I'm putting this up as a poll because it's the sort of thing that must get really worrying after a while if your baby is proving reluctant. We know that 'until they're one it's just for fun' but no one really wants that theory tested to destruction, do they?

On the Yahoo FAQ on the left they say that loads of their babies took right up to the year before they started eating in any great quanitities, but I'd have to say that Babybear took to it quickly. Not three meals a day, god no, we took it very slowly indeed but I'd have to admit that was partly through my laziness.

So what about everyone else? Did they all take to self-feeding like ducklings to water? Are these babies who only eat tiny amounts really only eating tiny amounts or are parents being fooled by ginormous jars of baby food into expecting too much? To give you an example, if Babybear managed to smush half a carrot stick into her hair at the beginning I counted it as a successful mealtime. But that was easy because so long as I saw a fleck of orange in her nappy the following day it gave me the confidence to carry on. I don't know how I would have felt without that evidence... hhhhhhmmmm. Anyone else?

Regardless of whether you are planning to spoon feed purees or abandon your infant to forage for finger food (aka Baby Led Weaning), the idea of giving your little darling their first solid food is a little daunting. Or it was to me, at any rate, hence this blog.

But what people don't tell you, I think, is how short a stage weaning actually is. It's teensy, really. Babybear ate well from pretty much the very beginning and if anything her intake was moderated more by my lack of organisation than any unwillingness to eat. Now, other babies don't take to it so quickly but even if it takes the full six months or more it's nothing in the scheme of things, is it?

And I think that's why the nature of this blog has changed over the last while. It's coming up to a year since Babybear grabbed her first piece of peach and I've thought of her as weaned for ages now. I take out bits and bobs for her to eat, but I don't have to (and never have really) as she can have an apple from a fruit shop or a supermarket sandwich with the best of us. So that's why I'm increasingly interested in finding out how things went for everyone else, as my own experience is less and less relevant, while yours is more and more.

So when was Babybear actually weaned, then? Taking it from her milk feeds dropping back to morning and night, I'd say 14 months. But when did she become confident and competent enough to feed herself a good meal without gagging, getting distracted or taking an interminable time? At not much more than nine or ten months, I'd say. Anyone else?

As I recall, the first big hunk of meat that Babybear had was a piece of pork fillet done on her grandmother's George Foreman Grill and boy oh boy she loved it. We then moved on to roast chicken, but not the breast meat as it had a tendency to break up and make her cough. And not minced meat either for the same reason. Casseroles, on the other hand, were a source of great delight.
A month or so later, however, and there was no stopping her. With the advent of the pincer grip, however, she had decided that big fist-sized pieces were for kids and wanted her meat cut up into bite-sized pieces.
As to how we actually cook it, well, there's not much grilling of meat goes on in this house, with the exception of bacon. I never really think meat responds that well to a domestic grill to be honest. So it's frying, braising, casseroling all the way here until someone buys me a Georgie Foreman.

Does it stop being fun?

Here's what I think...

Babybear really, really didn't cut back her milk when the clock struck midnight on her first birthday. I think I remember totting it up and she was on about 30oz a day.

She did, however, cut it back over the next few months and has been on the HV's recommended 14-20oz since, say, 14 months. Correspondingly her food intake went up, particularly at breakfast and dinner. Lunchtime she's still a bit easy-oasy about, she has a long nap between about 11am and 1pm and I think she prefers to eat little and often in the afternoons.

I admit that I did get a bit stressed about the milk thing as 12 months loomed, just because all the books talk about cutting back milk in favour of solids and, you know, the whole 'just for fun until they're one'. But you know, the great advantage of BLW (it seems to me, anyway) is that it does give you the full six months to get your head round feeding your child, so the idea of a 'balanced diet' doesn't seem as unlikely as it did in those first few heady weeks.

Anyway, what do all you 'oldies' think, I think it might be really helpful for people starting out. (Plus someone asked me to post on this and I've lost her email, so I can't give her the due credit...)

I mean I know I should care, really, but I can't make myself. I've given away our breadmaker and everything. (To be fair, I wouldn't have done if I had more counter space but it was just So Big).

To give you a historic spin on the matter, my great-grandma had to be physically restrained from sprinkling salt on my food when I was a baby as according to her just a few grains would stimulate the taste buds. Now, presumably that means my mother and grandmother had endured the same treatment and yet their kidneys haven't failed.

I appreciate, however, that a sample of two isn't scientifically compelling. Not only that, food has changed a lot since those days and processing adds layers of salt that we don't even taste any more. But I'd still have to say that it's not something I'm enormously troubled by. I don't add salt to things like pasta or veg, and we never add any at the dinner table, so I don't really pay much attention to salt in ham, cheese and bread since Babybear's turned one. Plus we've always preferred unsalted butter.

We do add a bit of veal stock to casseroles and maybe some reduced salt Marigold to soups (although is it only me or does it make things taste awfully same-y?) so I think that makes us fairly virtuous on the salt front. Plus, Babybear drinks water well, so I'm not worried about dehydration.

Am I kidding myself, however? Should I be more stressed about it? What do you lot do? Answers on a postcard please...

Credit where credit's due,  it was actually Mij, mother to the delectable Small, who wanted this question asked but truth be told it was on my list anyway.

You may have seen me comment (whinge, even) that Babybear had gone off carrot entirely and I don't know about you but I'm not so fussed for the stuff that I bothered offering it again for months. However we were at a pal's house and my friend chopped some up and left it out for the babies. Whether a natural competitive streak was activated or she just decided to give it another shot I don't know, but Babybear is now addicted to it once more. So much so that she points at the fridge and says 'ca-ott', which is the sort of thing that encourages you to get the peeler out qick-smart. In fact, such has been her great delight in carrot and her ability to demand it  that she now enjoys 'green carrot' (okay... cucumber), another veggie that she'd long since abandoned.

So I'm not sure I've answered the question, though... I suppose I don't bother not offering food, if you see what I mean? Because we tend to plonk what we are eating onto her highchair she just gets what she gets, the poor child. On the one hand that means that spinach goes from her tray to the floor in one easy move as she appears to loathe the stuff but it certainly wouldn't prevent me from just giving it to her every time we have it. On the other, she is presumably encouraged to eat by the sight of her parents scarfing it down so hopefully she will return to it one day...

Oh, I don't think I've explained that very well, to be honest... can anyone else help?