Is Your Baby A Hipster In The Making?

Have you served up avocado, quinoa or sweet potato to your baby today? If so, your little hipster is in good company, as kids all over the UK are being weaned on these trendy foodstuffs.

That’s according to new research from WaterWipes, which asked 1,500 parents who’ve weaned kids in the last five years about their habits. It turns out that one in seven babies love hummus and one in 20 enjoy quinoa.

All the things you’d expect were in the top 20, like yoghurt and mashed banana, which took the top two spots, but others were more surprising. Who knew babies loved couscous, lentils and salmon?! Turns out they do.

David Lawlor, from WaterWipes, says: “Far from being fussy, millennial babies love tucking into a variety of unusual dishes and exciting flavours. With the variation in our diets now, and exotic food more readily available than ever before, a baby’s first foods are changing.”

via GIPHY

It’s not just individual ingredients either, the research looked at meals too, with 41 per cent of babies enjoying toad in the hole and 46 per cent quite happy to have a chicken korma for tea.

This is a good sign for the next generation of kids being brought up not to be fussy eaters. It seems that traditional pureed baby food is out and exotic flavours are in. Curries are a great place to start, so for tips, click here.

But not everything you put in front of a child will be eaten up with glee. This is the 21st century, not some form of alternate universe. Brussels sprouts, lemons and mushrooms were the top three most-hated foods by babies.

via GIPHY

And parents find the whole weaning thing a bit complicated too. Some 73 per cent of mums and dads said they were confused about what foods they should be starting their kids off on. And 67 per cent found themselves in the middle of conflicting advice on when to begin weaning in the first place.

On average, kids are being weaned from six months, with 55 per cent of parents cooking homemade meals for their little ones from scratch. Others, some 30 per cent, mash up or puree what they’re eating as parents to give to their babies.

The challenges of weaning don’t end there either, as 33 per cent of parents said they’d found food on the kitchen wall after feeding their kids. And 20 per cent had ended up with it in their bra or down their top.

It’s not a shock then that six in ten mums and dads say they choose a meal based on how little mess it can make. After planning, cooking and trying to coax your little one into eating their grub, the tidying up afterwards is the final straw.