Weaning: Self-Feeding

Weaning is going really well and Holly is trying more adventurous tastes and textures with every day that passes. I don't think her appetite or eagerness to try new foods will ever match her older sister but I'm happy that she is enjoying the weaning process just as much.

We have now moved on to the Mellow Mummy tried and tested combo of baby-led weaning alongside mashed homemade foods. Having spent a week in a hotel with no baby food facilities (or packaged food available to buy), Holly had to get used to finger foods very early on.

At meal times I now serve Holly pretty much the same food as the rest of the family - sometimes without a sauce, or chopped up slightly differently (and often without our last-minute addition of fresh or dried chillis!).

Tommee Tippee sent us a few pieces of tableware from the explora range - many of these are designed for slightly older babies but because Holly is already self-feeding we are getting to try them out already.

Our favourite piece of Tommee Tippee tableware is these Tommee Tippee Easy Scoop Bowls which come in a pack of 4. I find them so versatile and use them for almost every meal - I sometimes use them for Lara too because they are a good size for an afternoon snack. Theoretically you can fasten the bowls to the table or highchair tray with the Tommee Tippee Magic Mat but I haven't had any success with this on any type of surface so I have given up - Holly just pulls the bowl off and makes as much mess as if I hadn't used it at all.

We also like serving Holly's meals in the Tommee Tippee Section Plates which are perfect for us because we can put some of the mashed food in the middle to spoon feed her and also some finger foods at either side to keep her occupied as we eat.

The last thing that I have just started to try with Holly is the Tommee Tippee Snack n Go cup which is designed for holding toddler snacks.  Holly very occasionally has a snack in the afternoon and I think it will be a long time before she totally gets the hang of the cup but the idea is that they can push their little hands through the flexible lid to grab a small crisp or biscuit without being able to tip the entire snack pot up and lose all of the contents.

Sometimes when I watch Holly eating all by herself I can't believe how grown up and independent she is already.

Our Weaning Story - 12 Months On

This time 12 months ago, Lara started her amazing adventure into the world of solid foods. We started weaning Lara at about 18 weeks old, at the point when she would quite gladly have bitten off my hand for the chance to try something other than milk. I thought it would be fun to look back on all of the blog posts that I have written over the past year about our weaning adventure.

Weaning is a very personal thing and if there is one thing I believe, it is that there is no right or wrong way to do it. I know people who have struggled (and still struggle several years on), I know others who opted for ready made purees right up until 1 year old but now have perfectly healthy children who eat a varied diet, and I know some parents who took a strict baby-led-weaning approach with no solids at all until around 8 or 9 months. I also know that the way we weaned Lara has worked incredibly well for us, and one year on, I have a little girl of whom I am proud. She has an appetite for sweet and savoury foods of all types and is never afraid to try something new – sometimes, when sitting in a restaurant with my 17 month old girl devouring a plate full of real, grown-up food, I get an enormous sense of achievement. Weaning can be great fun.

12 months ago, Mr. B. and myself approached weaning onto solid foods with trepidation. All of the government advice tells you over and over again that you shouldn’t introduce solids until 6 months and yet our parents were both egging us on, saying that 4 months was the time to start. Lara was clearly ready for food and already had teeth coming through so we gave it a try. We started with baby porridges ( more than just a refined, bland baby rice) and fruit purees made by yours truly. We found the Annabel Karmel website a great place for finding recipes. We bought some little freezer pots so that I could make batches of baby food and put them in the freezer so that we could rotate meals and ensure that Lara had a good variety of flavours and textures. I used some printed quidelines that I got in my NCT lessons for how much of what type of food I should be offering Lara each day but quickly learned that the pots I had bought were too small and that my quidelines were totally useless! Lara went from the 1-or-2-teaspoons to the enormous-bowlful stage within a fortnight! So, here’s a top tip: don’t bother with tiny freezer pots, just buy bigger ones straight away.

As we approached Christmas last year, Lara was eating three homemade meals a day. Porridge in the morning, fruit mixes for lunch and a savoury meal in the evenings. At this point, I introduced Lara to a beaker of water with her meals. It took her quite a while to get used to the sucking motion but she soon got the hang of it. We also had a play with a few different types of bibs.

When Lara started going to the childminders in the new year, this introduced me to a whole new world of lunchbox food! I was very good and continued making Lara home-made baby food that the childminders would warm up for her. Into the new year, Lara started showing an interest in finger foods. By 8 months old, Lara was eating most of her foods by hand and in general, would refuse anything that I offered her on a spoon – opting to try it herself instead. At this point, we began to take the Baby-Led-Weaning approach more and more. By this I mean that we offered Lara a little bit of everything that we ate ourselves. This approach helps us a lot because it means we don’t have to cook a separate meal for Lara – we all share our family meals. Lara is one of few babies I know who was weaned in quite such an adventurous manner. We have an adventurous repertoire of meals (largely involving curry, I might add) and Lara seems to enjoy them all. We’ve had our wobbles – Lara went through a period of turning her nose up at beef, and then at anything involving tomato. At present, she will start screaming if she just hears the word yoghurt.

Just because we took the BLW approach, doesn’t mean that I DIDN’T offer Lara pre-packaged baby foods. No. As someone who loves to cook, I also enjoy a good takeaway, or a lovely meal out – I use convenience foods for myself, and I also use them for Lara. We did try one or two products from free samples that I wasn’t wowed by. Jars were never my thing, much sloppier and blander than anything I made myself. We did try Organix baby foods which were fine for back-up foods but our favourite were Plum Baby which just seemed most similar to my home-made foods in texture and ingredients. As Lara became more proficient in finger foods, we also discovered a great range of toddler snacks on the market that she still enjoys.



At around 10 months old, I started to offer Lara cutlery for her to learn to use. At 17 months she still hasn’t quite mastered the art but is very proficient with a spoon, and a fork when she chooses to be. One of our best investments has been our Boots crockery sets. We have several of them now! Simple BPA-free bowls and plates which are sturdy and well-shaped to allow Lara to move the food around with her spoon and fork without getting it everywhere. You don’t need anything more fancy than this. We also love our Brother Max bowl as I can fill it full of food, snap the lid on and put it into Lara’s lunchbox.

At 1 year we introduced cow's milk. These days Lara eats the same meals as us. Despite my recent porridge rant, I'm not someone who monitors every single little thing that my child eats. I know that she gets a generally healthy diet made from fresh foods so I'm very relaxed when it comes to offering snacks or treats. I do have one or two rules that I try to stick to when making my own food - no added salt or sugar. I tend to add seasoning to a meal immediately before I serve it these days so that I can make sure Lara has her portion first - this also allows me to add more chilli powder to mummy and daddy's food at the last minute too.

Over the past few weeks and months we have had lots of opportunity to try our different toddler drinking cups and highchairs. Our weaning journey is nearly over. In the coming weeks we hope to move Lara out of the highchair and into a booster seat at our brand new dining room table. Within a couple of months I expect her to have mastered the art of cutlery and then after that… well, who knows? Maybe my job will be done? Or maybe Lara is saving her fussy-eater stage for when she is a bit older!



I’m certain that her adventurous and unlimited diet has contributed to Lara’s social skills. I know that I can take her to friends, family and restaurants and not have to worry about finding something for her to eat. Holidays and travel are so much easier now that I don’t have to take anything special for her to eat and drink. Lara enjoys mealtimes – they are a big part of our day that we love to share with her.

If you would like to learn a little more about weaning, take a look at all of the information available at Boots Parenting Club

Introducing Cutlery to a Toddler

Somebody said something to me the other day that made my eyes open widely,

“If a child is baby-led weaned, how will they ever learn to use a knife and fork?”

Well, let me tell you!

Firstly, I should say that baby-led weaning has worked well for us; I highly recommend it but you also know that I’m not a devout BLW-er, I took the practical approach and spoon-fed when it suited us. Lara has seen me spoon feed her from 4 months old. She knows what a spoon is and what a spoon is for. At 7 months old, Lara first started eating yoghurts unaided. Yes it was messy, but it gave her a level of independence and slowly started exercising her manual dexterity.

Children are clever. They copy you. Even if I had never offered Lara cutlery until now, I’m pretty certain she would know what to do with it. For me and Mr. B it has always been important that Lara sit with us up at the dinner table (err… breakfast bar) and share the social occasions of mealtimes. These past few months she has been learning – watching us and taking it all in. While she has eaten her dinner with her hands she has watched us eat exactly the same food with a knife and fork.



About 4 weeks ago I decided that Lara’s dexterity had developed enough that it was worth trying her with cutlery. Not just a spoon with her yoghurt, but a fork, spoon and knife to use during every meal. At the time, all that we had to fit her little hands was a plastic spoon and fork from MAM. They had been great for us feeding her, but they just weren’t up to the job of self-feeding. The plastic wasn’t strong enough to cope with her frantic stabbing of food, and the handles weren’t long enough to give her a clear grip.

As a first step into the world of toddler cutlery, we tried the Boots own brand cutlery that we got at the Ritz the other day. This spoon and fork set is about as standard as it comes. Flat plastic handles, very little shape to the metal heads but good value at just £2.79. They are functional but Lara never seems that interested in using them and the bowl of the spoon is so shallow that her food tends to fall of it before it reaches her mouth.

Images courtesy of Vital Baby

I have also invested in a set of toddler cutlery by Vital Baby because they looked a bit more like REAL cutlery than anything else similar on the market (most toddler cutlery looks a bit toy-like). The handles have rubbery grips which are easy to hold even when covered in food and they are every so slightly shaped – presumably to aid tiny hands. I like them, I think they’re a good introductory cutlery set. The spoon is scooped but not too deep for Lara to get her lips over and not too shallow that the food falls off. The fork is effective and Lara got the hang of it extremely well. In contrast, the knife is nearly useless. I know it is for safety reasons, and I know it will be a long time until Lara is really capable of using a knife effectively but the Vital baby knife, like almost all other ‘first cutlery’ knives I have seen has a shapless blade and no-cutting ability whatsoever. If Lara tries to use it to cut a sausage – the sausage ends up on the floor.

Image courtesy of Jojo Maman Bebe

So, having established that toddler cutlery is a nice idea, but perhaps a bit too ‘safe’ and shapeless to be effective I wondered whether the best approach would be to just jump straight in and give Lara a real set of cutlery? I was sent a set of Junior Cutlery from Jojo Maman Bebe. It has a more sedate pattern and feels sturdier and immediately more grown up. The result is generally a success. Lara seems to be at her most effective when using the children’s cutlery than any of the others we have tried. The handles are round and don’t seem to present a problem to her other than when she is very sticky! The only problem we had was with the main spoon in the set (there are two), the big spoon is simply too big for Lara’s mouth at present!

I don’t feel like I’ve pushed Lara too hard by giving her a more grown-up cutlery set. I feel like it is what she needed – I’ve given her the tools to do the job properly! Lara is a long way from being self-sufficient with her knife, fork and spoon but she is on her way.

Travel With A 1-Year Old: Foreign Food!

I'm not a fussy eater and when I go on holiday, I am usually more than happy to sample the local fare. Thanks to our approach to weaning, Lara will eat pretty much anything we give her, and at 12 months old, she requires little assistance at meal times. On our recent trip to the USA I was extremely grateful for the baby-led weaning approach but even so, I did struggle at times to find food that was suitable for Lara to eat.

We were staying in a small town in upstate New York, not too far away from civilisation. On one occasion, myself and Mr. B. went out exploring to find food for a light lunch – a picnic of sorts. The only food shop in the town was part of a petrol station. There were aisles and aisles of food, and even a deli counter – it seemed promising at first sight. And it would have been perfect if we fancied a carb-fest. Crisps, Pastries, Crisps, Breads, Nachos and more Crisps. The deli counter turned out to sell (a) sliced ham by the kilo and (b) processed cheese by the kilo – that is all. We quickly moved on.

We managed to find a local pick-your-own farm where we bought copious quantities of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries for Lara to devour (messily). A few miles further down the road we found a supermarket where we planned to stock up on soft drinks, bread, cold meat and cheese. That was easier said than done. The choices were endless. We finally plumped for ham that was marketed as 'without added hormone' and cheese that was marketed as 'deli slices' rather than cheese. With these things we hoped to provide Lara with a healthy, filling lunch.

Eating out wasn't much easier. Most of the places we visited served grease, with chips. Fresh, home-cooked food but always served with chips. Lara ate way too many chips that week. We did find one gorgeous modern restaurant who were happy to accommodate Lara. The menu was totally different to anywhere else we had been, the atmosphere was great but almost everyone else in the establishment was eating... chips.

The most horrific food moment was in a motorway service station on the way back to the city. In the UK, even in the grimmest of service stations, I would expect to be able to find something suitable to feed a toddler – low sugar, low salt and preferably bearing some resemblance to it's raw material be it animal or vegetable. At this service station though, we had the choice of coffee & muffins, bagels & ice cream or Macdonalds. There was NOTHING we could offer Lara. It was a good job that I had a banana stashed away in the changing bag.

On our travels we took with us the Totseat and the Brother Max Travel Weaning Bowl. I couldn't have managed without them.

Baby-Led Weaning - Feeding by Instinct

Until I started writing this article, I had never once read a book, leaflet or a tutorial about 'Baby-led Weaning'. I had heard the buzz-word mentioned online and by my local mummies; I knew roughly what 'BLW' was about but I wasn't about to let anyone 'teach' me how to wean my baby – you know me, I very much like to go with my instincts as a Mummy.

Lara is 9 months old and sometimes people (usually those with older children) raise an eyebrow when they see or hear the things I let her eat. Last week, while enjoying an evening curry with colleagues, we started chatting about whether our children enjoy curry too – I pointed out that lentil dal, or chicken curry with chapatis are some of Lara's favourite meals. I was asked how I puréed the chapatis!!! When I pointed out that I just let Lara eat them whole, it was suggested (admittedly with a sense of humour) that I was a bad mother. Hang on, if we eat curry and chapatis, why can't she?

To me, feeding Lara has always been about letting her fit in with how and what we eat. Mr & Mrs B love food; we love eating (perhaps too much) and we love talking/thinking/socialising about food. We want Lara to enjoy food as much as we do. Since well before we started weaning her, Lara has taken her place at the dinner table each evening to enjoy the social aspect of mealtimes. When I serve food for myself and Mr. B, it doesn't seem to make sense (in terms of time, effort, money and practicalities) to set to and prepare a totally different meal for Lara. At most dinner times, Lara will eat what we eat. In some cases that means that I have to subtly change my normal recipe to cater for Lara's needs. At other times (perhaps if we are having a particularly special meal) I will take time out to make Lara a different meal, or a slightly different take on ours. We follow a few sensible guidelines; no added salt or sugar, no low-calorie fat replacements, no nuts for a few more months, likewise honey, shellfish and some fresh fish. I have also been warned against citrus fruits and kiwi, and reminded to always chop choking hazards (such as cherry tomatoes and grapes) in half lengthways. In general however, we eat our evening meals as a family.

I had never intended taking the BLW approach. It just kinda happened. I was given a guide to weaning in my NCT classes and after 2 weeks I realised that it was clearly written for a baby with a MUCH smaller appetite than mine, and so I decided to go by instinct alone. When I went back to work, Lara was 7 months old and was happily eating finger foods. It was clear to me that if I wanted to have any free time at all in my evenings, I was going to have to ensure that Lara could eat the same meals as us, so that's what we did.

One of the reasons why I had never looked further into the 'theory' of Baby-led Weaning was that I got the feeling it was too prescriptive. BLW is an approach that generally recommends (as do the government) that you don't start to wean until 6 months and, when you do, most BLW resources seem very against the idea of spoon-feeding. Every baby is different. If I had waited until 6 months then I would probably have lost my mind. By 17 weeks Lara was stealing food from me and I was physically exhausted trying to keep up with the milk feeds she was demanding. I started weaning but couldn't offer finger food because she wasn't developed enough to feed herself – I had to spoon-feed her and I still occasionally do. If we eat things that require a spoon, so does she – I just don't let her loose with the spoon yet! The 'no spoon feeding' rule is too rigid for me.

Baby-led weaning, as an instinctive approach rather than a prescriptive one, has worked for us. We did it without guidance, based purely on instinct, both Lara's and mine. It requires great confidence in your baby's ability (you'll be surprised how much they can chomp even before they have teeth) and in your own ability to tell when they are struggling. I don't know Lara's boundaries – she does, and it's up to me to offer her tastes, textures and shapes which challenge her without stressing her out so much that she loses interest.

The ONLY area where we struggle is lunchtimes with the childminders. I always provide a main meal for Lara at lunch but I tend to err on the cautious side with the childminders and I am still providing mashed foods for them every other day. The reason for this is three-fold. Firstly, I don't feel that I should expect them to have to teach my child to eat, to have to worry about her ability to cope with the food I provide, to have to push those boundaries I told you about. Childminders simply don't get paid enough to do that (plus, they usually have other children to look after too so they can't provide the 100% attention that it often requires). Secondly, it is a big ask of Lara to handle two main meals by hand each day. If I know that she has eaten a large, easy lunch, then I don't need to worry so much if she struggles with the food I provide her for dinner. Over the coming weeks I will be providing more challenging foods for the childminders to feed her. Finally, I feel like it part of my adventure with Lara. Learning to explore new foods, to gain new culinary experiences – that's something I don't want to share with the childminders!