A devotee of baby-led weaning, Ida takes a go-with-the-flow approach to weaning her daughter Jasmine (14 months). Take a look at a week in the life of their weaning journey.
Ida Bougouin and her husband Theo, have a son Nathan who is five and daughter Jasmine who is 14 months old. They are a truly European family – Ida spent part of her life in Portugal where her parents live and Theo is French, so they have a very international diet with plenty of garlic and spices! Ida has made more of an effort with baby-led weaning with Jasmine than she did with Nathan because she is more confident the second time around. Ida cooks food that Jasmine can grab easily.
“I think you have less fussy eaters if they have been baby-led weaned,” says Ida. “I think if you give them beige or bland food, they may not grow out of it!”
Jasmine eats some meals at home and some at the childminder’s but much of what she eats has been cooked at home and sent with her for lunch the next day.
We had some wheat biscuits with milk, a little sprinkle of bran because Nathan loves it and that makes Jasmine want to try it too, with some raisins and half a banana. We try to vary the cereal and the types of fruit each day. In the early stage of weaning, Jasmine had a mild cow’s milk allergy but luckily, she grew out of it.
Sandwiches with grated carrot and hummus. We also gave her some cucumber and carrot sticks, though she wouldn’t touch the cucumber. She likes to play with the hummus and ended up with food all over her face.
Salmon baked with cherry tomatoes and orzo pasta. This is such a quick and easy meal to make and both kids love it, even if a lot of it does end up on the floor!
Jasmine has a cup of milk before she goes off to the childminder’s, as I am conscious that she doesn’t have much milk during the day. Once there, she had some overnight oats that her childminder made with grated apple and cinnamon, soaked in whole milk.
She had some of yesterday’s salmon, pasta and tomatoes, heated up. She tends to eat more when she’s not at home and will try things she won’t try at home, too. I was told that she ate some cucumber there today, which she wouldn’t touch at home!
Schnitzels with mashed potatoes and peas. She loves peas some days and hates them the next – you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen!
More wheat biscuits with strawberries this time, cut into slices.
She had a piece of schnitzel from last night with some hummus and vegetable sticks. She also had some apple, cut up into sticks.
Pasta carbonara – a family favourite and one that’s easy to throw together after a day of work.
Pancakes with blueberries. She picks up slices of the pancake and eats them herself and then tries to pick up each berry, with variable success!
She had some of the pasta from last night, with some steamed vegetables that the childminder made. There are some vegetables that she will eat mashed but not in their natural form – it’s a bit hit and miss at the moment, though she is more amenable to eating vegetables at the childminder’s!
We had risotto with lots of different vegetables in it and some salmon, which Jasmine loves. I had to feed her most of this, as it’s a bit tricky to eat it with her hands. I’m actually quite impatient, so if the babies start to play up or try to throw their food, I sometimes take it from them and feed them.
She had a little bowl of rice krispies, some bran and raspberries. She likes to experiment with a spoon now and occasionally gets some food in her mouth but most of it falls off, and then she waves the spoon around.
Risotto from last night – which the childminder said she ate stubbornly with her hands, grain by grain!
We had curry and the kids both had some. And they love naan bread. Jasmine likes to try whatever we have – and if it has spice in, she will eat it! If we go out, she’ll eat what we have, so finding food for her is not going to be a problem!
Eggy bread cut into little squares and some chopped fresh fruit.
A wrap with hummus and grated carrot, followed by a yoghurt – which she rubbed into her face and hair!
Spaghetti Bolognese. I put lots of different vegetables into the tomato sauce to make sure the kids get a good mix of different vegetables.
She had a bowl of cornflakes with raspberries, then she wanted to grab my toast, so I gave her half a slice. I try not to give her too much bread, as she loves bread and would just eat it all day long if I let her.
Some of last night’s Bolognese sauce with couscous, as it’s quick and easy. I also gave her some pepper sticks, which she pushed away.
Our weekly treat, steak and chips. We make the chips in the air fryer, so they are not oily, and we give them to the kids with no salt on them. We also don’t give them the blue cheese sauce we have, as I am conscious of the salt content. She does already love Stilton, though, if she can grab a piece.
Bran flakes with some pieces of grapefruit – she loves things with strong flavours. We can give her cow’s milk now, though at seven months, when I wanted to give her some formula, she vomited. We had prescribed milk for a while until she grew out of the allergy.
A little sandwich followed by some mixed fruit pieces. We always have lots of fruit in the house and Jasmine loves it all – clementines, bananas, apples, strawberries, melon, pear, grapes and kiwi. She has not yet tried cooked fruit, nor pineapple but we will try that soon.
Her hand-eye coordination is getting so much better, so she is able to pick up quite small or slippery foods.
Homemade burgers, which we tend to do more of in the Summer. Though Jasmine is a bit funny about vegetables, she likes food, especially protein!
Pancakes again, this time with strawberries and raspberries.
Falafel, with mashed potato and sweetcorn. This is easy for her to pick up and it was the first time she had tried falafel. It was a hit.
Seafood pasta in tomato sauce, with some garlic. She does like garlic, though not too much and is quite experimental. When we were on holiday recently, we had ordered lunch, but it took a long time, so she ate the lime slices that were on the table. With each piece, she pulled the funniest face, but she ate it all.
Malted wheat cereal with raisins and banana.
Some leftover salmon from last night and broccoli that the childminder cooked – the childminder told me she liked it so much that she took some from another child!
Monkfish, though I added too much garlic and she didn’t like that too much.
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