Lorna at Vicenza

Plenty of lovely veg, fruit and cheeses to choose from here.
Will baby be eating fish?

One good tip I learnt from an Italian was to use up your block of parmesan cheese but save the rock hard end of it ... and then give it to baby to gnaw on when teething. It's so hard they can't break it and it won't crumble. It has plenty of flavour and goodness in it. Kept mine happy for hours.

DaniL

No Fifi won't eat fish, her dad just read a book called "eating animals" and isa bit tramatised!

Lorna at Vicenza

My OH doesn't eat meat but he will eat any kind of cheese and also eats fish.

There is no Quorn here but an Italian brand makes some food that they market as being very low in cholesterol when they could also market it as being vegetarian. The brand is called Valsoia.

Some larger supermarkets sell tofu and seitan but not many - at least not where I live.

Check out this website as well to see if there is a Naturasi in your area. I'm told it's getting more and more popular but some things are quite expensive.

http://www.naturasi.eu/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=831

DaniL

A naturasi opened near us on friday - it is expensive but they sell things that are quite difficult to find. They do a lovely range of organic baby toiletries. I love the valsoia cottolette.
Sorry for drifting off topic Ballerina!
Before I forget buy as much baby stuff as you can from home, it costs twice as much here!

K in Modena

Hello!

Back to the initial post- like DaniL I gave birth in August 2010. No epidural or gas and air or anything and I can honestly say it was fine. Honestly!

I too went to a lovely birthing centre which was midwife-led and very nice and calm. I also did a home-study hypnobirthing course. Yes that sounds a bit wacky but it's basically relaxation and removing your fear of birth and it really worked, the midwifes were very impressed about how relaxed I was and how well I was dealing with it and at no point did I wish I was in England on the gas and air!

I did find the hospital experience afterwards a bit less to my taste as there wasn't a free bed in the birthing centre so I was on the main ward. I was referred to as "bed 29" the whole time! But they get the job done, the care is fine although I could have done with some (a lot) more breastfeeding support.

As for after-care, Emily wouldn't latch on so I went to see a midwife regularly, otherwise we would only have had the usual doctor visits.

Back to weaning- Emily will be 6 months old on the 10th and I reckon we'll go for baby-led weaning (letting the baby to choose when/how/what to eat!) Anyone tried it???

K in Modena

Where are my manners? Forgot to say- CONGRATULATIONS Ballerina!

gelato

K - we did baby led weaning up to a point. We weren't hard core about it (I'm too afraid of choking) but we did let her gnaw away on a lot of soft foods and feed herself as much as possible from the beginning.

To some extent whether you end up doing BLW depends on your baby. Our baby didn't really give us a lot of choice as she hated us spoon feeding her and always grabbed the spoon.

K in Modena

Hmm the book does say re. choking that baby-led weaning is actually safer. We'll see how it goes! Quite looking forward to it actually! I think she'll definitely be up for it as she loves anything to do with food and keeps trying to grab things off my plate

indiebird

With my first (we're going back 11 years now) I weaned him at 4mths as per the advice then in the UK. He was fine but he always preferred finger-foods, even from about 6 months old. The second was past six months and I waited until she showed an interest in food which was about 6months old. She was totally bf up to this point and would never take a bottle with expressed breastmilk in it. Sadly, I suffered PND at this point and we both ended up in hospital. They put her onto formula milk but she would only take milk off a spoon or out of a cup!! She could feed herself with a spoon at about 7months old and has done so ever since. I always just fed my kids food that I made. Fruit and veg purees with a bit of cheese once they were ready etc.... the problem I had with number two was that her 'first taste' was a chewit that her brother 'shared' with her when she was about 3months old.....

Stellina

I think it's nice that number 1 wanted to share his sweets with his little sis

K in Modena

Apparently "helpful" toddlers can often be an issue!

indiebird

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

gelato

troll!

37100

Sent a report Gelato because it is an offensive troll!

Pollyana

The troll has left the building