Vegan and Vegetarian Weaning

Baby and Child Nutritionist, Charlotte Stirling-Reed, is now running an Online Weaning Course, a complete step-bystep guide for parents and caregivers to introduce solids to their baby. Find out more at www.srnutrition.co.uk/online-weaningcourse.

Many parents ask about raising a baby or a toddler on a vegetarian/vegan or plantbased diet. It’s become much more popular in recent years and for many reasons too. If you’re wanting to raise your little one vegan or vegetarian, please know that it’s absolutely safe and practical to do, but you will have to think about and plan meals a little more and you might need to think about supplements for your baby too.

It’s always worthwhile getting some oneto-one support if your little one is going to be having no dairy, fish or animal products, just to check that you are offering them all that they need each day.

There aren’t really any differences in the early stages of weaning when it comes to offering vegetarian or vegan diets to babies. Starting with Veg Led Weaning - which I talk about a lot on my Online Weaning Course - is the same, and a great way to start all babies on their weaning journey. After those first tastes, it’s about exploring a wide variety of other foods with your baby, gradually and gently and this is essentially just done without the inclusion of meat and/or other animal products.

When you’re removing these foods though, it’s important to know that you DO need to replace them with foods that contain the same nutrients as the excluded food options. For example, meat and dairy foods are often a good source of:

• Iron

• Omega-3 Fatty Acids

• Protein