This week, we caught up with Lucy from Basking Babies Dulwich, Forest Hill & Sydenham to hear all about her experience with weaning her little one on to solid foods...
Baby-led weaning. Where do I start?
Overwhelmed by info
When my little girl was approaching six months, I was overwhelmed by all the information around weaning, whether it was traditional purées or baby-led.
My first thought was to take a paediatric first aid course to find out more about choking hazards. This put my mind at ease when it came to allowing my little girl to explore and try foods, while knowing the signs to look out for if she needed assistance.
Lots of fun
Baby-led weaning was a fun stage of parenting. Although at the beginning there was more food on the floor than in her mouth, my dog definitely had a fun time cleaning up!
Seeing Delilah’s reactions to certain foods was lovely. She dived straight in and tasted everything I gave her, from broccoli and carrots to aubergine - she loved it.
We began with purées and then when she got to the stage where she wanted to grab everything and no longer wanted me to spoon feed her, we went onto baby-led weaning with cut-up solid foods.
Seeking advice
I found an amazing app called Solid Starts, which has a huge list of foods and information on how to prepare them and serve them to your baby safely.
This helped me a lot and it also had recipes for snacks which you could freeze. Definitely a life saver!
Toddler independence
Weaning is a messy, but incredibly fun stage, watching your little one grow and slowly gain independence and confidence with food is a great experience.
I soon learnt not to get offended when the home-made snacks and meals I made ended up on the floor or were refused. There were times when she then went off her food and would only eat pasta or bread. While I would love to eat just pasta and bread everyday, of course that wouldn’t be especially nutritious for me.
The toddler protest is a real thing! At one point, she was determined not to eat any vegetables, no matter how good I was at concealing them. Speaking to my mum friends, they were all in the same position and we shared ideas on hiding veg in pasta sauces or savoury muffins.
My one top tip would be don’t stress over the process, be guided by your little one. And have fun!
