30 Best Weaning Tips Learnt Over Thirty Years of Weaning by Annabel Karmel

Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. It’s about choosing the method that works for you, your baby and your family. You just need to feel comfortable with the route you are taking, and of course that baby is enjoying it too.

There really is no right or wrong when it comes to weaning methods. Lots of parents choose either spoon-led weaning or baby-led in isolation because that works for them. However, combining both purees and soft finger foods at around six months is an option many parents find most realistic to adopt.

Focus on introducing a variety of different foods in different ways and take a lead from your baby.

Make sure baby gets to be a part of family mealtimes as they soak up so much from their social surroundings and from watching you or a member of the family eating a range of healthy foods.

Perhaps eat breakfast together or adapt your weekend routine to eat a little earlier with your baby. Serve them a portion of your family meal, even if it’s deconstructed, chopped-up or mashed.

All babies will have their own way of displaying readiness to wean, with the first one being sitting up independently. They will need to be able to stay in a sitting position comfortably without grown-up intervention.

Can they grasp objects, like teethers, and put them into their mouth all by themselves? This hand-to-eye coordination is an important developmental milestone.

See if your baby is showing signs of having lost their tongue-thrust reflex. In simple terms, is your baby able to swallow food? Those that aren’t yet ready will push their food back out.

Night waking and wanting extra milk feeds aren’t always signs of baby being ready to wean. All babies, no matter how old they are, can wake for all sorts of reasons, just like adults do. And learning new skills requires additional energy, so your baby is likely to show signs of being more hungry than usual. But this may just mean that they need more fuel in the form of milk.

In their first year, babies triple their birth weight. They grow more rapidly in their first year than at any other time in their life. And obviously, to grow that much, they’ll need a stack of nutrients!

For your baby’s first year, when introducing complementary foods, their usual milk still provides the mainstay of nutrition.

A baby’s iron reserve will be running low at around six months, so this is the ideal time to start introducing iron-rich foods into your baby’s diet. Babies absorb iron from meat more easily than iron from any other food source, and the darker the flesh of the meat, the higher the iron content.

There are plenty of non-meat sources of iron such as egg yolks, wholegrain foods, lentils, dark leafy veggies, apricots and fortified breakfast cereals. Pairing these primarily plant-based sources of iron with Vitamin C will aid iron absorption.

Essential fatty acids are super important for babies, and must come from food. You’ll find them in abundance in oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and sardines, and ideally you should include a serving of oily fish in your baby’s diet twice a week.

Wholegrain bread, pasta and rice is a fantastic source of fibre, but too much can be a little bit bulky and too filling for babies. It can even inhibit their appetite and also reduce the absorption of key nutrients, so it’s best to alternate between the two.

Babies should get up to 50 % of their calories from the start of weaning from ‘good fats’ such as egg yolks, avocado, nuts (ground or as nut butter), cheese (made with pasteurised milk), full fat yoghurt, unsalted butter, lean meat and poultry.

Did you know that your baby is born with 300 bones? Vitamin D is needed for normal growth and development of bones in children, and contributes to their normal immune system function. Between the ages of six months to five years, there are three vitamins the Department of Health currently recommends supplementing – vitamins A, C, and D, irrespective of whether you are taking a vitamin D supplement.

Start with a single vegetable. The reason for this is so that your baby can identify the foods they’re eating. Once they have accepted these single flavours, you can then go on to combine flavours and introduce fruit which I’ll come on to shortly.

With babies only having sweet milk until this point, it’s important to expose them to more bitter and sour tastes at the start of weaning. Try introducing those bitter and sour green veggies in the first few weeks alongside those sweeter root veggies. With repeated exposure, it’s likely they’ll be more receptive to these foods which will set them up for the future.

You’ll want your baby to be fully alert, as getting the hang of weaning will take plenty of concentration on their part, so I would recommend offering them new foods after they’ve had a nap, but not directly before.

We know that babies like routine, so now is the perfect time to set your own! Try to offer new foods at around the same time each day as this will help to establish a feeding routine.

If you’re incorporating spoon-led feeding into your baby’s weaning journey, and your baby starts reaching for the spoon, great! Let them have a go at guiding it to their own mouth. It may get a little messy but it’s good for them to feel the texture of food on their face from a sensory perspective.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try…and try some more”. It can take up to fifteen attempts for your baby to accept certain foods or tastes, so give them plenty of chances to try again.

At six months, you can introduce soft finger foods into your baby’s diet. They are the ideal way to introduce your baby to different textures and handing over the reins to your baby will allow them to work out how to get food to their mouth, break pieces off and chew.

Let’s dispel the myth that babies need teeth to chew. Not true! Your baby’s teeth are sitting under the gums (if they haven’t already started to make an appearance), and their gums are actually very hard and will be able to tackle all kinds of textures.

When it comes to first finger foods, start with pieces that are big enough for your baby to hold in their fist with some sticking out. Fairly long pieces, roughly five to six centimetres in length, stand a better chance of being picked up.

Avoid biscuits and rusks; they lack nutrients, the sugar isn’t good for your baby and you want them to explore all of those power-packed vegetables. I’m talking broccoli, carrots, sweet potato and avocado.

Tackling lumps, bumps and texture is a really important milestone within weaning. Obviously, if you’re including finger foods from the outset, then texture will be on the menu from the very start. But even if you’re spoon feeding, don’t delay in starting to make meals less smooth, and more textured within a few weeks.

I’m not a fan of bland, boring food, and around about the eight month mark is the perfect time to experiment with everyday spices and herbs like garlic, basil, oregano, dill, rosemary and even a mild curry powder.

Typically, babies won’t need the addition of a snack until they reach at least around nine to ten-months. Try to make sure that snack time is made up of two different food groups or two essential nutrients. That could be a healthy fat such as avocado slices on a few fingers of toast, or some full fat yoghurt with berries.