Fairy Non Bio wants to hear your thoughts about feeding and weaning - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

As part of our new partnership with Fairy Non Bio, we’ve produced our first ever Mumsnet Babies Podcast. There are ten episodes in the series and so far we’ve released five. Episode one is about feeding and weaning, and you can listen to it here. Fairy Non Bio would like you to listen to the podcast whenever you can, and then discuss your experiences of weaning and feeding your child.

Feeding your child is one of the joys of parenthood but it can also be an uphill struggle. We imagine ourselves watching our little ones devouring something delicious and home-cooked, into which we’ve poured both love and superfoods - but the reality is usually rather different. Fairy Non Bio would love to hear your stories about feeding and weaning. When did you start weaning? What process did you use and what worked well for you and your child? Do mealtimes often become a battleground or are they mainly about having fun? Is your child a fussy eater? How do you deal with that - do you ignore it and let them eat nothing but yoghurt and toast if they want, or do you try to sneak veggies into their meals? Have you experienced interference from family members, friends etc who have different ideas about feeding children? Whatever your story, please share it with Fairy Non Bio by posting on the thread below.

Everyone who posts below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

If you want to rate the Mumsnet Babies Podcast, please go to the iTunes store and add a review!

Thank you and good luck!

MNHQ

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I started weaning mine quite early as they both had reflux. I used a lot of resources from our garden - plum, apple, blackberry to make combinations to freeze and thawed as needed

I just remember the whole thing as being a messy frustrating nightmare! He was so fussy! Something that went down okay once would be spat out at every other attempt! Most of the food ended up on him rather than in him. He has always been a really picky eater! Ideally I tried lots of variety on lots of occasions, but in the end we settled into a fairly limited but healthy range of food!

I weaned mine at 6 months, trying spoon feeding and blended tastes until she became less fussy

Lots of patience is essential. I actually find mixing sweet and savoury i great. Who'd have thought chicken and swede went so well with pears!!!

I starting weaning around six months this worked well for us, always homemade food, I found freezing extra portions helpful

I weaned around 6 months and our son was a great eater. He progressed to eating what we had but we just pureed it. The trouble came when lumps were introduced. He would not tolerate swallowing them. Even buscuits were chewed and than spat out. It was a very long and stressful process. At no time did he eat the next stage baby food but slowly slowly we managed to introduce new foods which in the end he would swallow...thank goodness for baked beans !!!

First of all I stuck to baby food and then I began blending my own dinners for him and the moved on to giving him pieces of my dinner combined with the puree .

I started weaning at for months, my son was such a hungry baby milk just didn't fill him up so we started giving him very milky baby rice : )

I weaned mine in the days before BLW and both were pretty easy to do. We never went for shop bought but started them with pureed veggies and gradually worked our way up. Now I have 2 ganets!

We did BLW starting at six months. It was great. Our mothers thought we were barking mad for not doing purees and spoonfeeding, but came round when they saw how well our baby took to it.

weaned all 3 at 6 months, started with baby rice and then just mashed up home cooking

I remember that I was terrified when weaning both my kids. 'What if they choke?' ' Can they have this certain food at this age?' etc. It did get better but I was a nervous wreck.

My eldest and youngest are polar opposites with food now. My youngest will eat anything that's put in front of him. My eldest is more fussy and will regularly not finish a meal. We've started doing a 'Superhero' thing now where we'll encourage him to eat a mouthful for Hulk, a mouthful for Batman etc. It's working!

Dont stick to starting at 6 months. Do it when you feel its the right time

It was a breeze weaning my son, he cried the first time he had anything solid.We carried on and he never looked back.We introduced all kinds of foods after this all of which he devoured, funny thing is he won't eat some of the foods he loved when weaning.

I always tried with some rusk a small bit at a time and then some soft cereals and then onto mashed up veg

Try not to get stressed about it. You don't see teenagers that won't eat solid food.

Weaning is incredibly stressful and patience really is a virtue

I had a prem baby (born at 29 weeks) and we were told to wean him at 6 months actual (not corrected) age - so he wasn't totally ready to eat at first and would only tolerate totally smooth purées. As he got a bit older we offered him a mix of finger food (mainly veggies) along with the purées. He's 4 now and a really good eater... So I'll be doing the same mix of purées and actual food with our baby too. We made all the food or sometimes used the Ella's Kitchen organic pouches.

I have one child that is willing to try and eat anything and another that will not even attempt it - he'll throw the plate on the floor if there is just one item on his plate he didn't ask for. They were both brought up the same when it came to weaning. On days when it is just me and him at home we will do some cooking together - didn't start very well - but now and again he will at least try what we have cooked and he may not always like it - but there is hope. I'm sure the day will come when he will have outgrown this and be eating me out of house and home.

Expose them to as many flavours as possible & don't be put off at the wrinkling of their little nose. Any new flavour can seem like the end of the world to them till they get used to it.
I am always shocked at how many parents try to give a baby water once & when they scream, they decide their little angel doesn't like it & start on the juice road. When they have only tasted milk, water is a shock & they will think they hate it, my son was the same, but after a couple of tries he loved it, so much in fact, that he would ONLY drink water until he was 10 years old & mostly it is still his drink of choice

I did it the old fashioned way, started with pureed vegetable and fruit at 5 months, then gradually added finger food, then they fed themselves "slop" with a spoon or eat solid food with hands whilst I occasionally spooned in an extra spoon, to speed it up a bit.

I had 1 fussy eater, he was a reflux baby who had trouble with certain lumpy textures (porridge or mash). We did not put pressure on him, but kept offering lost of foods which always included 1 or 2 "safe" items. he ate a lot of banana and plain pasta aged 2, but has since branched out and now eats anything.

IMO, putting on any kind of pressure on kids about food is completely counter productive.

Fairy: Is there a magic solution for removing banana stains from clothes? that has always been the hardest stain to remove, especially once it starts to discolour (and goes grey).

Like with most things when it comes to raising children - ignore most of the advice! Obviously don't be reckless and try and wean tham after a month! However, through the ages the weaning recommendation ages have changed. I weaned my daughter slightly earlier than recommended but at the same time I was weaned. This was because she was still crying with hunger after a feed and salivated when we ate. I added a touch of baby rice to her milk initially and then tentatively moved to solids. It was the right time for her.

We stared weaning at about 6 months and made our own pureed veg to feed our son

Weaning is a challenge. No doubt. But you have to stick with it

Both weaned around 6 months. Dc1 was all exactly the way Annabel Karmel told me to, DC2 just helped herself to food from my plate and so figured she was ready and as I was already cooking without salt & chilli for dc1, just gave her bits to play with and she basically was BLWed.