Baby Weaning Essentials
Weaning has been one of the most fun things we’ve done with Oscar. Watching him explore food, its taste as well as texture, has been a wonderful adventure. I love food, and feel very lucky that so far Oscar hasn’t been a fussy eater at all, in fact, there isn’t much he won’t eat! I am so excited for our taste adventure to continue and for him to keep watching and eventually help out with food preparation as well.
I took a couple of weaning webinars to prepare for this stage – it felt like a total minefield, and I struggled with the fact there are no portion recommendations and lots of other unknowns until you get stuck in. I imagined I would be cooking everything from scratch and following a totally baby led weaning process – but like with all of this motherhood journey it didn’t go as I expected, but that’s okay.
I struggle a lot with the fear of Oscar choking, and even gagging sets my heart racing and I tend to panic. I’ve been lucky that Oscar is more than happy to be fed all his food on a spoon so we’ve stuck to lots of purees and mashed up food for the main portion of his meals whilst he has a few things to try by hand. I felt comfortable with the melty sticks as initial handheld food, and eventually started to over-boil vegetables for him to hold and taste. As his teeth have come through he’s been better at the finger-food, and as long as I’ve had enough sleep I’m more confident too.
There is a wealth of products out there to make mealtimes and weaning fun for you and your baby, so I wanted to share some of the great products we’ve used in the past 5 months.
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SET UP AND SAFETY
Setting up the feeding area is really important for your baby’s safety as well as hygiene (and styling!). And of course there are a plethora of options that you’ll end up researching, but my advice would be to not complicate it or worry too much. The basics work just as well as the fancy things, and here are my recommendations.
The Highchair. We have the basic Ikea Antilop highchair, it’s only £12 brand new, and you can find them easy enough on Facebook marketplace from £5. They are incredibly easy to clean, and I love that you can disassemble it in a few minutes and take it with you if you ever need to. I love the Stokke Tripp Trapp® Highchair as well, although they are other end of the budget at £189 new. They can be adjusted and changed as your baby grows up though so the price per use is well worth the investment if you can.
A Support Cushion. Depending on your highchair you may initially want or need a cushion insert to pad the seating area whilst your baby is smaller. It ensures your baby doesn’t slump or topple from one side to the other and sits with the right amount of support. With the Ikea highchair you can buy the insert cushion for £3 and there are loads of gorgeous covers on Etsy.
A Foot Rest. This was something I’d not thought about before but when I did a weaning webinar I realised that a footrest encourages correct posture and stability, aids concentration and reduces choking risks. I bought the Woodsi Footsi™ foot rest from Nibble and Rest which is an eco-friendly bamboo adjustable highchair footrest made for the Ikea highchair. You can buy canvas style ones as well, in fact if you look up ‘Ikea highchair hacks’ on Pinterest you’ll find loads of different options. With Nibble and Rest you can get 10% off your first order if you sign up to their newsletter too.
A Splash Mat. I’d say this is pretty essential if you don’t want porridge or banana set like concrete on your hard floors, or baby food crushed into your carpets. Getting something that is wipeable (or machine washable) makes cleaning up incredible easy after each meal. I love the Splash Mats from Fred and Noah, because they are also suitable for crafts as well. They are fully waterproof and come in a range of brilliant designs from dinosaurs to flamingos to rainbows and hot air balloons. I’ve bought the leopard print one for my sister who’s about to start weaning her baby, and the sheep one to keep at my parent’s house and the one with bees on for home. You can get 5% off your order (including anything on their website) using my code AMUM&GARDEN.
FOOD PREP
The pre-weaning me would tell you my intention was to cook all meals from scratch with fresh food and flavours, but the reality was I was often far too sleep deprived to achieve this. Sometimes mealtimes were at times where standing in the kitchen for 20mins first just wasn’t viable (with a baby who didn’t want to be put down for long).
We’ve used a lot of sachets and I’m not ashamed of it, we still use them now, they can be a real life saver when Oscar is starving and I’ve not got anything readily available to cook, or enough time to prepare something from scratch. But I’m also getting a little better with batch cooking meals to store in the freezer for Oscar, and I try to remember that something on toast is just as good for the odd lunch here and there as the fancy fritters and muffins the weaning books show you. The things that have really helped me with meal prepping and storing are these:
A Mini Blender. I have a big food processor but didn’t want to keep getting it in and out of the cupboard and it’s not very good with small quantities. So I also have the Kenwood CH180 Mini Chopper Food Processor which is super small and perfect to get out as much as we need it and blend up 2-3 portions of baby food at a time. It’s £19.99 from John Lewis and I’ve already lost count of the number of times we’ve used it.
Baby Freezer Cubes and Trays. If you are going to make more than one portion or batch cook any baby food then these are essential. My favourites are currently £8.59 on Amazon and you get 16 pots with two trays to stand them in. They keep your freezer tidy, pots upright and are perfect portion sizes for at least the first 4-6 months of weaning. They are microwave and dishwasher friendly so you can use them over and over again, and will also make perfect snack pots for babies on the go. A top tip another mum gave me was to label food in the freezer with masking tape, it’s easy to peel on and off and write on!
ON THE TABLE
There are so many beautiful as well as functional options to choose from when it comes to the cutlery and crockery for your baby. There really is no right or wrong - just find what works for you, and bear in mind what is dishwasher safe, durable, and practical. We have an assortment of things we use daily, so I thought I’d share a few.
A Doidy Cup. This style cup is great, even from initial weaning, it encourage proper drinking technique so it’s great to start babies on something like this. It is slanted so the cup isn’t tipped up too far and has handles to encourage grip and control. It’s available from £3.80 from Bickiepegs. It is a bit messy (albeit funny), to see their faces trying it for first time, and another bonus is that its dishwasher safe too. Another great drinking cup we have is the Tippy Up Sippy Cup with weighted straw (valve free) from TumTum Tots (£8.99), this is perfect for picnics or offering water on the go.
An Unbreakable Plate. We have a Baby Boosa Cloud Mine Plate (£14.50 direct from this gorgeous British brand) and although it doesn’t quite fit the Ikea highchair table, it’s so wide and is so distracting with all the compartments Oscar hasn’t figured out he could lift it up (yet!). It’s super easy to clean and bendy so taking it to restaurants or someone else’s house makes this a great plate. I also love the TumTum Tots Bamboo Baby Suction Plate, with removable suction base (£14.99) which is smaller, and matches the straw cup we have.
Bendy Spoons. We have the Munchkin Lift Soft Tip Infant Spoons, perfectly bendy so they don’t stab any gums or tongues, I’ve washed them in the dishwasher with no issues and they are just £3.99 on Amazon, (I’d buy two packs if I was you!). We’ve also got the vital baby Nourish Start Weaning Spoons (£2.49 for a pack of 5), they are much shallower though, which is great for the initial weaning process, but not as good when your baby wants bigger mouthfuls once weaning is established.
Weaning can be so much fun. You honestly don’t need anything fancy to prepare or feed your baby their first foods, but I hope some of my reviews above have been helpful. I’ve even added a few recipes for baby friendly foods elsewhere on the blog, take a look.
I’d love to hear what your babies love when they are at the table.
