A-Z of baby led weaning food experiences

Food’s always a worrying thing when it comes to babies.  If it’s your first, you’re probably scared of weaning and how it’ll go, then once they’re eating it’s a worry about how much or what they should be eating. I chose to go with Baby Led Weaning, and it’s been going really well.  I think it’s been easier due to the fact that N knew straight away what to do and has always been a good eater.  For us, it’s definitely true that BLW meant he’s been less fussy.

The hardest thing has been planning what he’ll be having each day for some variety.  As I’m on a diet at the moment he’s only been eating his lunch with his dad each day, and then at weekends he tends to have the sunday roast with the family, but otherwise we eat too late for him in the evenings, and I have breakfast later while dad has his at the farm rather than at home.  Luckily it doesn’t seem to worry N.  He’ll eat anywhere, with anyone or on his own.  It does mean though that he tends to eat a lot of our dinner leftovers, which is handy as we don’t have to make something from scratch from him (if we do on the rare occasion, something like omelette, pasta, fish finger & spinach gratin etc goes down well and takes minutes).

In fact, he likes food so much that it’s easy to know when he’s really ill as even with a little cold or teething, he’ll still eat as normal.  This weekend was the first time I’d seen him off normal adult food.  He would only eat pureed food, so apart from his milk he lived off fruit pots & a bit of custard.  And I had to feed him which is something I’ve never done from 5 months old when we started weaning.  

Now he’s making up for it…and he’s also discovered his cupboard in the kitchen which has his bibs, plates, snacks etc in.  I found him yesterday in the kitchen sat amongst everything eating some out of date prunes he’d found in the back of the cupboard that I thought have been thrown out!

When we started weaning I kept an A-Z of foods he’d eaten.  I’ve since given up as basically he eats everything (well, he’s not keen on mushrooms although he did eat one the other day). He does goes through phases of pushing away certain things at one meal, only to eat them again at the next.  Here it is (if you can suggest any ideas for the missing letters, do let me know!):

• A – avocado, aubergine, apple (pie, crumble, sauce), asparagus, apricot
• B – banana, blancmange, beef (mince, steak, casserole), butternut squash, broccoli, bread, breadsticks, banana bread (with lime phili topping), blueberries, beetroot, bechamel sauce, broad beans, burgundy beef, BBQ chicken
• C – carrot, chips, chicken, cheese, custard, crumpets, cucumber, courgette, cinnamon, cherry, chocolate muffin/cake, cabbage, chelsea bun, cannelini beans
• D – Drop scones
• E – eggs (mayo, scrambled, poached), eggy bread
• F – fishfinger, fajitas, fruitcake, fairy cake
• G – Garlic bread, guacamole, green beans, grape, guinea fowl
• H – ham, houmous, hog roast bap
• I – ice cream
• J – Jelly
• K – Kiwi fruit
• L – Lentils (red), lamb (roast, kofta), lasagne, lemon meringue pie, lemon cake, lentil & spinach curry
• M – mango, melon, meatloaf, marshmallow, mushroom
• N – Nectarine, naan bread, noodles
• O – oat fingers, orzo pasta, orange, green olive, omelette
• P – peas, potato (every which way), porridge, pasta, pear, pepper, parsnip, peach, pesto, pineapple, paninis, pork (chop, roast), philadelphia, plum, peanut butter, prune, pumpkin,
• Q – quiche
• R – raspberry, rusk, rice cake, rice, runner beans, risotto
• S – sandwiches, sweet potato, strawberry, spinach, salmon, scampi, sugar snap peas, sponge cake, sausage (not keen on homemade crispy ones!), sweetcorn, satsuma, steak, swede, soup, sardines
• T – tomato, toast, turkey, cheese tortellini, trifle, tuna (mayo, flakes, fishcakes), toad in the hole
• W – wotsit
• Y – yoghurt, yorkshire pudding

It’s so exciting to see all the things that he’ll eat, but it definitely makes me think about how we can continue to give him variety when as with most families we have a repertoire of about 20 meals we rotate round.  It’ll obviously be harder once I’m back at work to think and prepare different meals, but most days he’ll be eating at nursery or my sister-in-law’s when I’m at work anyway.

What kind of foods did your baby enjoy when baby led weaning?