How I think I got my children to *mainly* eat well (Baby Food Hints/Tips)

Member Name: azana

Product:	Baby Food Hints/Tips
Date:	20/01/09 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Food is fun

Disadvantages: None

Over the last 5 years of being a parent the advice I have been given from various sources has changed dramatically, and in general the advice on what you should/shouldn't be doing is confusing and daunting.

I hope that I can write something that can help; I must have done something right as I have two fantastic eaters (touch wood), and bar a few puree flinging incidents - them not me - we have mainly found finding out about food fun.

If you are a parent, particularly a first time one you should also check out current WHO advice or check with a Health Visitor if you have a good one.

Firstly, if you are a first time parent try not to be in too much of a hurry to wean. Don't think that your baby chewing their hands means that they are desperate for food, or that them watching you eat is a "sign". Babies chew their hands, and they watch you do everything. Also don't think that it will necessarily make them sleep better - it may not.

You should probably start by checking the current guidlines and it may help to buy some sort of book. I have found the Lorraine Kelly "Baby and Toddler Eating plan" ISBN 0-7535-0869-9 to be very handy. My copy was £5 and is still used to this day, in fact mid writing this I had to pause as my two and a half year old was asking to make cakes, we have the banana muffins in the oven now!

Annabel Karmel has also built an entire career on writing how to feed children, any of her books are helpful - though if you ever read a recipe that says to peel a grape then tell yourself that life is too short and move on to something else!

Some of these books may have outdated advice in that previously parents were told to wean at four months - there is a a general consensus that that is too young and can cause harm for the development of the gut.

Milk, whether formula or breast should be the main food for a baby up to a year. I have read some reviews in here - one particularly was downright dangerous about how their baby "needed" weaning at 10 weeks. This is wrong and also could cause major health problems.

Somewhere between 5-6 months is when you should be thinking about weaning. If you can make it to nearer 6 months then you may not need to worry about buying or making special "baby food" for long.

Now in case anyone is thinking I am the smug mum of good eaters who knits their own muesli let me just say that I try to make food as non-complicated as possible. I am lucky enough to be at home at the moment, but in the past I have worked and hope to again soon.

With my first child I did use the odd jar or two and think if you want to then why not - however some of them seemed to be water and not a lot else. They also smelled rank, apart from the fruit ones. Mainly I would rather not give a child anything to eat that I wouldn't want to eat myself - so I did use some fruit ones, which I have sampled! Jars are pretty expensive though and I have never really used them extensively.

So how do you get started?

You need to invest in - some weaning spoons, a hand blender if not doing baby-led weaning (more of which later), some bibs and something to sit in - if you have a bumbo they are excellent for this purpose and wipe clean to boot. Tesco do a blender for £5.

For some reason in this country we are obsessed by baby rice. I would say for heaven's sake DON'T make this your baby's first taste of food. Have you tried it? It is like wallpaper paste that has curdled! You can use it to bulk out food later if weaning before 6 months but otherwise offer something nicer!

A good place to start is pear puree, as it is easily digestible, and also it is white so it doesn't stain! You can either buy it or if you peel and cut up some pears and boil them in water they will boil down to a mush and you can blend a little and then freeze in icecubes for later if you wish.

I have never bothered sterilising the spoons or bowl as generally by weaning age my children were chewing all kinds of things so it seemed pointless!

You can expect your baby to pull a "what is this?!" face as you gently put a little food in their mouth direction. You should expect them to have just a teeny taste to begin with - remember you are not trying to replace the milk. Feed them to begin with when not ravenous and maybe after a milk feed and if they don't want it don't insist too much.

If you are weaning before six months your baby should not have any gluten at all or protein - so no flour or wheat or protein. If at six months you can quickly progress onto these things.

My best experience of weaning was my second child. I waited til six months and she has pear puree and then we moved onto carrot, apple and other fruit and vegetables. She had puree for a couple of weeks, cauliflower cheese and she loved Lorraine's cheesy lentils!

I soon worked out that she would be just as well off eating our food mashed, and so this is what I did. It seemed in no time she was eating with us - tasty spag bol with wine in it and all!

You must make sure your food is low salt however, I use kallo low salt stock and tend to cook for the whole family. We all eat together and because I had little time with my second child I found she could pretty well shovel in her own food by 9 months, by a year she was competent with a spoon.

There is a school of thought that says you don't need to do puree at all - "baby led weaning" of which there is a review on here. I didn't do this religiously and did puree a little but I think this is an interesting idea - if my child grabbed some broccoli or pasta off our plate at 7 months I did let her explore and eat it.

So I have tried to explain the start of weaning - it may be useful here to briefly list a few things I have learned by my own experience and also as I know many poor eaters. I would never judge anyone - I think some children just ARE picky, however when I see a child that will only eat 5 things more often than not I can see that something has gone wrong. So here is what I have found:

- feed your baby as much as they want - they know when to stop. If they don't want to eat don't insist. I did with my first child only to find a couple of times that she wasn't hungry as she was ill and it all came back up again! If a child of mine doesn't want to eat I take the food away and won't offer anything else bar maybe some boring toast later.

- don't stand over your child and badger them when they are eating. Eat your own food, just expect them to get on with it.

- decide what your standards are on table manners and stick to them, they will eat messily at first, try not to worry.

- offer water during the day little and often

- don't overdo the snacks

- 20/80 is a good rule, over 1 I do think they can have a bit of everything. I enjoy chocolate so why shouldn't they.

- if they want to try something let them! My kids like chorizo, olives and parmesan which are weird foods to some possibly but they like them.

- don't make them finish their plate!

- do check labels - a suprising amount of things have hydorgenated oil in them which is cheap but also not great for developping brains, avoid if you can, along with MSG which is in a number of children's snacks but actually banned in many countries. Without getting obsessive the organix website http://www.organix.com/ is a good source of information.

Overall I would say that my general feeling is that baby food should just be "food". We have got something very wrong in this country where 1 in 3 kids are obese apparently.

We enjoy food immensely in our family and I do hope that that has helped with weaning and setting up healthy habits for the rest of their lives. I hope that some of my experience can help other people too.

Summary: trying to set your baby up with healthy eating habits for life