Sorry, this is very, very, very long!
I have largely followed the advice (the bits I think sounded sensible, ignoring any bits I didn't like) in Rachel Waddilove's Book 'How to Enjoy Year One'(well if it is good enough for Gwyneth ). DS is a fab almost 9 month old now who has always slept well etc. based on her 'routines' so when it came to weaning him at 6 months I saw no reason not to delve back into the book.
RW says 'At this age they can pretty much eat what the rest of the family eat, well mashed, as long as you don't add any salt to your cooking'. Fine, sounds like a sensible interpretation of current advice to me and because I feel we eat a pretty good, normal varied diet I figured this is the best route for us - but looking through some threads to find out some ideas for restaurant feeding him when we go on holiday next month (because of adding salt, actually) I have been reduced to a quivering wreck by some of the posts!
No, I never ADD salt to my cooking but, I use tinned tomatoes in our food, DS eats bread and I have even been known to use the odd stock cube where required. (We have recently moved to Germany and they don't seem to be into 'low salt' anything, but I have remained calm and rationalised that the amount of salt in toms etc. must be OK. He loves eating weetabix for breakfast and sucking cheesespread off of fingers of toast sometimes for lunch. He eats what we ate the night before 5 days out of seven (so far the only thing he has poo pooed is avocado) and the rest of the time he gets something virtuous from AK's book or something more 'nursery tea' biased from my head (cheese spread on toast, well cooked scrambled egg etc.). Am I being a terrible mum with this salt thing or are some people just choosing to take things to the 'nth' degree (which is fine, no criticism intended). I am seriously twitched as I would never do anything to harm my DS (obviously) and have always prided myself on knowing what's what but now I feel quite ill with worry!
While I am at it - I may as well also confess that while he adores eating plenty of fruit etc. he has also partaken of the odd 'naughty sweet treat' such as (gulp) a spoonful or two of ice cream and (big deep breath for courage) also had a teeney weeney bit of chocolate from our chocolate fountain on a piece of banana the other day when we had friends over for lunch. He also eats the odd children's yoghurt (battening down hatches now). All these things I thought were fine, in moderation, until today.
I thought I was just trying to rear a child who enjoys all kinds of food and has a healthy attitude to it - not make him obese or poison him with salt and just need some well rounded advice, guidance or reassurance.