A brilliant new programme of guidance and advice on weaning babies launches this week. Wee Ones Weaning Well (WOW) provides parents and caregivers with clear information and practical advice, along with key messages, about introducing solid foods to a baby’s diet.
The programme includes a series of specially created videos and links to a range of other resources. The videos provide answers to questions that many parents and caregivers have, and demonstrate exactly how to prepare a range of meals, snacks and drinks to compliment breast or bottle feeding.
The programme emphasises the first two years of a child’s life being the best time to encourage a positive, healthy and interactive approach to food and eating.
The programme was developed by a partnership made up of Annandale and Eskdale Health Improvement Team, local Health Visitors and the local Dietetic team, and supported by the Education Centre at DGRI.
Elaine Lamont, Public Health Improvement Lead (A&E), NHS D&G, said:
“Before beginning this work we spoke to parents and caregivers to get their ideas about the approach we should take with the programme and in particular the specially created videos. They told us about some of the questions they had and anxieties they had felt with previous weaning experience and we have tried to capture all of this in the programme.
“People don’t need to have brilliant cooking skills or lots of equipment to make the recipes, and they require mostly basic, everyday ingredients. The recipes within the programme have been adapted to Easy Read format for accessibility.
“Health Visitors and Family Nurses can use this resource with parents and caregivers at the Four Month Universal Health Visiting Pathway contact in preparation for weaning around six months.”
Katie Squires, Project Development Officer, NHS D&G, said:
“Throughout the development of Wee Ones Weaning Well we worked with professionals from Health Visiting teams, Dietetic teams, Scottish Government and the Young Parents Group to ensure information is evidence based and up to date. It’s important to us that parents and caregivers know the information we are providing through the programme is trustworthy and reliable.
Yvonne McGregor, Health Improvement Worker, NHS D&G, added:
“As a team and with our partners we are very proud of this initiative. The Wee Ones Weaning Well programme has been developed to include informative videos that cover important key messages and step by step guides on the practical elements of preparing and cooking foods for the weaning stages.”
The teams who made up the partnership who developed WOW would really like to know what parents and caregivers think about the programme. This can help to improve the services they provide. Please email your feedback to [email protected]
There are two ways to access the Wee One Weaning Well videos online.
The first is via the Youtube Channel ‘DGHSCP’ – search for the playlist ‘Wee Ones Weaning Well’. The links for the recipes that go with the videos are found in the video description. The recipes are hosted on the Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social care Partnership public website.
The second is via the free ‘Grow Well in D&G’ app – download ‘Healthzone UK’ from the App Store/Play Store. Once downloaded, open the app and search ‘Grow Well in D&G’ and find ‘Wee Ones Weaning Well’ under the ‘Weaning’ tab.
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