge amount at mealtimes either so maybe that was always going to be the way. I’d say the two of them are not the most adventurous eaters still, but now they’re older you can explain things more and get them involved in the cooking which I find does help.

Right, let’s move onto number 3. Darcy came into our lives as the best surprise ever but I will be honest and say I was dreading tackling the weaning thing for a third time. She actually seemed very ready much earlier than the boys, sitting up completely unaided at 5 months, grabbing food out of my hands, and just wanting to eat so I gave her some baby rice at 5 months to see how it would go and to my surprise she inhaled it! She actually ate from a spoon I couldn’t believe my eyes! I’m still scared that if I talk about it too much she’s going to change her mind but so far the spoon is her friend, even if she does often grab it off me and insist on doing it herself. 

Weaning at 5 months 

Because she was only 5 months when we started weaning her, I couldn’t really go down the baby led route to begin with but she took to baby rice and porridge really well so after a week of that I ventured into the veggies. Quite rightly she didn’t think much of plain pureed broccoli or courgette so it was only when I started combining flavours did she start to really enjoy it. I combined flavours a lot earlier with Darcy than I did with the other two. There was a sense of wanting to give her more exciting flavours while she was into it, rather than risk her creating a bad association with the highchair (can you tell I am a little bit scarred from past experience??) but also I have been more able to trust my gut a lot more third time round with just trying things on her. 

She is also really into finger food, maybe because she can see the boys eating, so by the time she got to six months I was putting things in front of her to play with and try which she loved and actually ate a lot more than I was anticipating. She loves little cheesy leek muffins, fish pie croquettes, tuna fritattas and it gives me SO much joy seeing her eat. I have followed Charlotte Stirling Reed’s book ‘How to Wean Your Baby’ each time, which is like my bible when it comes to weaning but I am using it much more as a guide to refer to when I’m unsure on things like allergens etc but basically if it’s safe to give a baby of her age I am doing it and she is into it! 

So there you have my three very different experiences, and whilst we are still in the very early stages of weaning Darcy as she isn’t quite 7 months old yet, I am quietly hopeful that she will be our adventurous eater. She is taking no prisoners so far, she has even pulled Barney’s plate over to her and taken food of it for herself so these boys better watch out. 

7 things I have learnt whilst weaning my 3 children & my weaning tips

• If it’s warm enough, just strip them down so they can eat in their nappy. They’re much less distracted by bibs, and you can just chuck them in the bath after or give them a good wipe down. 

• Try to save the wiping down until they have finished, they hate it and it can sometimes just put them off eating. 

• If you are going to go for a bib, get the ones with poppers as the velcro ones are rubbish and lose their stick so quickly. We love the NatBebe ones and they’ve kindly given us all 20% off with the code CHARLIE20
  
  
• Remembering what Charlotte Stirling Reed taught me - “You are in control of what goes on their plate, but they are in control of how much they eat” and I honestly have to tell myself this on a daily basis.
  
  
• Embrace the mess. Yes you will be sweeping under your table 3 times a day for the foreseeable future but it won’t be forever and letting them explore and get messy is all part of it.
  
  
• Absolutely no suction plates are baby proof, they can get those things off no matter what so often I don’t bother with a plate in these early days and just pop lots of things on the table in front of them then there is less risk in the plate or bowl going overboard.
  
  
• Do not feel guilty if you aren’t making everything they eat from scratch. It is not possible to be the perfect parent so I don’t even try anymore and it is fairly freeing. I have actually found the Lune & Wild frozen cubes a complete life saver this time and wish I’d found them last time. Darcy absolutely loves the food, and it is home made (just not by me!) so I feel great that she is getting great wholesome meals. They have also kindly given us a code so you can use CHARLIE10 for 10% off. 

I hope you have found this helpful, and as always feel free to reach out to me with anything you'd like to chat about. I am no weaning expert but I can provide experience and an ear to vent to if you're feeling as frustrated as I felt. Just remember that each child is different and there is only so much you can do, you're doing an amazing job. 

 Author : Charlie Launder