Weaning Journey Part 2 – The Mixed Approach

Paisley has done so very well at weaning so far and we are very much enjoying the journey. If you read part 1 of our weaning journey, you’ll know we opted for a mixture of baby led weaning and purees. Now, at 7 months old, she is happily eating 3 meals a day and we only really have the purees as a base/sauce for mixing with chunkier things or for adding flavour. She is able to manage lumps very well which I think has been helped on with the baby led side of it which is also going spectacularly.
We aren’t in any set routine of what she has for each meal as we are still experimenting so I will be sharing with you some of the things we’ve tried for each meal time, some of the products we’ve used and towards the end of the post there is also a giveaway running to win an Oxo Tot Mash Maker. We were sent one of these to try from OxoTot in exchange for our honest opinion and to run a giveaway so all words are my own. So, here’s a run down of what we’ve done so far…

Breakfast.

Paisley always has her boobie juice as soon as she wakes up and we’re all still in bed. Then she’ll typically have a little play on the floor while I sort everyones breakfasts.
For baby led breakfasts she has anything from scrambled egg on toast, blueberry and banana pancakes, slices of apples, oranges, and bananas, eggy bread, crumpets and croissants and hard boiled eggs.
If we are having a spoon fed breakfast, it can range from porridge with blueberries, to yoghurt with apple and pear purees mixed in and she’s also had weetabix.

Lunch

Lunch is normally baby led and to be honest is where I need to up my game a bit.
She has enjoyed cheese and ham pinwheels, steamed vegetables such a as cauliflower, broccoli, mange tout, baby corn, fresh fruit such as apples, bananas and chopped blueberries and some cheese fingers and hard boiled eggs. I would like to include more variety in to her lunches. Things that take little time to prepare but are full of flavour and good for her (well, all of us really).

Dinner

Her dinner really does depend on what we’re having. If we cooking a fresh healthy meal from scratch (something we are making a conscious effort to do more of)  I’m happy for her to eat it too. All we do with this is cut her some pieces that she can easily grip and let her have them. If it’s not something that’s ideal for being held, for example we had cauliflower and broccoli cheese last week which was really messy and cheesy, I either spoon feed it to her as it is or run it through the Mash Maker and then spoon it to her.
Sometimes we’ll do a combination of both so I would spoon feed her one part of the meal but let her feed herself the rest if its something like veg or sweet potato wedges or similar.
She is starting to get the hang of the spoon herself too, I can normally load it up and put it on her tray and she will pick it up and successfully get the right end into her mouth and get the food off it.

The messy truth of batch cooking.

If, on the odd day we’re having a lazy day and having a ‘bung it in the oven’ type dinner that I’m not happy for her to eat (normally due to salt content etc)  then we will pull out one of her frozen portions from the freezer and let her have that instead. They only take a minute in the microwave and I know that even if I’m not eating the best, at least she is.
So for dinners so far she has tried all sorts of things including a good hearty roast, many rice and pasta dishes, chicken, sausages, lots of different veg and mostly she is doing it herself. I realise I haven’t really shared a lot of her meals but I will be making a much bigger effort to share them on Instagram  so do give me a follow on there if you are interested in seeing what she’s having.

Snack time

For snacks, we mainly give her a piece of fruit, cheese or egg but I’ve also been using some of the crispy type snacks you can get in most supermarkets. Shop bought baby food isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be with so many food regulations in place and many of us consciously wanting to make the best food choices for our children, so I am more than happy to giver her things like the Organix,  Kiddylicious and Ella’s kitchen ranges. These are great as Dexter is more than happy to eat them too. The packets generally last a while as I only give them a few each at a time and then seal the packets shut with a food bag clip. They’re also very handy for keeping in my bag or in the car if we are out longer than expected or if either of them get hungry.

What we use

So far, we haven’t bought anything particularly new for Paisley. She’s got that whole second child syndrome going on where almost everything she has was originally her brothers. She has got a new high chair and after asking a lot of other parents we opted for the basic Ikea Antilop high chair. As you would expect from ikea, it’s very simple in its design. It’s easy to clean, is the perfect hight for our table and the legs come off so we can easily take it to my Mum’s if we are heading there for dinner.
We didn’t get any new plates or bowls, we have the Ikea Kalas Plates for Dexter that were less that £1 for 6 and they’re still going strong. That said, it’s not very often we even give her a plate a we tend to just put her food on her high chair tray.
For mashing her food, we have been using the Oxo Tot Mash Maker which has been useful for batch cooking. I’ve used it a couple of times for just mushing up a banana for breakfast but mostly I’ve used it for portioning. It’s quite simple to use, you just put in a meal sized portion in the bottom part, put the grinder on top and turn the handle. This pulls the food through and mashes it at the same time. It’s lightweight, easy to use (Dexter loves to have a go and help me) and easy to clean (also dishwasher safe) and makes batch cooking that bit easier too.. You can actually win one of these in the giveaway at the bottom of the post too.

What next?

As a family, we’ve have taken Paisley’s introduction to food as a starting point to change the way we eat. While we do still have some easy, oven dinners sometimes, we have been making a conscious effort to meal plan. We look at the food we have and meal plan around it. We have recently started ordering a veg box delivery too so that we know we always have stock of fresh, in season fruit and veg that we can incorporate into our meals.
We have also decided to make Mondays on our house ‘meat free’ at dinner time. This is to encourage us to try new meals but also to get us eating more vegetables. Especially Dexter – unless its baked beans or a form of potato, he’s not interested!
I hope to be sharing a lot more of meals with you, not just Paisleys but ours too.

If you are looking at starting weaning soon, why not enter my giveaway below to try and win your own Oxo Tot Mash Maker and If you have enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends.
a Rafflecopter giveaway