My weaning journey
From anxiety to fun (and back again a few times...) by Katie Griffiths
I wanted to write about our weaning journey because weaning for me has been one of the most incredible and fun parts of raising Megan so far, but at the same time it has also been probably the thing that has stressed me out the most, one way or another. I’m hoping now that some of my anxieties and issues and experiences might reassure other Mums approaching the same stage, and at least let them know that they’re not alone in being worried! So, first off, the big decision… when would she be ready? For me, she was ready when she could sit up unassisted and get objects to her mouth with relative accuracy. This happened about 5 months but we waited until neatly 6 months purely because it was then Christmas time and it was lovely to have my husband at home for her first forays into real food.
The other big choice for me was how to wean her. Deciding how we would approach this felt like one of the biggest parenting decisions I had had to make, until this point I’d been pretty much making it up as I went along but now I felt an actual decision was required. Would I be a baby led weaning Mum or a purée parent? Which method was better for my baby? I got more and more anxious about it and I spent many so hours reading books and the internet and trying to decide which approach to choose. The more I read, the more I felt I had to choose one method and stick to it, and after much worrying, I chose to try baby-led weaning.
Baby-led weaning was brilliant for Megan to start with; she loved absolutely everything she got into her mouth and it was great fun to watch her. However, she seemed very frustrated at times, and I still felt anxious. After some encouragement from my Mum, I tried offering her a spoonful of baby porridge, which she swallowed gleefully and begged for more, her hands waving and her mouth open like a baby bird. Seeing her joy in that first bowl of porridge was magical. After that, I realized that I could do both, I could let her feed herself some of the time, and spoon-feed her for other meals. I’m not sure why it took me so long to realise this! In hindsight, I wish I had taken the NCT Introducing Solids course as perhaps that would have helped me understand that I didn't have to choose just one approach and stick to it, but could instead just do whatever felt right for us.
However, in the end, we muddled our way to an answer that worked for us. I still let Megan put her hands in any mashed or soft food and try to feed herself if she wanted, but more often than not in the early months she did her baby bird thing for those foods whilst happily shoving finger foods into her mouth at other meals. As a general rule, we did a spoon-fed cereal breakfast, a finger food lunch and at mixture at dinner, depending on what we were having. Throughout all of this, I never really made her any separate meals, I just cooked our usual dinners without salt and either mashed hers up to be spoon-fed or let her at it, baby-led weaning style. By the time she was 7 months, we’d fallen into a comfortable routine and I felt we had it sorted.
“In hindsight, I wish I had taken the NCT Introducing Solids course as perhaps that would have helped me understand that I didn't have to choose just one approach and stick to it, , but could instead just do whatever felt right for us“
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