Baby-Led Weaning: A Year in Review

I can't believe she's 18 months old. That means she's been eating solid foods for a full year. A year of real food! Baby-led weaning, if you're not familiar with it, is simply allowing babies to feed themselves from the get-go with solid foods, once they are able to sit up properly at about 6 months old. (It's also sometimes called infant self-feeding, because of the confusion over the word 'weaning'. In Britain, weaning means to add supplementary foods to a baby's milk diet. In the US it refers to cessation of breastfeeding. We're using the British meaning here.) No purees, no jars, no stages of lumpiness. You provide a variety of healthy options, and they explore them at their own pace.

 

People who do baby-led weaning are sometimes evangelical about it, as seems to be the case with so many parenting approaches. However, everyone seems to agree that it doesn't matter nutritionally which way you go - so it's just a question of what works for you and your family. My health visitor is really into it, and as it was 'invented' by a UK health visitor, I suspect the NHS is widely supportive of the practice. I would definitely do it again, but it isn't without downsides. I won't go through all the ins and outs of HOW you do it (for one thing, I'm not qualified - read the book!), rather our experience:

Basic Spelt Waffles

 

We have waffles fairly frequently - I'd say I make a batch once a week, which can also give us leftovers to freeze if it's a weekday. Thought it only fair to post my basic, basic, basic spelt waffle recipe, although I can't take full credit for it. The original proportions were from Vegan Brunch, just stripped down to make it weaning-baby-friendly. F. loves them - lately she's been reverently whispering 'bwead', and even attempting to say blueberry, but it comes out 'boobooboo'. At which point I die. Without further ado:

 

2 cups of non-dairy milk, in our house usually hemp or soy

1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons of neutral cooking oil, like canola

1 tablespoon brown rice syrup

2 cups spelt flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Spray oil for the waffle iron

 

Mix up the wet ingredients, mix up the dry ingredients, mix 'em together. Use a light touch with the batter, so it doesn't get tough. I find spelt flour can vary in texture quite a bit - if it's too thick, add another tablespoon of milk. It shouldn't be as thick as muffin batter, but slightly thicker than pancakes. Cook as per your waffle iron, generously using the spray oil between batches.

 

You could use some proportion of white flour if these are too whole-grainy, but I admit I like them that way. The babe usually has hers with nut butter and fruit, and I have maple syrup!

 

Top tips:

 

Let your waffle iron pre-heat properly. This only makes, like, 8 waffles in my Cuisinart. You can't afford for 2 of them to be duds.

 

While the iron pre-heats, let the batter rest for a few minutes. It's better behaved that way.

 

Don't overfill the iron. I'd rather have cute frayed edges than messy, overflowing, burning awfulness. Been there.

 

In the event of a waffle iron disaster, they make pretty decent pancakes with a little more milk. Again, it's happened to the best of us...

 

 

That's it! Embarrassing basic, but healthy enough to be in our regular rotation.

Weekday French Toast: Easy, Lazy, Healthy(ish), Vegan

 

 

There are a few lots and lots of vegan French Toast recipes out there, but this version is so incredibly simple, I can throw it together in 15 minutes on a weekday. It's also relatively virtuous (as virtuous as fried bread can ever be, I suppose) - no sugar or salt for weaning babes, and can be made with just a handful of cupboard staples (at least staples in our house!). This is a small batch. It's a weekday, remember? Can easily be scaled up.

 

A few tablespoons neutral cooking oil.

3 thick slices of sturdy bread. Stale is fine, even better. I used some homemade malthouse from Friday, but Sourdough would also work well. The flimsy, shop bought stuff probably won't work.

Half a cup of non-dairy milk. My top choices would be almond, hemp or soy. We used almond today.

1 Tablespoon chickpea flour

1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed

Generous sprinkling of cinnamon

 

Ok, first things first, before even putting your coffee on, get your pan and oil pre-heating. If the pan isn't good and hot, these bad boys WILL stick. My kitchen is unheated, and in the winter it's freezing in there at night, so I don't judge if my pan is pre-heated by time, but rather by the way the oil behaves. I pre-heat my cast-iron skillet on medium low, until the oil swirls around quickly. Sluggish oil = ruined toast.

 

While your pan is getting good and warm, lazily mix together the milk, chickpea flour, flaxseed and cinnamon with a fork on a shallow serving plate. Give it a minute to come together - if you don't already know this, ground flaxseed adds a viscosity that is not unlike egg, you just have to give it a little time to work its magic. Soak the bread, both sides. Now is a good time to make coffee.

 

 

As appetising as wet bread is, don't taste the batter. Chickpea flour is foul when raw. I found out the hard way.

Fry 'em up! You obviously want them browned on both sides. For me, that's about 3 minutes a side. They shouldn't stick if you follow the golden rules I just made up:

 

Pre-heat well - have I mentioned that?

Don't mess with them until you are fairly certain they will be browned. If you try to flip them too early, or sneak a peek before they are browned, the pan won't 'let go'.

Use a metal spatula, and really be careful to get under there.  

 

Any number of toppings would be delicious, and as they aren't sugary to begin with you can be as decadent or abstemious as you feel that day. I had brown rice syrup and pumpkin seeds with mine, the babe had some banana slices. It's a big hit in our house!