The W word.. Weaning

Another cause of judgement in Motherhood; when to wean your baby onto solids and the best way to do it. Some people swear by Ella’s Kitchen ready-made purees and others believe that you should be making everything from scratch. I was happy to use the jars and pouches but Little A turns his nose up. I have tried cooking stuff for him and he turns his nose up. Lots of people feel that it’s their place to tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing. Everyone’s weaning journey is different just as everyone’s baby is different.

I assumed that the transition from milk to solids would be a relatively straightforward one. I had no idea how much patience and time it would take.

This is definitely an area where I believe my PND has affected Little A. I wanted to start trying him on basic fruit and veg purees when he was around 5 months old; I’d heard that you’d get a child who eats everything if you do this. Unfortunately for me, this was early February when I was in the midst of my depression. I felt as if I was drifting from day to day; barely able to keep myself together. How on earth could I focus on weaning?? So aside from the odd bit of puree, we didn’t officially start anything until mid-March once Little A was 6 months old.

I started with breakfast; as they say it’s the most important meal of the day. I bought some of the Aptamil Creamed Banana porridge and a pack of no added sugar Petit Filous yoghurts and off we went. From day one, Little A gulped down the porridge; I was barely able to top up the spoon quick enough before he was already sat there mouth open ready for the next spoonful. It took a while to get used to the yoghurt, I guess it’s a slightly different consistency but now he loves it as much as the porridge. I was so pleased that we’d got breakfast sorted. Maybe this weaning stuff wasn’t going to be that difficult after all. I was very wrong.

I liked the idea of Baby Led Weaning. Mr N’s Cousin had huge successes with her little boy and he likes everything. I remember her telling us about it long before we had even got pregnant and I knew that it was something I would like to try with my own baby. Both me and Mr N are fussy eaters; Mr N more so and I didn’t want Little A to be the same.

I started buying all sorts of different fruits and veg to put out on his tray; I loved watching him attempt to pick up the bits of food. Playing with them between his fingers. Once he’s done with something though he throws it on the floor and loses interest very quickly. We even started getting him involved with us at dinner time; giving him bits of what we were having which seemed to go down ok.

The biggest issue for us is that whilst he is happy to pick up the finger sized food on his tray, any food that he happens to bite off he’s not interested in swallowing. He’s the same with jars or pouches of everyday pureed meals; sometimes he’ll eat some of the 4-6 month purees but other times he clamps his mouth shut and refuses to eat anything. It seems that the only food he is truly happy with is his porridge and yoghurt at breakfast time.

I have to admit, I find the whole idea of weaning particularly stressful. I don’t know if I would have felt the same if I wasn’t battling Postnatal Depression or if it’s that that exacerbates it but it is soul destroying when I try to feed him something for him to pull a face and spit it out everywhere. I want to give up but I know I have to persevere.

This is all made ten times harder by the fact that all the other babies his age seem to be loving their food; Little A’s baby friend who is only 6 days older is consuming 3 meals a day plus his bottles. It’s another topic made more difficult by Social Media… seeing Mums and their babies enjoying food together and pretty pictures of the home made food devoured by their little ones.

Mr N is really supportive and tells me to keep persevering even when I want to pull my hair out and cry after another failed attempt at Little A eating something but it’s hard. It’ll get easier I’m sure I just wish that for once something could come easy for us.