Overwhelmed with Weaning

[HA2023]

Hi all,

I'm hoping for some advice. My DD is 7.5 months, we started off with Ella’s kitchen purées and Farleys rusks. She loved them all. As she is a bit older now we have tried moving onto different foods, and she is not having any of it.

savory foods are a real struggle, we tried porridge, she spat it all back out, we tried scrambled egg, spag Bol (pouch), and other 7m+ pouches and she just does not like them. Fruit ones however she will demolish. She still enjoys her Farleys rusk mixed with formula for breakfast.

I’m a new mum, I don’t have any mum friends and it’s just so overwhelming that I get upset every time it’s meal time. My husband is a chef, so he seasons everything down to the boiling water. So giving DD our food is out of the question. I’m messaged the HV about how I feel and I just got what felt like an automated response. Typical fresh made meals are better, snacks & biscuits are no good, look at NHS website etc.

I feel too anxious for BLW, we tried some cucumber which she enjoyed but as soon as a chunk came off I fished it out worrying. I’ve looked at the NHS website, as nice as the recipes sound it’s just not feasible for us to cook 2 separate meals and the cost would be extortionate. I personally don’t cook, I’m useless at it which is why the pouches and jars work well for us. I just feel like a failure, I don’t know how much to give her as I don’t want to over feed her, I don’t know what schedule I should follow. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you! X

You're definitely not a failure and lots of parents reeled overwhelmed with this new stage.

One thing I would change though is the Ella's Pouches and the rusks. Ella's pouches are made very sweet with apple juice and even the low sugar risks are a third sugar. This is probably why you are now having a problem getting her to try savoury.

So I'd ditch all of the sweet stuff for now. If you do want to try porridge, maybe add a bit of chopped banana for natural sweetness?

If your DH/DP seasons everything. Seasoning is fine but too much salt isn't so try to get him to add salt at the table or after you've served DD?

Spicy food is fine for a baby. If it's too hot, try adding natural yoghurt.

As for the worry about choking, have you thought of attending a baby first aid course?

It's important to know what to do if baby chokes as they can choke on bottles and purées. It's important to remind yourself that choking is rare but you won't remove the risks by not feeding finger foods

Milk is sweet so baby's are automatically more likely to enjoy sweet flavours like fruit rather than savoury ones. The good thing is thst it doesn't take long at this age to change their habits. At 7.5 months your baby will be getting most of their nutrition from their milk anyway, so don't worry about how much they eat/don't eat. Just having them touching, playing with, tasting a little of the new foods will help. Take the pressure off yourself and your little one.try to keep meal times fun so your baby isn't picking up on your stress. Pouches aren't ideal for every meal but not a huge issue if it suits you. The big benefit of cooking yourself is that you can vary the texture. Instead of puree you could boil some carrot then mash it with butter so it's a soft mash. Carrots, sweet potato, parsnip are all sweeter veg so you could try these first.

The things that helped me were all eating together , you and your DO will get used to unsalted food quite easily.
Learning that it takes twenty times or more to learn whether one likes a food stuff and to just keep offering.
It doesn't matter if they don't each much it is all a learning process.
Smooth foods aren't safer than lumpy ones.

Hi all, thank you for your messages! DD didn’t like adult porridge, however I have purchased baby banana porridge for 7m+, mixed with a little fruit purée which after a crying session she will eat for breakfast.

Trying to get DH to not use any salt is a lot more trickier than just asking him, after years of cheffing he is just set in his ways. He knows DD cannot have salt and did make her a leek & potato soup without any (only stock cube). We have eaten carrot and swede mash/purée which she will have a little off and also tried some toast fingers with Philadelphia (this was mostly just sucking on them!).

it’s just so much to take in and I am struggling, without any friends with babies to ask for advice it’s like I’m going at it alone, mum & MIL still go by old practices which is not something that’s recommended anymore. I just want to do right by DD :)

I hated weaning my first child, so you are not alone. I felt so anxious all of the time and found the whole getting into a routine of it and dropping milk feeds so overwhelming, but we did it and we all survived.
With my second, I was a lot more chilled out and was led by the child. We did a mixture of baby led and purees.
I agree with all of the advice posted already. I found the recipes in the Annabel Karmel books very useful and they were very easy to make.
Mashed avocado and banana either from a spoon or spread on toast was a winner for both of mine.
It sounds like you are doing a good job and really want the best for your little one. Keep going - it does get better.

We used jars and pouches to wean DT’s. It was quicker. We worked through the age ranges. Didn’t want the mess of blw. We always offered the savoury first - kept rotating a few before they liked the taste. For every three savoury we introduced one sweet. It takes time but it worked and DT’s grew up liking most foods.