Feeling totally overwhelmed at the thought of weaning

[donkeyhottie]

I barely feed myself properly so the thought of getting my shit together and be organised enough to provide colourful, varied and nutritious meals for DS is daunting.

6 months in and I'm still getting by mostly on cereal and toast. I just don't have the time, energy or inclination to grocery shop and cook anything decent for me, so how can I do it for DS? I've got a BLW book and it just seems overwhelming. DS is so ready to start trying food but I just don't know where to start. I know it's all about getting him used to different tastes and textures, but it all seems so prep heavy.

Any tips to make it a bit more manageable?? Thank you!

Have you got Tiktok? Sounds silly but there are lots of women on there who share their BLW journey and have plenty of tips and tricks, my favourite is @lozzij and she has videos on the warning signs of choking etc, there is also an amazing blog for Rebecca Wilson she has lots of quick and easy recipes and some amazing books - what mummy makes is probably her most popular!

My DH wants to purée all of DDs food and I thought I wanted to do the same until I stumbled across these cheaters, they are really worth checking out and the videos being literally a minute long it's not as overwhelming as doing extensive research and getting stuck in a BLW minefield!

Also there are Facebook pages which are good etc

They literally eat like, a teaspoon to begin with. You don't need to go all chef on day one. But a carrot, cut it into sticks, boil til soft then give him a stick. Or mash it up if you feel more comfortable that way. Feed him that the first few days, then pick up a potato. Boil it, mash with a bit of formula or breastmilk, and feed him that.

Seriously start small. He'll hardly eat anything, most likely, so don't feel pressure to cook up a feast. It'll end up on the floor ;)

I used to try to pick up a couple of different fruits or veggies a week, and just feed it cut into soft sticks (cooked if necessary, like Carrots, or raw if banana etc), or Mashed up.

Gradually mix things together. He won't care if his lunch plate at 9m old is banana, carrot mash and Greek yoghurt with toast fingers. They live to eat weird stuff. It's why they shove everything in their mouths...

You can do it!

Get a crinkle cutter and just give them crinkle cut bits of avocado , soft fruits, cooked carrots etc. Ellas melty sticks are great. Toast to suck is fine. Mashed up whatever you have (low salt) and jars/pouches are also fine. You don't have to go mad preparing things for the baby. Honestly it's just so unnecessary. And you know, the more effort you put into making something the more likely it is to get through on the floor/ceiling.

Crinkle cutter is for the slimier things so they don't just slip out of their hands

I used jars and pouches. Judging by the wide variety available so do many parents.
Breakfast is easy toast, cereal and some fruit mine both like strawberries and cut up tinned peaches.
Lunch is often the meal when they are most willing to try new things. But mine tend to get some finger food usually cucumber and grapes, small sandwich and half a jar of something.
Dinner some if whatever you are having and some purée to fill upon. The half that was leftover from lunch usually.
I use frozen broccoli and cauliflower as you just cook what you need no prep. I buy frozen chopped onions and peppers. Fish fingers are easy and healthy. You could have jacket potato and putanextra one into mash up. Low sugar baked beans. Scrambled eggs. Toasted cheese sandwiches
I bought easy options for the first year with both of mine. My youngest is nearly 18 months and I’m only just starting to cook again.

Buy pre-made baby food and drop the BLW..

Is what I’d do..

Solid starts is a good website.

That's how I felt
I couldn't even cook at that stage.
I honestly taught myself to cook from when she was a toddler upwards
So really we started on jars they sell in the shop for her
Take the pressure off
Then if you want you can experiment by making something to supplement this and work up from there

So I don’t eat well either but I cook for the baby so what I did at first was I made veggie purées and fruit purées different types, did lots then froze them into cubes then after a couple of weeks I mixed a few together. Once this is all going well I started making things like cottage pie, beef stew, pasta sauces and mixing these with tiny pasta, rice or mashed potato. Again just freeze into portions. If you do two big batches a week, you’ll have 8 meals you can mix and match by the end of the month and keeps for 2-3 months. I offered finger foods like toast, soft fruit and veggies as well.
Lots of people do blw but wasn’t for me,

I did a mixture of purée and BLW but I think the up side of the latter is when you can have the same foods and minimise extra prep. Make yourself something quick but relatively nutritious - scrambled egg on toast, carrot sticks with hummus, even a banana, and let your baby try a bit. The main thing to watch with sharing food is salt (and potential allergens). If you want to do the baby pancakes, muffins etc that lots of BLW books suggest then make a bit batch and freeze most so you don’t have to do it often.

I used pouches and jars - really easy, no mess and a huge range of different flavours and meals and you can work up through the age ranges.

Also soft avocado and cooked sweet potato can be spooned right out of the flesh as starting foods.

You don't have to BLW! Step away from all the social media and books.

We had dietician help with weaning our son and here are the tips she gave.

Start with breakfast. You're always at home and it's an easy meal. Don't try to be fancy. Keep it simple and consistent. Weetabix and blue top milk is fine. Toast if you feel like it. We spread with butter and marmite.

Next do tea as again you're always at home. THERE IS NO SHAME IN USING POUCHES. At this age they eat next to nothing so don't make like harder for yourself. I used Sainsbury's and Ella's kitchen pouches.

Finally introduce lunch - put off feeding outside home as long as possible.

Other than that. Over the next 6 months you'll see them gradually drop milk in favour of food.

As for yourself though, it can't be good for you to not be eating well. Routine can really help you and baby. It will give you time to recharge your batteries during more predictable naps and maybe cook and eat better.

Some people make BLW so unnecessarily complicated and competitive. You don’t need to be making complicated pinwheels and vegetable caterpillars and whatever other shite people put on instagram. For DD I did toast or weetabix for breakfast, “picky” plate for lunch with minimal prep (usually a carb a protein and some fruit and veg- eg crumpet, cheese and cucumber) and then for tea she’d have leftovers of whatever me and DH had the night before (spag bol, cottage pie, mild curry), or if that wasn’t suitable something super simple like pasta or scrambled egg.

I would stay away from any online BLW groups because in my experience they can get really intense. Just do simple foods, avoid salt and cut up any major choking hazards (grapes, cherry tomatoes etc)

Forget the BLW stuff. It suits some people but isn't the only way.

Start with baby porridge, fruit and veg purees and spoon feed. Then once that's going ok start toast fingers and slices of soft cooked fruit and veg, Weetabix, mashed banana, yogurt. Then cheese cubes, scrambled egg and bits like that. You can use the Ella's pouches for evening meal if you aren't a confident cook.

I found actually my cooking improved once I had kids and I've been much more adventurous weaning my second.

Is you lack of interest in feeding yourself a new thing or something you've always lived with? Maybe it's worth speaking to the gp to rule out any underlying health issues or access counselling.
My first needed 3 sit down meals a day almost instantly, my second didn't eat a plateful of savory food until he was about 4, so you might not need to rush into it.

Don't panic! It doesn't have to be that complicated. I was given loads of baby weaning books and I never used any of the recipes from any of them. I also tend to survive on toast etc and ready meals and I'm on my third baby, in my head I'd be much more organised and prepping healthy balanced meals all the time.

It can be a bit of a motivator to eat better yourself :) I've tended to find when my babies are around 6-24 months old we all eat better. Then they get fussy and it all goes chicken nugget shaped, but never mind.

Do you have a partner - do you eat proper meals in the evening or more convenience stuff? It doesn't matter if you don't btw. It does help massively if your partner is on board and willing to pitch in in the kitchen.

Does your baby go down in the evening? It makes a big difference IME if they do, if they don't then you're often too tired and exhausted to eat properly in the evening especially if you eat in shifts with your partner holding the baby some of the time each. So if you can work on putting the baby to bed, it makes your life a lot easier on this front.

This is what I'd do, depending on if you want a fully BLW approach or more of a mixture of things.

Fully BLW:

Eat normally but at your weekly shop, make sure you buy some kind of soft fruit. Banana, plums, pear, whatever. Some plain rice cakes (no need for baby specific ones, just buy unsalted) are useful too.

Also, start to pay attention to one meal a day for yourself, either lunch or dinner. Write down a few ideas for things which are easy and quick to make. Beans or egg on toast, filled pasta, ready made soups, sandwich with some salad veg and biscuits, whatever. For dinners take it in turns with your partner to cook and start out with "proper" meals just at the weekend, and/or once a week each of you cooks a full meal. Don't be afraid to use cheat items. Bird's eye do these amazing frozen veg you steam in a bag in the microwave which taste lovely. Frozen chopped onions and herbs taste just as good as fresh. Instant noodles make a great base for a stir fry. Try making easy swaps so instead of a frozen pizza, get a kit with ready made dough and sauce, add toppings and grated cheese.

When you eat, if your baby seems interested in your food, offer them some. If it's wildly inappropriate, try a rice cake or a piece of fruit instead, but the vast majority of normal foods are perfectly fine for them. You should watch their salt intake, but they eat so little at first that you'll never hit the salt intake limit so don't worry too much about it. Once they start eating a larger quantity of food it's worth calculating the quantity of salt in a quarter of a slice of bread or whatever.

If your baby is not interested in what you are eating or they are asleep, just skip that meal for them. They will at some point start to show an interest in food and not want to skip meals any more, but it is slow going to begin with which gives you chance to ramp up slowly.

If you want to do more of a spoon feeding approach:

I'd recommend starting with one meal at a time. lunch is great to start with as it can be varied but simple. I'd do the same of making a list of quick and easy things to make. Scrambled egg is great for babies, they also like to gum on toast or you can do one fruit or veg at a time. If you have had something for dinner the night before you can save a small amount in a little pot in the fridge for baby's lunch the next day. Mash with a fork and add milk for smoothness if you want to. And jars/pouches are also great for just starting out (always squeeze the pouch into a spoon).

Breakfast is a really easy second meal to add because it can literally be the same every day and it doesn't matter. DS2 loved mashed up hot Weetabix or baby porridge.

You don't need to introduce the third meal for a good few weeks, even a month or two after starting. So again lots of time to get into the mindset and it really is ok once you get started, you'll start to think ooh maybe we can try spaghetti Bolognese or fish and veg or sausage and mash. It starts to be a fun thing rather than scary.

It's common for them to just have tastes at first, so just enjoy the process of letting your baby try food.

Yes, many of the blw Facebook groups are bonkers, it seems to be the same with any FB group unfortunately. They get obsessed with "best practice" and suddenly there are all these complicated rules to follow. It's not meant to be complicated. There was this great MN spin off forum about 13 years ago which was brilliant. Showing my age now but it just was lovely and supportive and brill. A member here called Aitch started it. Her kids must be teenagers now.

Here if you want to have a nose at some simpler times :o

www.babyledweaning.com/author/aitch/

Hi OP. From experience (3 now not so little ones) I would NOT stress it. I pureed everything for DS and stressed a great deal about it. DD2 was easy and ate pretty much anything, DD1 was so very awful with anything on a spoon, that in my frustration, when she was 7 months I lobbed a two slice, cheese and cucumber sandwich at her. She took off from there and I never mashed anything again. She even managed v hard oaty biscuits with no teeth for another 7 months after that. They cope - offer foods with some nutrition (cheerios count, as long as it's not only that!) and they fly. Good luck x

Thank you all so much. You all talk so much sense. I've got some weetabix and porridge in, and some pouches. We're starting with these and going from there.

@Thissucksmonkeynuts I'm not sure if it's a new thing. I've worried before that I can be a bit lazy at looking after myself. I usually do actually enjoy cooking if I have the time to think about it and actually do it. Time is not what I have at the moment!

DH works nights and long hours so we generally eat separately and I feel like I'm on my own pretty much all the time. DS is my first and I'm typically second guessing myself all the time! Thinking about weaning came at a particularly overwhelmed time. I can't say how much this thread has helped me. Thank you all so much

@donkeyhottie - do whatever makes life easiest. I used jars and pouches for DT’s. So easy - tip into dish, few seconds in the microwave and spoon it into them. DT’s had every pouch and jar manufactured. They transferred to ‘normal’ food without an problem when they outgrew the pouches - they now eat everything.

I hated the idea of blw as I didn’t have the time to clear up afterwards.

Slow cooker or instant pot and rice cooker are great if you all need to eat at different times. You can chuck something in the pot and just leave it in there so DH can grab it later when he gets in and microwave.

You can start small with just one meal. Say lunch. simple like a chicken stir fry (use prepared veggies) and just add the soy sauce to your meal. And put babies on a plate with a few bits of the vegies and strips of chicken.

We loved of a lot of convenience food and takeaways when we had DS and did for the first 6 months.

Like others have said, start small.

Buy a couple of bananas and mash one up for him and spoon feed him that, eat the other one yourself.

Don't feel guilty about using jarred baby food.

And have a look at the first foods suggestions in this guide. Lots of them are fairly easy.