Feeding Isabella: Books on weaning your baby

The very first meal

Isabella had her first taste of solids (or semi-solids) the day before she turned 5 months. If I had to do it over I think I would wait until she's 6 months. Eating has made no difference yet on her sleep.* She's only now after two months starting to eat proper bigger portions. While I feel there's probably nothing wrong with starting earlier even, the health visitor was absolutely right in the end telling me it's not going to make a difference with the small amounts of fruit and veg only she was eating until recently. And also once I started I felt I couldn't go back and skip a solid meal during the day in case she's now used to it and expecting it so I had to keep it up. (Such a worrier when it comes to her!) I sometimes struggled fitting her meals in between bottles and naps. I felt like it didn't leave us much time for anything else, but it's getting better now.

She loves feeding herself and of course
dropping spoons to the floor...

Anyway, I was going to explain the way we feed her, or the way I do actually. Andre doesn't like mess and he doesn't like touching and definitely not tasting her food!

I really liked the idea of baby-led weaning as explained in this book:

The good points behind this method is that the baby learns to feed herself, she eats whatever you're eating and you don't have to sit and feed her so can enjoy your own meal. Or that is the idea. It creates quite a mess and you do end up having to pick up food off her lap, chair and the floor to hand back to her if it's still safe to eat, but you can manage a few bites yourself in between! It's also very good for hand-eye/ mouth co-ordination and fine-motor skills as they learn to pick up food of different sizes and textures, learning how to handle slippery bananas and small peas and how to eventually get it out their fists and into their mouths. But they don't end up eating very much at all in the beginning.

Crunchy carrot relief for teething!

We both had couscous salad for lunch.
Experiencing new textures.

We decided to do a bit of both, combining purees with finger foods. So I usually try to give Isabella something to feed herself, like half a banana, tomato wedges which she really likes, carrot sticks, cheese, or other fruit or veg slices, bread fingers with butter or cream cheese or anything else I can find in the fridge which she can hold.

toast fingers with soft cheese

Scrambled egg and toast on a Saturday morning.

She has recently discovered that she can bite bits off and she doesn't like the feeling of a chunk of food in her mouth at all! Her tongue is learning what to do with it so it's good for her, but she's now a bit wary of feeding herself sometimes.

She helped herself to the crust while she was
sitting on the kitchen counter!

Burgers and chips! (oven baked of course)

Her absolute favourite is yoghurt and fruit puree. Or just fruit puree on it's own. It's like chocolate to her I think! You'd think she's had enough to eat, but she's always got space for 'pudding'!

Sometimes eating with a spoon just takes too
long so she takes matters in her own hands and
decides to drink her yoghurt!

A slice of mango after yoghurt and berry puree.

Our next step is to get her used to having her purees more chunky and not as smooth as she likes them at the moment.

Feeding herself Weetabix for breakfast.

*Update: (I started writing this more than a week ago!) After advise from our health visitor we have now reduced her bottles down to only 3 milk feeds a day and she is now eating more solids. She wolfs down her purees and has a late morning and late afternoon snack, although it's usually just finger foods and not much of that makes it to her tummy yet, compared to when I feed her. AND... she's slept through the night for the past three nights!! Yay! Even slept until 7 this morning (usually she wakes around 6). I love giving her a bottle and will miss it when she stops having them, but it does make life easier having less bottles a day to fit in with her meals and naps and also less to wash and carry around when we're out. 

Little miss Independent wants to do it all
herself already. Giving her one spoon to hold
is not enough, she wants both!

Other books I've found helpful:

Super Baby Food which is a really, really complete guide. It will tell you everything. How to cook an egg (I looked it up the other day to be sure I had it cooked through for Isabella!) to how to safely freeze baby food and loads of ideas on everything. It also covers hygiene in the kitchen, how to choose the best fruit and veg when shopping, how best to store food, has a section on nutrition and then of course the super baby porridge which I will try and give a go soon as I'm getting bored with the store bought baby cereals. I actually need to read this book again. You can't remember half of it there's so much information!

Feeding Sense which is part of the South African Baby Sense series. This book is much more simplified compared to the one above, but was also very helpful as you can feel quite overwhelmed by all the new information on feeding your baby and this one just tells you straight what, when and how much. I still refer back to this one from time to time too.

Tasting lemon for the first time at our Baby
Sensory class.

I also had a look at the Baby-Led Weaning Cookbook which has some nice simple recipes for the whole family but liked the River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook even more. I just borrowed them from the library, but we seem to end up cooking more without recipe books most nights.

And we have water after every meal or snack.
Here she's got her puppy water cup. The lid is
the puppy's head.  -From Ikea

Eating is just so much fun!!