Baby Led Weaning. It sounded like a great idea; the perfect way to avoid the troubles we had with weaning TB. Chuck the food at Little Mister, let him pick what he wanted, hey presto! Solid food mastered. And he was doing so well. At five months we decided to let him ‘play’ with food, pieces of fruit and veg. He demolished apple and potato, carrot and broccoli were ok and green beans were sniffed at before being discarded.
I thought the husband was fully on board. Until I discovered, via twitpic I may add, that he’d given him some baby puree. Traitor! Being at work all day and certainly not around for most of Little Mister’s solid meals I had to bow to the husband’s judgement.
The other morning I sat down to give Little Mister mushy food for the first time. Porridge. He’s been eating it by proxy for six months so it seemed like a fairly safe bet. The look on his face after the first mouthful said that he wasn’t entirely sure but as he opened wide for more and more there was no denying it: he’s a porridge freak like his mother!
It didn’t take long for him to really get into the idea of things. Before the bowl was even half way to empty he was grabbing at the spoon every time it was offered, jamming it into his mouth, determined to get every last scrap. There was definite disappointment in his face when he realised he’d finished the entire bowl.
Lunch time came and although we had a pouch of puree in the rucksack, the event we were attending had a rather nice buffet laid on. I grabbed some fruit and veg sticks and a chicken breast for Little Mister and sat him down. Chicken is apparently the next big thing in baby food because he didn’t want to let it go. Cucumber wasn’t such a big hit, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. Melon went down well although I made the mistake of cutting it wrongly and ended up having to hold it for him. Little Mister’s idea of BLW is you holding up some food for him so he doesn’t have to bother holding it for himself. Just lowering his head to the appropriate position is effort enough thank you very much.
If there’s anything this has taught me it’s that there’s room for balance in our life. BLW is great and certainly makes life easier in some situations, but purees also have their place. We’ll be using both for the time being because if it works, why mess with it and Little Mister is clearly happy with that approach.
Maybe we’re doing it right after all.
You are doing it right! We waited for Baby Boy until he was interested in food. First thing he ate was casserole. My casserole. That I had made ME for dinner. After that it didn’t matter if it was mashed or not, he wanted it. He’s a much neater eater than Top Ender… and she’s six!
So I guess we could say that BLW itself is doin it wrong… It’s like the breast vs bottle debate – does it really matter what way you’re doing it as long as it’s right for the kid?
Lol. I had some of those fruit sachets from cybermummy that I took camping with us, ‘in case’. We never used them but we’ve had them in the picnic box ever since and I’ve just not had a chance to pack that box away yet. I walked in this morning to find K had open one and eaten half of it! I see no harm in doing half half, or as suits, but must admit that when my sister has been feeding Kyra, (yogurt, mainly) its much harder to get her to feed herself anything – which would be the main downside of half/half, I think!
We did half/half. Fed them puree but they also had finger foods from the early days and they have done fine. They decided themselves when they weren’t interested in puree anymore, so I feel we’ve followed their lead. I think my two used to be far too impatient for BLW – they would just get frustrated that the food wasn’t coming fast enough. A mix worked well for us. Oh, and chicken is Ez and Fonz’s favourite food too!
let’s put it that way…
MY WAY WORKS!!!!
hehehehehe
Ha! Baby led weaning didn’t work with my littlest man. In fact, if I’d not weaned him he’d still be nursing I’m sure of it and he’s going to be 4 in October!
So long as he’s enjoying his grub I don’t think it matters! I did a bit of both with both of mine, cereal and yogurts were spoon fed but pasta, toast, meat etc all BLW. I have to say I can’t stand the cooking and pureeing and freezing malarky so BLW has been fantastic for us!