Wean in 15: Up-to-date Advice and 100 Quick Recipes

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The key message here is: The goal of weaning is to help your baby develop a healthy relationship to food. Try other sweeter veggies as part of your baby's weaning journey, alongside a wide variety of food combinations - including proteins, carbohydrates and fruits', advises Wicks. I’ve been very lucky recently to have met and started working with the incredible Joe Wicks (aka The Body Coach).

Some of these are basic things, like chewing, swallowing, handling food with fingers, and eating with utensils. Joe is known for his speedy recipes and if any in the book takes longer than 15 minutes, it is noted as a longer recipe so you know what you're getting into. It’s a lot like gradually turning up the volume knobs that control the tastes, textures, and portion sizes of your baby’s food.

I’m also lucky enough to be working closely with Public Health England on their Start4Life weaning campaign too. On the Women's Health podcast Going For Goal, Wicks admits that when he and Rosie started trying to wean Indie at six months old, it was 'quite daunting'.

Up until around six months of age, breast or formula milk is all a baby will need to help them grow and develop', he shares. Joe makes the basic information incredibly easy to read, which for new parents starting on our weaning journey was reassuring and he passes on his own experiences of the [allergy] issues he had with his daughter. To ensure it’s a really rounded resource for any parents wanting to know more about weaning their baby. This is not your typical recipe book in the sense that Joe does a great job in making the book relatable.

That being said, there are some general guidelines to follow, and there is a loose timeline to keep in mind. It's broken down into age sections which is great but it hasn't got many family meals in it, meaning it is pretty much just for baby.

According to Wicks, weaning is simply the process of introducing your baby to solid foods (that gradually increase in variety, texture and portion size) alongside breast or formula milk. Over time, her consumption of food goes up while her intake of breast milk or formula goes down – until it eventually disappears. The guidance he also provides through the book around signs to keep an eye on when your babies either enjoy or don’t enjoy food, was also incredibly reassuring. The 90 Day SSS Plan has already worked for over 100,000 people all over the world and I truly believe this plan will transform your life and the way you see nutrition forever.

Further, 'breast or formula milk is more or less all that little ones need before six months of age, so some children may not be developmentally ready for solids before this time', he continues. As above, 'I recommend starting weaning for the first week or two with single tastes of vegetables, offering one different veggie each day and trying to stick to more savoury and bitter options such as broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes', shares Wicks. In the last 2 hours I have read the first section of the book (60+ pages) and the first couple of stages recipes. Has your baby has lost the tongue thrust (which leads to more food being pushed out than swallowed)? Leave the pancakes to cool a little after cooking to prevent the blueberries from burning your baby's mouth.

At the same time, it acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all method, and it encourages you to adapt the plan to your individual parenting style and your baby’s specific needs. At the beginning of the journey, your baby gets most of his nutrition from the breast milk or formula he continues to drink.

She was still taken to hospital because she was so young but released after an hour with advice to visit an allergy specialist). I didn't like the introduction at the beginning and thought that the breastfeeding comments could cause upset to some mums. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. The quantities are out and the dish doesn’t end up quite being what it should - and I am following them pretty faithfully. We’ve since made some of the recipes for when the girls get older for ourselves as they tasted so nice such as the chickpea and mushroom burger.