Catherine Ball's Baby Blog – week 43

IF SOPHIE had her way she would live on a diet of Weetabix, fromage frais and breadsticks, with perhaps the odd finger of buttered toast and handful of grapes or raisins thrown in for good measure.

When I first started weaning her, she was pretty open to trying anything after she got over the initial shock of having food put into her mouth. Once she worked out how to swallow the purees I was shovelling into her, it seemed to be all systems go.

But that came crashing to a halt once tooth number one arrived. Since then, she seems to have become what all parents dread – a fussy eater.

I was determined I didn't want to have one of those children who would only eat about two things and refuse to try anything new. But Sophie seems to have other ideas. We do still have some good days where she will at least try things (usually before pulling a comedy face and trying to spit it out) but mealtimes are becoming a long drawn-out affair.

She will eat the kind of food she started with like pureed apple and baby rice, but it's a bit of a struggle when I want her to eat something more sophisticated like a fish pie or a chicken casserole.

I've started smearing hummous onto fingers of toast so she'll get some protein (sadly it doesn't work on breadsticks as she'll just use her fingers to clean it off).

And while she is interested in things like fishfingers – she spends much more time playing with them than eating them.

I'm trying not to let Sophie see that her antics bother me as I don't want meals to become a battle of wills.

Breakfast never seems to be much of a problem as she quite enjoys her bowl of Weetabix and a bit of fruit. But lunch and dinner can be a bit demoralising, especially when I've spent hours cooking her a delicious stew only for her to refuse it after the first mouthful.

I'm starting meals off with finger foods now as she is an independent little thing and doesn't like to be treated like a baby even though she hasn't yet hit 10 months.

This last week she has picked away at hard-boiled egg, chicken, fish, cous cous but she'll only really go for the staple diet I mentioned earlier. Once she shows no interest whatsoever in the scraps that are left, I'll often resort to giving her a bit of a puree just to make sure she's having something.

It doesn't help that wherever we go babies much younger than her seem to be tucking into a veritable feast with no problems. I just have to remind myself that she too loved her food before her teeth started appearing. She now has teeth numbers five and six about to break through, so I'm just hoping once they arrive, she gets a bit of a break and I can start feeding her up a bit. Or at the very least give the breadsticks a rest until the next ones start.