So today we began weaning! We kept things nice and simple and went with mashed potato for a first meal, using the advice of our fab Ella’s Kitchen First Foods Book. I have to admit I got a little bit emotional making the food up for Clara, it felt like a huge milestone to be preparing her first meal and made me realise how far we have come in the last 24 weeks. Also quite strange to think that from today onwards she is no longer fully reliant on my milk and that as time goes by she will gradually need me less and less for feeding.

Sitting down for dinner was a bit odd – none of us really knew what to expect from our first meal together. I made leek and potato soup for our own dinner so that we could eat at the same time as Clara and it would look vaguely similar to what she had been presented with. So… this is how we got on!

Clara seemed to take to her Num Num spoon pretty instantly, although she clearly needs to refine her coordination skills slightly as a lot of food ended up around her face en route to her mouth! We loaded the spoon with each mouthful and allowed her to take it from our hand and guide it to her own mouth so that she could control her own pace and this seemed to be quite successful. The initial shock of there being food on the end of the spoon was adorable – with each taste she kind of screwed her face up a bit as if she wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, but then went back for more so it can’t have been that bad!

We also offered her a tiny bit of water in her Babycup, although this is definitely going to need a bit more work before she can use it independently and she struggled to keep hold of it, especially once her hands were slippery with the potato. It probably didn’t help that she was too excited by the whole experience to let go of the spoon, which meant that she was trying to tackle the cup one-handed. She did manage to take a couple of sips with assistance though so hopefully over the coming weeks she will get better at handling it herself.

Overall, we probably spent about 20mins sat at the table, and about another 10mins cleaning up afterwards – thank god for the IKEA all-in-one bib that we had as that at least managed to protect her clothes from the worst of it. We also used a piece of plastic-coated fabric from IKEA as a splash mat on the floor which served it’s purpose well. I guess this is designed to be a tablecloth, but it was perfect for this use and much cheaper than a mat specifically sold for weaning!

Looking forward to round two tomorrow!