Weaning can be exciting and stressful and babies rarely turn into accomplished eaters overnight.

For successful weaning enter the phase with a sense of fun, excitement and patience.

If all else fails try some of these helpful tips.

1. In the first month or so don’t worry if you sometimes (or often) resort to powdered baby rice instead of mushing up veg. Those first few weeks are mainly to get baby used to the mouth motions and swallowing and to get their system ready for food
2. If you do want to avoid gluten and wheat then there are many baby foods without them
3. Great foods to feed baby on the run are bananas and avacado as they both come in their own skin and can be mashed up easily with a fork or just scraped straight from the skin with a spoon and fed straight to baby
4. For a first finger food try shortbread. Not particularly healthy but a lovely treat
5. It takes around 10 tastes of food before a baby takes to it so if your baby turns their nose up at some food persevere until they get used to the taste
6. When you start to increase chunks in baby’s food or give then finger foods there will be times when they gag or seem to choke. Do not panic. This is usually because of the new texture or taste and even when the food has got stuck in baby’s throat baby will usually cough it up. Increase your convidence by reading our tips on what to do if baby is choking.
7. If your baby refuses savoury foods then start by offering a spoonful of something they like then a spoon of the savoury and keep on like that. Move on to two spoons of savoury for every one spoon of sweet and you will soon be on your way. Another tip is to give mixes so mix peas and pear, banana and swede, apple and avacado. It sounds pretty disgusting to us but to the baby it is just another mush. Gradually reduce the fruit in the mix or move straight on to sweetish savouries such as sweet potato, peas or carrots. Persevere. They will get there.
8. If you prepare baby’s food yourself then prepare in bulk and freeze in ice cube trays or freezer bags
9. Another great travel food is fromage frais or yoghurt. Well packed, good for baby and can be thrown away when finished