Weetabix: an instrument for good or for evil?

This is a genuine question I asked myself this morning.

 

FOR: Little Girl loves Weetabix. She’s capable of eating a whole one for breakfast, which I didn’t think was possible at her age. Whilst I prefer to eat mine with a couple of spoons of sugar on top, she is clearly happy with the raw taste and why not? It’s full of goodness apparently and I am not going to argue, when my own breakfast is often nothing more than a bowl of corn flakes (with sugar on top – for taste). All this fiber and slow energy-release stodge-tastic cereal is like the food equivalent of a Duracell battery, it helps her go for longer without needing a top-up.

AGAINST: It’s an absolute nightmare to clean up. First it disintegrate into a disgusting-looking mush, which she happily uses to paint abstract shapes on her high chair tray, then within seconds it dries up, turns to plaster and sticks to everything. Much scrubbing ensues but I always miss a bit and can then be sure to find some stuck behind an ear or up her nose halfway through the day.

 

How can one food item be so good and so evil at the same time? It’s right up there with curry in the nasty food category. Curry is there because of the nappies. I will say no more.

Advertisement

The mess is out there

When you talk to people who have been down the self-feeding route with their child, they all exclaim with some glee: ‘the mess…!’ Until you’re there yourself however, you can only imagine what it’s really like and you laugh to yourself about all the lovely pictures you’re going to take; you never think about the clearing-up after.

On day 4 of our self-feeding journey, we had a first go at breakfast. What on earth do you give to a 6 months old baby for breakfast? The same you would give a purée-fed baby: yoghurt. So I bought some wholemilk live yoghurt (not that easy to find in the midst of all the sweetened fruit/custard/low-fat types) and put a bit in one of those baby bowls. Ha! Never again. The bowl never stayed on the table very long and when it did, Little Girl would grab it – from the wrong side of course – so that the contents would slowly drip onto her lap. Thankfully I’d also pre-emptively bought some bread sticks so I dipped one in the yoghurt and left it for her to grab. This tactic thankfully worked wonders. I also put a little pool of yoghurt straight onto her high-chair tray so she could play with it and hopefully occasionally lick her fingers. I think she may even have swallowed some but I can’t be sure.

One can only wonder what her chair will look like when we start her on porridge.

So I must ask, How do you give soft foods to your baby?