Clare @mumsymidwife
👶 Midwife & Blogger
🤰Talking all things pregnancy & parenting
Mum to Isabelle
Lover of coconut mushrooms & cherry bakewells 🍒
As a midwife, my parenting experience ended at the weaning stage – in fact, I didn’t have a clue about going onto solids at all. However, it was nowhere near as bad as I expected. We decided to do puree rather than baby led weaning, which worked well for those 6 months. But as we moved to the family table for meals, it meant we had to tackle the lumps.
As we started solids at 6 months, we decided to use pouches or homemade pureed fruit and vegetables to get started, which she devoured. When we transitioned to the table we started using products like the ones Piccolo offers to get her accustomed to normal food, such as the baby pastas, spaghetti bolognese or risotto, along with breadsticks, fruit and veg sticks or wafers for snacks. This worked really well for us as it meant we could really ease her into it without too much concern for things like choking. We began to introduce more as her teeth started coming through – which wasn’t until she was about 10 or 11 months. Something subconsciously made me think she would be safer with gnashers in her mouth. Yes, I know this isn’t true, after all, you can adopt the baby-led weaning approach of giving them a bit of everything under a watchful eye.
For me, choking was a big fear. As a mum with postnatal depression and severe anxiety, I was terrified that she would take too big a bite of food and it would get stuck in her throat. This did actually happen once, and I had to turn her upside down and give her the “back slaps” they recommend to free the blockage. Thankfully, it worked, but it was definitely one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Ironically, this episode was with semi-pureed food with just small lumps – she inhaled as she laughed, causing it to go into the wrong hole. I know this is a concern for a lot of parents with weaning: you watch your baby with trepidation, as they take every mouthful. And as they transition to “regular” meals, you’ll worry. I would definitely research the sign of choking – there is a lot of info out there on Google etc.
Once we crossed the 12 month, mark we relaxed a little, deciding to give her a bit of what we’re eating to get her used to different tastes; be it a bit of roast dinner or the occasional nibble of oven pizza. When things weren’t suitable, such as if it was a bit spicy or it was just something we knew she wouldn’t eat, we paired our meals with the ones you can purchase in the shop. Making her pasta or using a prepared meal helped tremendously when we were stuck for ideas or didn’t have much time on our hands. We also found her eating meals in nursery etc was great for extending her likes and dislikes.
Looking back on it now, I think I would mix more with the weaning styles as we did struggle getting our daughter to eat certain foods as we worked towards her eating the same stuff as we did, but it all worked out fine in the end. All the effort paid off as now she will demolish a bowl of broccoli and sweetcorn, although her passion is still for the odd chicken nugget! It was a long old journey to get to that point, but it was very rewarding to see her enjoy meals we’d made and thrive on the good stuff she was used to. It is a process that won’t happen overnight and perseverance is key. Mama and Dada – keep going, it will all be worth it in the end.
