How to Wean Your Baby: The step-by-step plan to help your baby love their broccoli as much as their cake

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Once you've offered a nice variety of single veggie tastes (10 days or so), you can start to move on and build a variety into your little one's diet, nice and gradually. It does sound scary but can be very common, and your baby will do this less as they build up the skills needed to eat. Babies are actually born with a preference for sweeter foods and so don't generally need much help to like and accept sweeter options such as apples and pears.

There are more foods that you CAN offer your baby than foods you CAN’T, so try to focus on that first and foremost. However, it’s useful to know what shouldn’t be offered. I’m a huge fan of the “best of both” approach to weaning, where parents/carers offer baby some finger foods ala “Baby Led Weaning”, but also where parents also offer baby foods off of a spoon.Rubbing food onto your baby’s lip or skin is not a good test of an allergy, as they need to actually ingest the food to properly test for a particular allergy It’s also important to know that gagging is very normal during weaning, too, some babies gag lots and others not so much, but gagging is very different from choking. When baby is gagging they will likely go a bit red, lean forwards and make a horrible noise as they try to remove the food. It’s hard not to react, but you want to leave baby to deal with this themselves, as gagging is there to help your baby remove foods they can’t quite deal with effectively. I learnt so much being a first-time Mum and our weaning journey couldn’t have gone better. We also used Charlotte’s weaning book alongside the course and completed the 30-day plan. Our little one will eat/try anything. All the Mums at my baby groups ask me how we did it because they have to add fruit/something sweet to every meal to get their little one to eat it. But our little one loves it all, it’s been so reassuring as a Mum. Our little one did have an adverse reaction to quinoa as part of the 30-day plan, but with the course and book allergen guidance we knew it was a delayed reaction and what the next steps were… Add the frozen peas then drizzle the lemony cream cheese mixture all over (make sure all the peas are covered in liquid so they cook properly!)

I think it has almost followed my own stages in life. I was sort of in between weaning Raffy and Ada when the first book came out, so I'd done it myself and kind of got that competence and was going into it a second time. And then with How to Feed Your Toddler, I think Raffy was about three or four and then Ada was just coming up to one and so I had that toddler aspect of the slight food refusal and when all those challenges come up in the toddler years. I know all too well that weaning can be a really overwhelming time. It comes at a time when you feel like you’re getting to grips with parenting, new sleep routines and, of course, your new lifestyle with a baby, and then bam! Suddenly you must think about weaning your baby too and offering them totally new foods. Honey – Honey isn't recommended for babies under one year of age as it can contain a bacteria that could lead to infant botulism – a very rare but serious condition. I’ve just developed my very first online weaning c ourse, which talks parents through everything they need to know about weaning their baby with visual tools and guidance and is complete with FAQs, regular live Q&A sessions, course booklets and multiple factsheets as well as a recipe book to take you step-by-step through recipes for every stage of weaning your baby.

How should you introduce allergens when weaning?

Sugar and Salt – whilst sugar and salt can be present in some of the foods we offer to babies, it's best to avoid adding them to their foods where possible. Hopefully, this article has given you a bit of confidence, and sometimes it takes just reading around the topic a little to help you know the what, why and when of how to begin. The Baby Show is taking place from 3-5 March at ExCeL London. The Baby Show is the UK’s leading pregnancy and parenting event and will play host to the UK’s leading baby and parenting experts and guest speakers. Always remember that all babies will progress through weaning at different paces. The most important thing is to have fun, take the pressure off and focus on offering a variety of foods to your baby throughout their weaning journey!

Genuinely this is something I’ve dreamed of from the very start of my career and now, voila! It’s here. A little different…Raw or lightly cooked eggs – make sure eggs are well cooked when offering to baby, UNLESS they are Red Lion Stamped. If they’re red lion stamped, it means the hens have been vaccinated against salmonella, and so they don’t need to be thoroughly cooked for babies. With 70 delicious, balanced recipes, with clear baby and toddler adaptations for each with Charlotte's expert advice, you'll soon find mealtimes can be stress-free and healthy, so you can continue your journey of bringing up adventurous little foodies. There are some foods that pose more of a risk of choking than others, but ultimately to do all you can to prevent choking, you want to:

Once your baby has had the allergen without a reaction, aim to include it regularly (1-2x per week) in the diet Unpasteurised dairy and certain cheeses – These are fine to offer as long as they’re thoroughly cooked. If they’re not cooked, unpasteurised cheeses, as well as mould-ripened soft cheeses (e.g. brie or camembert) and soft blue-veined cheese (e.g roquefort) can contain a bacteria called listeria.

I would call it a family feeding Bible because I think it's so much more than just recipes. The recipes are so important and I love them and I'm using them a lot but my book has facts and nutrition and practical support in there as well. So it's not just recipes, it's really rounded. Try to allow them to refuse foods and avoid pressuring them to eat. Sitting with them, role modelling and making the mealtimes enjoyable is the BEST way to help your little one enjoy foods and be willing to explore eating more. Is a vegetarian or vegan diet bad for my baby? In this beautiful, full-colour book, expert nutritionist Charlotte Stirling-Reed reveals her renowned method that has helped thousands of parents wean their babies confidently. When it comes to weaning, I’ve found in my work that CONFIDENCE is one of the most KEY things you need as a parent/or carer starting your baby on their journey onto solid foods.