Nicholas my second child was very fussy, he wouldn’t eat the jarred baby foods and the only books I could find had recipes for bland purees that he wouldn’t touch. Having lost my first child Natasha I really wanted to make sure that he ate well. I felt vulnerable having seen Natasha’s life slip away and wanted him to build up his reserves in case anything happened to him.

I have always been passionate about food and love to cook and after Natasha died I spent two and a half years researching everything about child nutrition interviewing many experts and working closely with a consultant nutritionist at Great Ormond Street Hospital. I spent days, weeks, months in the kitchen, testing all my recipes on a panel of babies and toddlers and in 1991 published my first book The Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner’.

This weaning guide book has been used by millions of parents all over the world but one of my proudest achievements is looking at Nicholas my strapping 17-year-old adventurous healthy eater.

Weaning baby from milk to solids is an exciting time and a big step for both of you. Your baby will be entering a whole new world of taste and eating is one of the great joys of life. Babies roughly double their weight at 6 months and treble it at one year. Your baby will grow more rapidly in the first year than at any other time in his life.