Category: food

We started weaning S at 6 months, though he was probably ready a few weeks earlier… he was literally grabbing at our food and putting it in his mouth!

We started with BLW and it’s gone really well, he took to it quicker than W did, hasn’t gagged much and hasn’t rejected much! A few months in and he pretty much eats whatever I’m eating but because he’s so small (9th centile) I do top him up with spoon-fed pouches to fatten him up a bit!

He loves cream cheese on crackerbread, and avocado but his all-time favourite is brocolli – I’m sure he’d munch on a whole one if he got the chance!

Weaning should be enjoyable but it can be stressful so I thought I’d share some tips 🙂

1. If you find that you waste fresh veg and fruit, try frozen fruit and veg and just defrost as you need it… you can get pretty much everything these days e.g. Kiwi fruit, cauliflower!

2. Learn how to read food labels – lots of things are labelled as ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ but might have sugar as one of it’s main ingredients. I try to buy things that have 10% or less sugar in them (so that’s 10g in a 100g).

3. Yoghurts in particular can be packed with added sugar (there will always be some natural sugar from the fruit)- I always buy the ‘little yeos’ that have no added sugar. 

4. Don’t have carpet on your dining room floor.

5. If you’re unlucky enough to have carpet in your dining room, buy a shower curtain to put underneath the high chair (and a wide area around it ;)) 

6. The Ikea antilop high chair is the best-value thing you’ll ever buy at only about £15 and it’s sooo easy to clean! Why spend any more!?

7. Spend that money you saved on the high hair… on a hand-held vacuum! We have the Dyson DC34 which I bought when it was an offer and it’s FAB! Probably the most essential weaning product!!

8. If you have a hand-held vacuum make sure you empty it out very regularly… there is nothing nice about the smell of fish stuck in a dyson for a few days!

9. That reminds me… always clean up as soon as you can after eating… weetabix and porridge turn to cement if not wiped away within 5 minutes!

10. While I’m on cleaning, stock up on wet wipes. If you thought you got through a lot when newborn was pooing all the time, try doubling the amount you’ll get through

11. One of the principles of BLW is that they eat what you eat. Don’t veer too far from this as you don’t want to eat their left overs if it’s something you hate!

12. Don’t spend hours slaving in the kitchen cooking… chances are they won’t appreciate it and would just as happily eat something as nutritious that took minutes to rustle up!

13. Basically be prepared to spend longer cooking and cleaning up, than the time your little one spends eating your delicious food!

14. On that note – some days more food will end up on the floor than in their mouths, try not to get stressed or worried about it!

15. Once you’re on the weaning journey, you have another weapon in your armoury if baby is grouchy – try giving them a snack, any snack!

16. You’re supposed to offer baby water with every meal. A lot of BLWers rave about the doidy cup but I just find most water gets split this way! We love the Tommee tippee beakers* – both of ours love the free-flow and the ‘360’ – basically just try a few different types and let baby tell you which they prefer! 
17. Don’t forget to take food with you when you’re out and about – Ella’s kitchen/Aldi pouches come in handy, if you’re gonna take finger food make sure it’s not messy (think organix crisps not blueberries!)

18. Each to their own but I always think it’s polite to pick up food mess from the floor in cafes etc. (Or at least make an effort to!)

19. A handy product for out-and-about (and home) is the Bibetta placemat* – portable and washable, with a pocket to catch food – very useful!

20. When you’re out-and-about a lot of places have high chairs more suited to toddlers than babies – get around this by wedging baby in with blankets, coats etc!!

21. Again, that Bibetta placemat comes in handy for those types of high chairs that don’t have a tray attached – you can just hook it on the table – hygienic as well as handy.

22. And finally, be prepared to become a poo inspector (please don’t say it’s just me!!?) you will see (and smell!) a wide variety of textures and colours – it’s fascinating!!! 

That’s all I can think of for now, do you have any tips you can share? Pop them in the comments below!

*means I was sent these products to try out and share with 

Can you feed your family for a day for £2 per head? It costs £2 to feed and educate a child in Zambia per day. Voucherbox are donating £50 to Zamcog to feed children in a school in Zambia, for every blog post published as part of their £2 challenge (before end of Feb 2017)

It got me thinking about how much we spend and how much some of our meals cost. Here’s a family favourite that comes in under budget…. cheesy pasta bake with bacon, broccoli and cauliflower!

Continue reading “Cheesy pasta bake with bacon, broccoli and cauliflower – feeding a family for £2 per head”

I’m a huge fan of Tommee Tippee – we use their bottles, perfect prep machine and steriliser, so I was VERY excited when they sent me a steamer blender to try out – and perfect timing as we’re about a month in to our weaning journey.

It looks cute, compact and fits into a modern kitchen! The instructions are easy to follow, it’s VERY easy to use. Continue reading “REVIEW: Tommee Tippee Steamer Blender “

So you’ll know from our first update that we were taking things relatively slowly, I was happy to just try one meal a day for a while – we were also loosely following the #5stepweaningplan and working up to the final 2 steps of meat/alternative and then 3 meals a day.

But a week ago today, I took baby W to get weighed for the first time in about 6 weeks. At 6 and a half months, he weighed 16lb 3oz – all good but he had slipped every so slightly under the 25th percentile for the first time.

Nothing to worry about, but the health visitor suggested ramping up to 3 meals a day, and giving him some protein (meat/fish/egg) to make sure he didn’t slip down the growth chart any further. She was really happy with our initial approach to baby-led weaning but just wanted him to start actually consuming a bit more of the food instead of just nibbling on it 🙂

So, for a week now we’ve been having 3 meals a day – still very much finger-food led, but I have been spoon-feeding him a bit, when spoon-feeding him I try to guide the spoon towards his mouth and let him guide it in so that he still feels like he’s in control 🙂

So here’s some of the foods he’s had:

Finger foods

• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Banana
• Cucumber (he loves this – so easy to eat!)
• Rice cakes – his favourite food so far, I started with plain ones and also tried Organix apple ones – he loves both!
• Potato waffles
• Hard-boiled egg
• Plain omelette (SO much less messy than the hard-boiled egg!)
• Pasta – plain, and with some tomato sauce on it
• Avocado – he finds this too slippery to eat so I might just mash it up next time and pop it on a spoon… or on a rice cake?

On a spoon

• Flakes of cod mixed with sweet potato mash, and normal mash
• Yoghurt – I bought Rachel’s diary yoghurt as a) no added sugar b) they’re made in my hometown (Aberystwyth)
• Baby porridge – the only thing he hasn’t really liked so far! We tried it with some puree that Cow&Gate sent us and he definitely preferred it with the puree!
• A jar of lamb/sweet potato puree – due to our baby-led approach, I wasn’t going to bother with purees but seeing as we were sent some, I thought we might as well try it – we tried the meaty one to up his protein intake – and he quite liked it!
• Weetabix – this is our usual breakfast

Our learnings so far

• Now we’re pretty much past the gagging phase, we’re enjoying it! He puts most of the food in his mouth and I can tell by his weekly poo that he’s definitely swallowing more and more – it’s starting to get more solid – gross!!!!
• I think both find finger food more fun – it’s so cute watching him grab something and hold it in his fist while he munches on it – I gave him yoghurt the other day but he still had omelette in his fist which he would NOT let go!
• His favourite thing so far has been Rachel’s banana yoghurt – he was kicking his legs in excitement for this one!
• Our daily routine is out the window as having 3 meals a day probably takes about 2 hours of day in total (prep/eating/cleaning up)
• It’s nice to give him undivided attention for that time – obviously he needs to be supervised while he’s eating so it means proper quality time where I can’t do any chores and I make a point of not checking my phone!

Next steps

• I need to get better at eating with him – although when I do, I’ve finished mine in 2 mins while he obviously takes ages so I’m not sure if it really matters! (well practised from when he was younger and I had to snaffle my food down!)
• Meat! I want to give him meat but it seems so grown-up! Not quite sure if he’s ready for it – might practice with some more textures first??
• Water – I’ve kinda given up giving him the doidy cup with every meal, but every now and then I give him some water using it and ‘directing’ it into his mouth
• I’ll take him to get weighed next Thursday – hopefully he’s back on the curve 🙂

If you have any questions about baby-led weaning, I recently reviewed the ‘baby-led weaning: step by step’ book and will be interviewing the author next week – so leave a question here by Dec 1st if we can help at all!

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