Baby Led Weaning

Any melon except Honeydew, unless you honestly like them (in which case I would merely ask 'have you never tasted the succulent orange flesh of a Galia?' and meekly let it go…)

Melon has been the subject of some of my most rigorous experimentation.

I've so far resisted the temptation to inject them with straight Calpol à la Jamie Oliver and his vodka watermelon but I have nevertheless toiled over the best way to present it to my baby in a manner that means that she doesn't immediately drop it.

We started with thin slices of Galia. It's quite a small melon (look, realistically this is all going to get a bit Carry On so just get the sniggering over and done with now… Better? Good, I will continue.)

I used to slice the melon (obviously after having halfed it and scooped out the seeds) and then cut off, say, three-quarters of the rind so that the baby would have something a bit drier to hold onto. Worked fine, but she kept on forgetting that she had it in her hand and dropping it which was a bit of a waste.

I then noticed that if the melon was cold from the fridge, Miss Babybear seemed to prefer it and indeed spent as much time chewing the rind as she did eating the flesh. (Personally, I think that keeping melon in the fridge is a bit of a crime as it kills the taste but the Babybear's beak is sufficiently sore to warrant it at the moment.)

Thereafter, I made sure that I gave the melon a good scrub (you lot have been warned…) before cutting it so that I knew the skin was clean. I have also refined my original melon slice design since Babybear got a bit better at holding things, so now I cut the slice then cut the rind off in the middle of the slice leaving an inch or so at the ends. Then I cut the slice in half to make two smaller bits with rind on. Very, very handy for taking out as they fit nicely into those silly wee tupperwares, and what's more I can have some too. Unless it's a Honeydew. You're on your own there, kiddo.

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