3 min read

Introducing solids: Real mums weaning stories, Sophie aka Trials and Tripulations

Each week I will be sharing a blog written by a parent, taking some time to reflect back on and aspect of their weaning journey. These posts are not intended to provide advice, but instead provide stories and insights from parents that will inspire, support and encourage you with feeding your own baby.

This week is not your average weaning experience - in fact it's three times what most people will go through! Sophie is a first time mum to triplets, and she shares some insights into the extra complexities that weaning multiple babies at once can bring. She is absolutely incredible!

Well that was it...we had been given the green light to begin our weaning journey. This was something we had yearned for, for a long time as the babies had suffered with reflux and severe vomiting for so long on milk, the idea of solid foods and the reduction of that vomiting felt like welcome relief. Our girls had been hospitalised twice with their reflux as they had struggled to gain any weight as their vomiting was so bad. Our neonatologist and consultant dietician had advised us to begin our weaning journey slightly earlier than recommended, as the babies were continuing to vomit on milk and their weight gain was affected by this. So, at four and a half months, the best way to address this and reduce their medication intake was to wean onto solid foods.

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As you can imagine with bottle feeding triplets, we had everything organised within an inch of it's life and so now embarking on a new chapter meant reorganising that entirely. This was something that I was nervous about. My day-to-day worked at that moment and this new feeding regime, alongside milk, would mean there was little time for anything else.

three white highchairs for weaning baby in a kitchen

But we went for it, we forged on. We had all the gear and no idea...3 high chairs, various plates and bowls, a variety of cups and bottles, ice cube trays and freezer pots and, of course, a shiny new blender! Our kitchen was completely taken over. Putting the babies in their highchairs was the funniest thing. Watching them sit there with their little faces so confused as to what was going on. They seemed so little, so young still. They were only just holding their heads and it was clear to see sitting in a highchair was hard work for them but novel nonetheless. We packed them out with highchair inserts and gave them the best supports we could to help them along the way.

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three weaning babies with bibs eating finger foods

Our first week was flavour tasting, we tried absolutely everything!

This was the funniest week by far.

We absolutely loved it!

I made fresh purees for them to try... I say try... more like smear, squish and spit out!

Watching their little faces scrunch up as they tasted the world around them made me chuckle so much.

There was also a lot of falling asleep in the highchairs. I think the children themselves found the whole experience a little exhausting and in hindsight they were probably too young, however it did really help with the reflux, particularly as our weaning journey continued, so it was absolutely the right thing to do at the time.

I'd convinced myself the mess would be unimaginable from the get go but it really wasn't. In fact I was actually a little disappointed by this, I was fully prepared for 'hazmat suit-wearing' mealtimes with plastic sheeting covering the walls and floors.

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Fast forward 6 months, and the mess that everyone had warned me about, began! I have no yard stick by which to measure the amount of mess to that of a singleton, I mean we clean up after mealtimes, it's on the floor and sometimes the walls, sometimes over Mummy and Daddy, and very definitely over the faces and in the hair of the babies! Now at 19 months, we have our dinner around the table together as a family. We still have 'those meals' which require a full strip down clean of the kitchen but, they are now less regular. The babies proudly wield their cutlery too and sometimes, if we are lucky, even have a go at using it to eat with!

triplets sat in high chairs wearing bibs eating finger foods

To read more from Sophie about life raising triplets, head over to her blog or follow her on Instagram.

If Sophie's story has inspired you to share you own, I would love to hear from you over on my instagram page. And if you are getting ready to start weaning and would like to know more about how to recognise when your baby is ready, or what those signs might look like, you can join my monthly online weaning workshops.