As of 17th Jan, RLT is on stage two of his weaning journey. I’ve not really written much about weaning, because some of the other mamas are rocking it with the baby-led weaning journey and we’ve taken a different path altogether. Baby food / purees you say? Kind of, he’s been given finger food too – but I guess you could consider our journey more of a vegetable-led one!

For stage one, we introduced organic porridge and cereal for breakfast and pureed vegetables for lunch and dinner. After around ten days of this, I wanted to introduce him to chicken etc but I hold my hands up and say that I am not a cook at the best of times – so we’ve used jars and pouches to introduce meat, in addition to home-cooked and blended veg.

I’m not an advocate of filling a baby with things they don’t need – therefore I have steered away from products which are pasta based. We as a general rule, don’t eat gluten in our house, it offers nothing nutritionally, so we will try to keep away from pastas and breads. Although if something contains wheat flour, for instance, as a thickener, I’m not going to that extreme to avoid it.

We also don’t eat pork. It isn’t a religious thing, it is a respect for pigs thing. They have been found to be as intelligent as dogs, and I wouldn’t eat a dog, so why would I eat a pig? I also don’t agree with halal meat as I think it causes unnecessary suffering to the animals.

Babease have a great selection which fits with my views and flavour options I would like RLT to enjoy for stage two, but I have to order them online for delivery to our local Boots, this takes some organisation – when I return to work there is a larger boots store in the town, so maybe I will be able to pick them up with ease.

So thus far on our stage two journey we have opted for Ella’s Kitchen pouches. I was originally deterred by the price of Ella’s Kitchen pouches compared to the glass jars from Cow and Gate and Heinz, but you pay for what you get – quality ingredients and 100% organic.

My original interest in Ella’s Kitchen products was sparked before Christmas, when I noticed that they were offering a child friendly Christmas Dinner pouch with all of the trimmings and as an added bonus they were donating 30p from the sale of each Ella’s Kitchen jingle belly (as they branded it) pouch to Save the Children’s Families and Schools together programme . This programme aimed to promote the importance of family meal time and the positive impact family meal time can have on a childs’ development.  I thought this was an excellent cause for them to link up with, I do like when companies do corporate social responsibility well. Sadly RLT was too young to try these on Christmas day, but as the best before dates were October 2017, we snapped some up for January – who doesn’t want to extend Christmas for as long as possible (I also wanted him to get used to eating sprouts from a young age!).

Ellas Kitchen Jingle Belly pouch

Ellas Kitchen Jingle Belly pouch

When we ventured to Tesco in a neighbouring town there was a Tesco Baby Club event on and they were giving away free testers of a dip made with the Ella’s Kitchen Parsnip, Parsnip, Parsnip and a few other ingredients such as garlic (wow it was garlicky!). I tried it, as I don’t eat a lot of garlic I found it too much, but RLT thought it was amazing! He got it all over as he was eating it from a carrot stick, but he didn’t care – he was so happy! We were given a sample of vegetable risotto to take with us and as this Tesco had a massive selection and it was on offer 5 for 4, I decided to stock up!

RLT with parsnip dip all over his face

RLT with the Tesco Baby Club Event dip all over his face

Infact, when I think about it, I try all of his food and would pretty much have a bowl full of all of it (except for the stuff with cumin in, can’t abide that!) as I don’t like seasonings – so maybe I need to go on a baby food diet?

spoilt for choice

I’m returning to work soon and I know there is even less chance of me getting my act together and cooking meals for the week. I just don’t enjoy it. Therefore I am going to continue on with the pouches – it allows me to know exactly what my baby is eating and be happy with the fact that he isn’t getting pumped full of stuff he doesn’t need.

My inclination to pay a little bit more to get good quality food was amplified this week by the food standard agency’s release that some baby food has been found to contain high levels of acrylamide – cow and gate being one of the culprits named (apparently they withdrew a cereal because they couldn’t bring the levels down, do I trust them now? Not a chance!). So important to know that your baby is eating right!

We’re only a few weeks into our stage two journey, so will provide updates on his favourite tastes soon! So far, anything with cheese in it (just like his mum!).