Our weaning journey

As you know L is a small baby, at around 3 months my husband and I started to discuss when L should start solids. I didn't want to rush and was insisting on 5,5 months on the other hand my husband wanted to start earlier so that L could have Christmas meal with us. 
At around 4 months I've noticed that L shows interest in what I eat and drink, she was literally grabbing my glass of water and pretending to drink, it was so funny to watch!

Even though she was intrigued about food I wanted to be sure that it's the right time for us all to start weaning and went to our local health clinic to speak to a health visitor. 
Health visitor agreed that 5 months could be the right time for us and suggested starting with finger food.

On one of the weigh ins I spoke to a different health visitor actually said that it's too early to give her solids.

On our last weigh in-today third health visitor suggested that she should eat what we eat!

I know for some of you health visitors are not the best advisors, but I thought that if we technically should go by what they say why not to ask exactly the same question every time I see a different person. As you can see so many men, so many minds!

My 5 months I was totally ready to give L solids as she wasn't gaining much weight and I needed something to fix it. I had high hopes that L will be sleeping better, will be eating and gaining weight..wrong! 

I had all sorts of booklets and books about weaning, I liked the idea of 5-step weaning plan from Cow & Gate, looked at the Annabel Karmel's meal plan but wasn't keen on her method and so I came up with the meal plan which my good old friends used.

I decided to start with purified vegetables for lunch, which i was planning to do myself. I wanted L to try purees first as I remember from my childhood how much I loved them. 

Week 1 (Courgette): I boiled courgette without oil and seasoning and purified it in a blender. On a day 1 we started with one teaspoon and the plan was to add one more teaspoon each day so that my day 7 she could have 7 teaspoons.

L's first reaction of her first tastes was recorded on a phone, we had to convince her to eat by singing, making her smile, the best word to describe the way she looked throughout the whole experience- uncertain.
Unfortunately, we only managed 3-4 teaspoons as L was constipated if was given more.

Week 2 (Cauliflower): On day 1 the idea was to give 6 teaspoons of courgette and 1 teaspoon of cauliflower; day 2- 5 teaspoons of courgette and 2 teaspoons of cauliflower, so that each day we give slowly introduce new vegetable by mixing them all together but each day changing the amounts. 
This week L was on and off with vegetables as she was constipated most of the time. I had to stop giving her solids for couple of days and only breastfed her. 
She didn't like cauliflower by itself, she was gagging most of the time, and if only it was mixed with courgette she didn't it.

Week 3 (Sweet potato): the principal of introducing was the same as with cauliflower, only difference each day to give different vegetable mixing with sweet potato. 

We even didn't manage the stage of stating sweet potato properly. L was constipated badly and I had to stop giving her any vegetable until I spoke to the doctor.

I was really gutted that L's constipation didn't allow her to enjoy her first tasted properly. 

To help my poor little girl I had to introduce fruits and buckwheat porridge instead of baby rice (as it rice is starchy food) earlier than I planned. At first she didn't mind porridge but she never manages to finish it all and won' t eat more than 3 teaspoons. She loves fruit purees though, just like me!! I couldn't do fruit purees myself so we are using Organix pots for now and hoping to try other brands as well.

Did you have similar experience to ours? Please share your meal plans or posts.