Sorry if I'm being dumb....

[squirrelnutkins1]

FTM here and feeling very lacking in confidence.

I started weaning almost two weeks ago. I'm following the Ella's Kitchen 'method' of the first two weeks being a different veg a day and it's going well.

The book mentions after 2 weeks to carry on introducing fruit and veg one at a time.

First potentially dumb question:

Currently she's just doing lunch and has had things like sweet potato, parsnips, carrots, peas etc, would a single puréed fruit be ok for lunch?

Second question:

Would you give a fruit flavoured yoghurt pouch for lunch or would that be more of a pudding / breakfast at a later stage?

Third:

When do you introduce a second meal a day?

Sorry in advance for all the questions!

Thanks x

What age is she? If she's around 6 months old then you don't need to be so cautious with weaning and you can introduce items faster and mix them together

We avoided fruit for a meal because we didn't want him to get a sweet tooth. To be honest I found one type of fruit or veg quite arduous and he was eating what we were eating after about a week obviously nothing high in sugar or salt. The one type of veg idea was more necessary when babies were weaned earlier. At 6 months they can handle more. It would become more of an issue to unpick any allergies if you don't feed one type of food at a time but as we don't have any in the family we decided we would cross that bridge if we came to it. 15 months old now and no ill effects.

She's 6.5 months.

Could you be more specific please? It's amazing how I've cooked for myself for well over a decade but when it comes to cooking for and feeding a baby I feel overwhelmed and so worried about it

You’re not being dumb, you’ve been sold a weaning ‘method’ that involves buying into pouches and frankly unnecessary faff.

Look up ‘baby led weaning’. With some exceptions (honey, refined sugar and things which are a choking hazard like whole nuts and whole grapes etc to name a few) your baby can eat what you eat. No need for pouches, purées or all that stress. Literally give her some bits of food and let her crack on!

If she's that age I wouldn't faff about with 1 veg a day forever. If you were making food for yourself then take some out for your dd minus any salt. They can have most things at that age plus finger foods too. Add in another small meal if you want as well

Totally normal to worry about it. We tended to have a fairly "traditional" meal at the start of weaning. Things like pasta, chicken, broccoli and carrots. Separate things that he could try and see what he thought of them.
We then added on breakfast at about 7/8 months? We started with toast and I used that as a way to introduce nuts early with peanut or almond butter.
We discovered a couple of months after that that he's a weetabix fiend and that's now what he has most days.
Once we were happy with the savoury intake we added fruit to lunch as an extra but not instead of his meal.

You need to start introducing finger food now. Unless you have been advised to by a paediatrician or a paediatric dietitian due to a family history of sever allergies or your children already has a sever allergy there is no need and no benefit to give single foods or introduce one feed at a time.

Remember Ella just wants all of your money.

Exactly what @dementedpixie said! It’s so much easier and purées and single tastes are just so unnecessary.

Haha, I'm not just on pouches I'm making stuff myself which I'm happy with and I've got some pouches in just for ease.

What are some good finger foods to start on?

Bits of veg, DS enjoyed tenderstem broccoli, asparagus and green beans. Sticks of cooked carrot went down well too and he loved sooking on bits of toast too. Half of the fun when we first started was when he was just playing with it really, having a taste and feeling all these new weird and wonderful things.

Toast fingers, banana strips, broccoli florets, sweet potato wedges, etc

My ds is 6.5 months old as well and loves his food. He's already on 3 meals a day. I'm doing a mix of puree and finger foods but, if I buy purée, I get the mixed veg or "meal" ones so there's a bit of flavour. As pp said, bar a few exceptions, baby can eat what you eat.

Anything she can pick up herself, so most foods can be made into finger foods.

Cooked veg sticks, pasta, strips of chicken, toast, eggy bread, porridge fingers (Google recipe) banana, broccoli. Anything nice and chunky she can get a grip on.

There is a whole industry around making money from weaning and it's in their interests to make it as complicated as possible.

No need to move to two meals at this stage unless it works for you; give it another few weeks if you're happy with one meal a day.

Agree there's no need to do it one veg at a time. Research shows that it's better to introduce allergens as quickly as possible so within the first few weeks, I'd given DS scrambled egg, toast, peanut butter, yoghurt (and probably other things). I gave them one at a time in case of any allergies and then started to combine them. So he would have avocado mushed on toast or simple omelettes or pasta with a plain sauce. And a porridge. He loved lentils at that age too. I have a picture of him eating his first roast dinner at 6.5 months - mainly just eating some potato and cauliflower cheese.

I fed my dd things like toast cut into fingers with butter, bits of bagel, asparagus, slices of pepper - she loved that with humous, bits of apple, carrot sticks, broccoli florets, banana, bits of chicken - careful there are no bones though. Anything she could hold with her hand really.

Research shows that it's better to introduce allergens as quickly as possible so within the first few weeks, I'd given DS scrambled egg, toast, peanut butter, yoghurt (and probably other things). I gave them one at a time in case of any allergies and then started to combine them.

Oh yes I did this too.

I did purées with one child and baby led with the other.

Baby led is definitely more fun! But try and stick with more veg as opposed to fruit as they definitely cotton on quick that sweet things are nicer 😬

Purée wise I wouldn't worry too much about introducing different things. It's more to stop any allergies being hard to spot etc.

Finger foods DS2 used to like were toast strips, ellas kitchen melty sticks, cheese on toast, tender stem broccoli, any fruits, cucumber sticks, pepper sticks. Anything you can make into a finger shape basically :)

I guess I'm just thinking she's so small she couldn't possibly have such 'adult' meals but seems I'm wrong there.

I appreciate all the advice.

I'll get her on some finger foods the next few days and start mixing some flavours.

Thank you

Good luck and enjoy it- it’s a lovely stage.

She doesn’t have to be having ‘meals’ as such at this age, in fact she’ll probably actually eat (as in swallow) very little to begin with but it’s all about letting her learn how to handle food and explore all the tastes and textures and learn the basics of getting in into her hand, then her hand to her mouth etc. It’s lovely to watch!