I’m just going to throw it out there – I hated weaning!

Yep, hated it. I know that comment will probably be met with gasps of shock and discuss, but sod it.

Jack was around five and a half months when we decided to take the weaning plunge. I think the recommended age is six months but he was chugging bottles like a trooper so we decided to start a little earlier. I had mixed feelings about weaning, part of me was itching to get started and introduce Jack to the wonderful world of food, but the other part of me felt sad – it was a sign that my baby was growing up and I didn’t like it.

I spent some time trawling the internet for weaning advice, I first assumed that it was puree’s and then finger food when they’re older (like a year old haha), but then I was introduced to the whole baby-led weaning world. I never thought I was a control freak, but I just couldn’t stand the idea of Jack lobbing cooked carrot sticks all over my floor. With puree’s I could gauge how much he had eaten, I could make sure nothing was chucked over the carpet, I could enjoy the process with him – it wasn’t a hard decision.

I was so excited for the whole ‘first tastes’ malarkey, I went off and bought the baby rice (it tastes like cardboard FYI, I wouldn’t use it again), blended what felt like 10million mangos and mashed up countless sweet potatoes and carrots. I bought the Anabel Karmel weaning book – ready to take on the world of food and giving myself a gold star and pat on the back for all the nutritious purees I’d prepared.

The first couple of weeks were quite fun, it was lovely watching Jack discover that there was more to life than milk, sweet potato winning every time, apple and pear – not so much. He carried on all his normal feeds and I introduced a puree at around midday, it was a dream. But then I started introducing more purees, still keeping his normal milk feeds; it felt like I was spending my day either feeding him, preparing his food and vice versa – the novelty was slowly waring off.

Soon he was having three meals a day, with a morning, lunch and bedtime bottle, which is still the case today. So, then it became a task of making sure I was super organised. Having to second guess where we were going to be if Jack needed feeding, making sure that if I was out then we’d have time to give him his lunch – I think that’s what I found the most frustrating, I was having to second guess everything.

Now that we’re properly in the swing of things I don’t mind it, but I just can’t stand it when I give Jack a sandwich and he dissects it – takes the cheese out and has a little munch, chews the bread for a bit, then launches the remains across the living room floor! Given the choice I’d bottle feed him until he was at school – but alas that is horrendously frowned upon! Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore that Jack gets so excited about food – and we’re very lucky that he’s not fussy (well, at the moment anyway) in particular my roast dinner (I make a cracking roast spud), and I always try and make sure he gets lots of goodness from each meal, I’d just prefer it without the mess!

I’d love to hear how you found weaning your little ones – please say I’m not the only one that hated it!