Weaning Fear

The time has come. My daughter Neve has just turned 6 months old, and we are starting our weaning journey. I am terrified. Ridiculous right?

I am terrified because I officially suck at weaning. We had such a difficult time with Erin, that rather than being excited about introducing Neve to a new world of flavours and textures, I am absolutely dreading it!

Here is a summary of my challenges first time around.

1. Erin never showed any real desire to eat. The health visitors kept telling me I would know when she was ready, but we didn’t get any of the obvious signs people talk about. No real interest in us eating, no leaning towards our plates, and no salivating at the sight of food. Nothing. We started at 6 months, but she was very nonchalant about the process.
2. Erin never opened her mouth. I recently shared a YouTube video that had gone pretty viral of a baby who clearly loved her food, popping her mouth wide open as soon as the spoon came into sight. With Erin, we had quite the opposite, in that feeding her more often than not resembled a bad plastering job. Picture the spoon as a trowel and Erins mouth as a small gap in a wall, and you will have the mental image down to a tee. The majority of the food was pasted over and around her mouth, with very little actually being consumed.
3. She hated lumps! Erin had a really strong gag reflex. For someone who has emetophobia (an irrational fear of vomit!) this was really hard for me to watch. I avoided baby led weaning for this reason, but this time feel that I need to try a combination of both.
4. I spent HOURS making home made food, steaming, pulverising and puree’ing our meals, only for them to be completely rejected. I gave her a ready made pouch – and she loved it. I was left feeling deflated and slightly cheated.
5. We then got stuck on pouches. Not only did this cost us an absolute fortune, but also meant that she was probably having a higher sugar content than I would like. When meeting up with friends I would watch with insane jealousy as their babies tucked into everything from our local carvery including the meat, whilst my daughter would spit out the majority of her ready made spaghetti bolognaise. I felt like a total failure.
6. We now have the world’s pickiest eater, who will not eat anything unless it is brown. She is getting better, but it is a pretty poor range of food that she consumes. Having had mainly puree’d food, she never really learnt about foods real colour and texture. Something I should have done better. She now eats very few vegetables (sweetcorn, peas and carrots) and only one real fruit (apple). She is missing out on a world of flavours, and I feel that this is my fault. That said, I was also a terrible eater (sorry Mum!) and so maybe this is my punishment for being so horrible to my mother first time around!

So this time, we are doing things a little differently. I am hoping to do a combination of baby led and traditional weaning, introducing Neve to both spoon feeding and the texture and visual reality of food. So far she has had carrot, broccoli and porridge, and we are trying to introduce something different every day. Her face has been pretty concerned so far, and I can’t say she appears to have enjoyed any of it yet, but we are taking one day at a time!

I am hopeful that Erin will also learn a thing or two from her sister, and be tempted to try a few new foods herself. Another reward chart may have to make an appearance! 🙂

Watch this space! 🙂

Lucy