Life with the Corbitts: Weaning

The thought of weaning excited me and terrified me. I was looking forward to the fun but not so much the cleaning! After doing my research, I decided to go down the puree route, mainly due to the terror of choking.

The first week didn’t go down well. We started with baby rice and Jackson was disgusted with this and would just push it all out with his tongue. After about 5 days I gave up, I thought, 'he must not be ready' and it was just too much work.

We were on holiday in Greece at the time so a few days later my cousin's boyfriend brought these gorgeous fresh figs from his family farm. I thought I would give Jackson a lick and a play around with it. I chopped and peeled one and gave it to him. Of course it went straight into his mouth just like everything else. He loved it!!!! Again, he wouldn’t eat it but sucked it and he also loved squishing it in his hands. I have to admit that this made for interesting nappies!

This was the start of our baby-led journey. We gave him peach, cucumber, peppers, banana, carrot and pear.

When we arrived back from our holiday, I had Jackson weighed and he had not put on as much weight as I had hoped. So after speaking to a health visitor, I decided to try pureeing the vegetables and fruit, so I went straight home to my kitchen and started cooking. I was a bit nervous of how it would go but this time he ate the whole lot and cried when it was finished.

Due to the fact that I had already started giving Jacks finger food, I thought I would carry on. So far this has worked for me and he is such a good eater. He’s had such a range of foods and tastes, both finger foods and purees. He HAS choked a few times on his food, two times in particular I felt the need to get him out of his high chair and give him a pat (slap) on his back. One of the occasions was today which end up with Jackson being sick over me and my doggies, which did make light of the situation!

Two books that I have personally found really useful are ‘Annabel Karmel’s New Complete Baby & Toddler Meal Planner’ and ‘Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food’

A typical day

7:30 – Bottle 7oz

8:00 – Weetabix with fruit

11:00 – Bottle 7oz

12:00 – Cauliflower cheese with cucumber sticks, crumpet and fruit puree

3:00 – Bottle 7oz

5:00 – Minestrone soup with fish and beans (or anything from our previous nights dinner) and yogurt

6:30 – Bottle 7oz