Overwhelmed with weaning

[MidnighSapphire]

Hi everyone, I hope you can offer some advice or support here. I'm a single mama to a nearly 6 month old little boy so you can imagine free time is scarce in this household.

I'm about to start weaning and the first steps seem easy enough with offering single foods like mashed carrot, avocado, banana etc. I'm super overwhelmed at the thought of starting to offer meals though.

In theory it makes sense, offering a small portion of something you've cooked for yourself minus the salt etc, but I've not been eating great since having my little one. I hardly cook an actual meal for myself & when I do it's usually something with lots of spices etc as that's just always been my preference.

I guess my question is, realistically, when should meals start to be offered? What spices etc are safe for babies & what should I leave out? And when do you all find the time to cook? My little one hates to be left playing on his own for long and rarely naps unless it's a contact nap, so the only time I really get to clean or anything is when he's gone to bed. Thanks in advance!

I'm following a book called 'how to wean your baby' by Charlotte Sterling Reed - it has a really easy plan to follow to build up to meals. 10 days of single flavour purees/finger foods, then 10 days of flavour combos, then 10 days of kind of mini meals building up to proper recipes. It gives advice about when to introduce some spices etc.
I'm preparing all the stuff for mine the night before once he's gone to bed as it's just too much hassle steaming veggies and looking after a baby at the same time!

I liked the Charlotte Stirling Read book too. I don’t think mine was eating proper meals for quite a while (9 months or more) but I offered her bits of what we were eating from quite early on. You can start with one ‘meal’ and gradually increase over a few months.

You can steam veg in the microwave quite quickly. Roasting things like sweet potato are fairly minimum effort too eg leave it in the oven for 1 hr then blend or mash and freeze some. Batch cooking can be handy for quick lunches or dinners if you find something they like (for mine it was vege tots and egg muffins).

All spices are fine in theory but it’s recommended to avoid salt, honey and sugar initially. You can always start gradually and take out a portion before you add the chilli or whatever.