Baby Weaning!

Hello,

Hope you are having a lovely productive Monday!

I am back in full mommy mode again after the weekend and it's another busy week ahead.

Just over a week ago, I started my baby girl on solid food and since sharing a bit of it on my Instagram, I got quite a few messages with questions about it. Mums that are new to it all and from mums that done it all before but don't quite remember.

I am by no means an expert in parenting, baby weaning or anything like that, I am winging it like the rest of you and just trying my best. I am doing this for the second time around and all I remember from 3 years ago when I introduced solids to my first daughter was that I absolutely loved this transition.

I am an ok cook, I quite enjoy cooking but what I loved about baby weaning was the challenge it gave me of preparing different types of veg and fruit and later on, proper meals. I love seeing my baby girl loving a certain vegetable or not liking something. It's such an exciting transition and watching her grow and learn to eat and enjoy food is just another wonderful milestone for us both.

My first daughter Aidah is a great eater. She loves food and eats absolutely everything and I put this all down to how I started introducing all good home cooked varied selection of vegetables/fruit and eventually grains and meat.

I always made everything from scratch and even though it sometimes took hours to prepare, it was definitely worth it in the long run.

I don't have anything against parents feeding their own kids with artificial pre-cooked food/puree, everyone to their own, I just knew I personally never wanted to do that.

Now at the age of three, Aidah is healthy and strong and as mentioned above, eats everything and what I love the most is that she loves all good healthy options. I love how she will go for vegetables first as I serve her dinner, she would literally eat a whole broccoli if I let her. Now don't get me wrong, she loves junk food like taytos and chocolate like every other kid and probably would eat that all day long if I let her ;) but my point is that as long as she eats 3 healthy meals a day from the age of starting solids properly, I don't mind her having some treats too as i knew it was no harm either.

With my second daughter Andi, I am trying to do everything exactly the same and hoping that she will be just as good as her big sister. So in this post, I will share everything I am using and what I am starting her on first and what I will do next.

So far on this baby weaning journey, everything is going brilliant and she is loving every bit of it. Andi just turned 5 months last week and I know the recommended age for introducing solids is 6 months but to be honest, I think every baby is different, they grow at different rates and develop at their own pace. I watched all the signs and to be honest, I nearly felt like I couldn't eat in front of her anymore as it felt like she watched every bite I took and it just felt like she was interested in me eating my food than her own milk. That's when I knew that it was time to try her and see how it would go. The first time I gave her a bit of baby porridge mixed with milk, she seemed to really enjoy it, that's when I was 100% set on going ahead with it.

We are now into our second week of baby weaning and she is loving her carrot, sweet potato, baby rice, baby porridge and some fruit puree's too.

I have split her meals into two and she gets her 'lunch' at 1pm and her 'dinner' at 6pm. Her bottles are all still the same.

Andi today trying out broccoli for the first time - and it was another winner! :))

How we started:

Day 1- 4: I gave about a spoonful/ice cube sized portion of plain baby porridge mixed with her milk (formula) at 6pm (In the book that I use, it does not state that you should feed them at this time, this is my own choice. We did it with our first and it worked for us, so we are sticking to our routine rather than following the book step by step)

Day 4-7: I gave her pureed carrot at 1pm and baby porridge at 6pm

Day 8: I gave her pureed sweet potato at 1pm and baby fruit porridge at 6pm

Day 9: I gave her baby rice and pureed apple at 1 pm and baby fruit porridge at 6pm

Day 10: I gave her baby rice and pureed peach at 1pm and baby plain porridge at 6pm

Day 11: I gave her carrot & turnip puree at 1pm and baby fruit porridge at 6 pm

Day 12: I gave her sweet potato at 1pm and baby banana porridge at 6pm

Basically, I will keep going like this just introducing different types of veg & fruit until day 30. Then, I will introduce a third meal of the day so it will mean that she will get 'breakfast' at 10am of fruit puree/baby rice/yogurt, her 'lunch' at 1pm which will include a vegetable puree and her 'dinner' at 6pm will be baby porridge.

The times for her solids are chosen like this because of her routine as she wakes up at 8am and goes to bed at 7.30pm with three naps during the day and four bottles in between. This is to suit her and her day, obviously if your routine is different or your baby wakes earlier, the times would have to be different too.

TIP: The reason on starting her on baby porridge in the evening rather that morning/lunch time like most books suggest is for their tummies to be fuller going to bed and helping them sleep longer/through the night. This actually wasn't the goal with Andi as she was already sleeping through the whole night but this is what we done with our first daughter and we wanted to do everything exactly the same with Andi too. So if your baby is still waking up during the night, this is a great way to start solids and see would filling their tummies with yummy milky porridge help them stretch their waking time till the morning (also most baby rice/ baby porridge suggests mixing it with water but I always mixed it with their milk as it makes it taste nicer).

Items I am using for baby weaning:

Nevin Maguires baby cook book - this book is brilliant, especially later on when your baby is eating proper meals. It has great easy recipes and plenty to choose from. buy here

Clevamama - clevapots for storing/freezing prepared purees/food. I especially love these ones as the lids are attached so you never lose them. They are easy to store in the freezer and don't take up much space. buy here

Kenwood Purée Masher - I got this 3 years ago and find it brilliant for mashing all the girls food. buy here

CookWorks Steamer - this again I got when cooking for my first daughter and now using it again and its simply brilliant. buy here

Freezer bags & Rubber Ice cube tray - these are handy to have if batch cooking of the same food to freeze.

Mummy Cooks reusable pots - I recently got the starter weaning set that contains 50 different size pots. They are handy to have and I know some mums love these, for me, they are ok, I just hate that the lids are loose as trust me, some will go missing and you are left searching everywhere for them, and no mama has time for that ;) buy here

Thanks for reading this post, hope you enjoyed it or found it helpful.

Love E x