Five things I have learned about baby weaning

My experience of weaning the Girl four years ago was a NIGHTMARE. After starting her on solids too early because I was so keen to start, then stopping and starting again when she was six months old, things did not improve much the second time around.  She gained very little weight, was fussy and often unhappy, and I quickly grew despondent and defeated, and hated pretty much every mealtime. In contrast, weaning the Boy has been an ABSOLUTE DREAM: he devours anything I give him, a whole 2 oz of puree at each meal (I was actually worried I was overfeeding him at first, since the books say that babies should only take about 1 oz at the beginning), and if anything, I can shovel food into his mouth fast enough for his liking! Of course, you could tell me that this is the typical difference between a girl and a boy, and my kids do seem to fit the stereotype. The Girl has always been dainty and diddy, on the 25th centile of development, and she has always worn clothes for a younger age than her own because she is so skinny; in contrast, the Boy is chubby, chunky, sturdy, and he has been on the 75th centile since birth. However, I am sure that there is more to it than just stereotypes, particularly when it comes to something so delicate and complex as the weaning process… Here is what I have learned: 

1. Timing matters: I started weaning the Girl TOO EARLY, because I was so keen to start, and I didn’t take into account the fact that she wasn’t ready. With the Boy, I started earlier than advised, and in fact, somewhat later than he would have liked: I could tell for weeks that he was ready, as he had been looking longingly at our food and trying to grab it from our hands. Clearly, the lesson here is that you must heed the child’s needs, not whatever textbooks or your own eagerness say.
2. Be prepared, but don’t overdo it: With the Girl, I remember preparing dozens of little 1 oz pots of puree and storing them in the freezer in advance of the Big Day, again following the text book blindly and without thinking about how she would take to the food (and, in fact, it took her a long time to learn to eat my fruit and vegetables, and although she eats lots of vegetables now, she is still skeptical about food she doesn’t know). With the boy, I have been following a rough schedule, but mostly going with the flow, preparing food as we go, and storing 1 or 2 portions in the fridge and, if there is any surplus, storing a couple more portions in the freezer. The only rule I have followed is to introduce four new foods each week, and to feed them to him for two or three consecutive days, just to make sure that he is okay with them. Consequently, he has been eating healthier and fresher food, my freezer is not stacked high with tiny little pots, and food has not been going to waste.
3. Invest in the right equipment: I cannot honestly remember what I used to make the Girl’s purees – I think it must have been our mini-chopper or our handheld blender, neither of which would have been very easy to use for this purpose. I do remember, though, that the whole endeavour was time consuming and stressful. In contrast, with the Boy I have the NutriBullet Baby, which is designed for little ones and makes the smoothest purees in no time at all. The preparation stage has clearly become much more straightforward and quicker. (This is not a product placement, I am not being paid by NutriBullet, by the way: I happened to buy the NutriBullet Baby, but any blender which is made especially for babies will do; the point is, it is worth getting something geared towards your particular needs, otherwise you risk unnecessary hassle, at least in my experience).
4. Meals should be special family times: Don’t see the baby’s mealtimes as chores that you have to sit through; it is much more productive to eat alongside them, modelling good eating habits and turning mealtimes into moments that incorporate the whole family. I most often fed the Girl on her own, because I preferred (and often still do) to eat dinner with my husband. However, for her, this must have seemed just an unwelcome interruption of her playtimes, and she didn’t take kindly to it. It was only very recently that I realised, and only because my husband pointed it out, that the first time that the Girl ate well was a few weeks after starting solids, when we all went on a family holiday abroad. I had taken baby pouches for her, because there was no way I could have prepared fresh food for her: and, because she ate them so well, I immediately put the success down to the pouches rather than the fact that we were eating all our meals at table together (I even took offence at the fact that she rejected my food over the shop-bough pouches – Seriously?!? There is no way a seven-month old would have the understanding to be so deliberately rude, and her grown-up mother should have known better!)  It is much more likely that the Girl ate so well because we were eating our meals together, because we were setting her an example and this made the whole experience fun it itself. And this observation is borne out by my current experience with the Boy. We all have breakfast together, and I tend to eat my lunches with him, and he has always been a part of our mealtimes since he was a newborn. I am sure that this is one of the key reasons why the whole process has gone so smoothly, so far.
5. (Finally, and most importantly…) It is all about YOUR attitude: When I started weaning the Girl, I was overly excited and I allowed myself to get deflated too quickly: I invested so much emotion into the process that we were bound to fail. This time around, I feel a lot wiser (there is something to be said about getting older, after all…), and I feel much more relaxed and level-headed. I am keen to cook the Boy fresh food as much as I can, but I’m taking it one day at a time. I won’t force him to eat it, and I won’t take offence if he happens not to like it. Looking back on my notes, I tried to feed the Girl a wide variety of foods and added herbs and spices to them as some recipe books suggested (basil, savoury, dill, cinnamon, you name it, I would add it to the pan). All of this, without waiting to see whether she actually liked the stuff, and without giving her the chance to get used to it first. I am sure I ended up overwhelming her. With the Boy, I have taken it reasonably slowly, given him only one or two things at a time, mixed new foods in with things he had already accepted, and I intend to continue in this manner. In a very interesting recent article, Tim Lott stresses that there is absolutely no need to force your children to eat things they don’t want when they aren’t ready for them (even if this is just something as basic as peas!) – all it will lead to is aggravation and stress for the parents, and they are most likely to turn out fine adults who eat a good variety of foods anyway. In fact, as taste psychology research shows, it can often take a long time to learn to like new foods, and it can require a perseverance that only adults can be capable of, so it is entirely unfair to expect too much too soon of little children. There are still many things he is yet to experience (after all, he has only been eating solids for 3 weeks), but I am determined to proceed with caution, love and patience, and to allow both him and myself to enjoy the entire experience. After all, I am sure that the end result will be the same (the Girl is a great eater now, thanks to a great extent to her nursery and school and social eating, and given how weaning first started, I would never have dreamed that, by the age of four, her favourite food would be broccoli) – but there is no reason why the road to it has to be so stressful and so arduous.