Weaning – Not Fun with Fusspots
Freyja has been having extra carbohydrates on top of her breast milk for a number of weeks now, since she was about 15 weeks old. Now, at 6 months old, it’s time to wean her properly – I thought, or rather *hoped* that the task would be a breeze; that she wouldn’t be fussy in the slightest seeing as her dad and me eat pretty much anything. The *hope* that she would be an easy weaner didn’t happen… She’s a bugger.
The problem, I think, is that I introduced her to some fruits before the vegetables. For a baby who doesn’t know about different flavours, no wonder she doesn’t want her vegetables. She has always liked banana, apple, pear and peach. Trying to encourage her to eat butternut squash, courgette and carrot is an entirely different mission. I don’t blame her to be fair – I know I wouldn’t like trying a savoury item after I had tasted the joy of something sweet. So it’s going to be a case of perseverance. I *think* she will quite like butternut squash eventually – I tried her with it 2 days ago – she ate it. She didn’t like eating it, but she didn’t spit it out; merely screwed her face up but swallowed it anyway. So I’m trying her with that today. I should look at it as a fun process I guess, rather than a frustrating one. I know she’ll be fine once she gets used to, and learns to enjoy, the new flavours, but I’m not one for patience, so this task is definately going to test my “I give up” attitude.
The other thing I have to try and get her into is drinking from a sippy cup. She won’t drink from a bottle – I don’t really know why. If I could re-live the last 6 months, the only thing I would change is I would purposely give her a bottle feed every day – whether it be breast milk or formula; just to get her used to drinking from one. That way, I don’t think we would have the problem now. My plan is to skip the bottle altogether. If I can encourage her to drink liquid from a sippy cup, there will be no problem. IF I can. She knows what to do with the cup – that’s not the problem. She takes it herself and puts the beaker to her mouth. She drinks from it. She just spits out what she tastes. She’s a funny bugger. But all these issues will subside – I’m sure of it.
