Wednesday, 15 June 2016

WEANING: The journey through different facial expressions + GIVEAWAY!

We started weaning Isabella in the autumn last year and I'd say she's pretty much fully weaned now. She'll eat 'normal' food, just with little to no refined sugar or salt in. The weaning journey has been one I was anxious about to begin with, but ended up loving. One of my big passions in life is food and cooking, so being able to create healthy, flavoursome recipes for Isabella has been lots of fun. Many of these recipes I've shared here on my blog, all under the 'weaning' tab at the top of this page. I made it my mission to introduce Isabella to as many new flavours as I could in those first few months, though not everything went down well. 
Organix launched a survey focusing on those early months of weaning, with interesting results. They found that 55% of mums said that the facial expression their baby pulls impacts their encouragement to try new tastes and flavours. I completely understand this, when I first gave Isabella pineapple puree she screwed her face up in pure disgust and refused to eat anymore. It took me a good few weeks to try it again because I wanted her to eat what I was giving her, therefore sticking to what I knew she liked. However, after about five different occasions of offering pineapple (as a puree, in a smoothie, homemade ice lolly, fresh chunks and stirred into weetabix) Isabella finally now likes the taste. In fact her favourite homemade smoothie is pineapple, banana and yogurt! Evidence shows that it can take between 10-15 times for a baby to like or dislike a taste, so it's worth persevering through those screwed up faces.
42% of people also said that they struggle to keep their baby interested in food during the weaning process. Weaning can often coincide with busy life changes, such as returning to work or your baby starting to crawl, which makes planning, preparing and making meals challenging. I found that planning well in advance really helped, the freezer was stocked full of purees and slightly lumpy meals ready to go when Isabella turned six months. Using a weekly planner I mapped out which purees we were going to give Isabella one which days. This really helped to ensure she was getting a variety of flavours from the outset and allowed us to prepare in advance. Preparations began around 3-4 weeks before we started weaning, resulting in plenty of time to buy the ingredients, make the purees and freeze them into blocks ready to decant into sandwich bags. This way you don't end up with a freezer full of small plastic containers.
 Introducing a range of textures is just as important as flavours and tastes - I think as adults we can relate to this one as there are some food textures that some people find off putting. For instance, my husband hates the texture of risotto/rice pudding, anything with the 'sloppy' texture. I'm not a fan of the texture of jelly, it's too wibbly wobbly for me! Allowing children to explore a range of textures enables them to decide what they like and don't like, it would be unrealistic to expect them to enjoy everything they try. These could include: steamed/raw/cooked vegetable sticks, Organix biscuits/corn puffs/rice cakes/cereals, toast, fruit/vegetable muffins, porridge, homemade vegetable 'crisps, potato wedges, fresh fruit slices, rice pudding, baked custard etc. I've always tried to include a wide variety of textures (crunchy, crispy, soft, hard etc.) every meal time.
The lovely people at Organix have kindly offered to giveaway THREE Organix weaning bundles (worth around £20!), similar to the one above. It's packed full with tasty Organix snacks perfect for both babies who are weaning or have been weaned. Isabella loves the Organix soft oaty bars, corn puffs and biscuits! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK entrants only I'm afraid. 
Prizes will be despatched within 28 days. 

Did/does your baby pull funny faces when trying different foods?

Feel free to leave a comment :)

Helen x


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11 comments

  1. Ooh great giveaway! Jenson loves Organix :) He's a bugger for screwing his face up when he tries something new but we try and persevere

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  2. Ahh lovely giveaway! We're only a few weeks away from weaning - in a way, I'm quite excited to see what Lily does and doesn't like! :-) xx

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  3. I've been pretty lucky with Maddie. She will try anything!

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  4. Matilda only objected to boiled eggs and occasionally raspberries (at other times, she can't get enough of them) until recently - she's now getting a little pickier and was horrified when she tried dried pineapple yesterday. She DOES like Organix, though...!

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  5. I kinda guessed the weaning process with Monkey as it coincided with me going back to work. I hadn't really thought about faces but can totally relate. I remember the texture of avacado use to put Monkey off. Thanks for joining us at #BloggerClubUK hope to see you again next week.xx

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  6. Oh gosh , Grace is currently weaning at 8 months old , and she pulls a look of utter disgust at everything ... she seems to really enjoy it though! So funny!

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  7. It's such a good idea to plan in advance with pre-prepared purees. I can see that would make it much easier when there's a lot of other things going on. Maybe weaning is like the olive theory. I've heard it takes 10 attempt to like olives so maybe little ones are the same with new flavours.

    Sally @ Life Loving
    #LifeLovingLinkie

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  8. I am about to start weaning my baby girl in a few weeks so I wonder what her little face will be like! xx

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  9. Grace always pulls funny faces no matter what she eats, but the face that makes me laugh the most is when she has watermelon. She carries on eating it but she looks like she hates it haha.

    Paula ♥ | http://www.la-vida-fresa.com xo

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  10. Yes they did at first with the different tastes

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