Top weaning tips – advice from a real mum on weaning

With thanks to Vicki O’Callaghan at BabyBoo.co.uk

When you start giving your baby solid foods, you’ll need some advice on what works. Read on to get Vicki’s top tips for weaning. Weaning my little girl was the best fun and honestly my favourite part of that first year of baby development. Despite all of my worries about her eczema sensitive skin condition, not to mention the silent reflux, it was one experience we could enjoy together. After all, your baby learns most from seeing what you do, so it’s important to join them for each meal too!

My top weaning tips: 

1. Embrace it, try to relax and just go by your baby’s cues.
2. Don’t mix foods when cooking and storing. If you’re giving your little one sweet potato and carrot then steam them separately, blend them and freeze them separately in your small portion pots or ice cube tray. Then if your little one refuses one food, you can come back to it later. You also have a menu of frozen foods now too that you can mix up with others to increase volume and flavour. 
3. Buy a steamer, it’s a lifesaver in terms of time and effort. It allows you to quickly prepare fresh vegetables and is so much more cost effective and healthy than buying supermarket baby food. 
4. Invest in a good bib. The YummyBoo is just brilliant for keeping clothes clean and little ones comfortable. Since it feels like an extra layer of clothing for your baby, it’s comfort means that she won’t try to pull it off. 
5. Don’t be afraid to give them soft finger foods so that they can start to feed themselves right from the beginning. You should be able to easily mash the finger food between your thumb and forefinger when you first start baby led feeding. After that, ripe raspberries, bananas sliced down the long centre and steamed vegetables or soldiers of toast are good.  
6. Try giving food several times before you decide that they don’t like a particular flavour or texture. Experts say you need to try a food at least ten times before you can safely say they don’t like it. Reintroduce the food again in different forms or times of the day, giving a breal of a few days before trying again. 
7. Give them their feeding spoons to chew on in between meals, it will get them used to the texture of the spoon. It’s also great to help develop some of their fine motor skills. 
8. Be adventurous, just because you don’t like sweetcorn doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it to your little one.
9. Be prepared for the nappies, things will change in that department when you start weaning, especially after banana!
10. Once your little one has mastered a little more texture, then try adapting your own dinners to suit your baby and simply blend or mash their portion. Just remember to use low salt stock cubes when cooking.

  About the YummyBoo bib The YummyBoo has three layers in the body part of the coverall bib. The inner layer next to your baby’s skin is 100% organic cotton, the middle layer is waterproof and the outer layer is cotton rich towelling so it’s easy to wipe off stray food and is of course, machine washable. The cuffs, neck and all trims of the bib near the skin are organic cotton, and the care labels are all cotton too. It has a pocket at the front that you can open or close using popper fastenings, depending on whether you want to collect stray nibbles or cover more of your child’s clothing.  The YummyBoo is priced at £14.00 and is available from BabyBoo.co.uk   Disclaimer: The views and advice given in this article are those of the guest writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Weaning Week or any other organisations represented on this platform