Week 2 of baby led weaning

Now that we are two weeks into solids here's an update on how its going. So far he has mainly had fingers of fruit and veg as I wanted to see him get the hang of holding foods and feeding himself but I think Ill start cooking a little more for him this week.

Breakfasts - Breakfast is normally about an hour after he has woken and been fed in the morning.

• Raspberries - great faces when he eats these.
• Banana - when we have ones that are still a little hard he will gnaw away but mostly I find that he still mashes them in his hand so there has been a bit of spoon feeding
• Pancakes - Ill post a recipe for sugar free ones soon
• Porridge - he loves porridge which I make with water. I sometimes mash banana or raspberries through it. I load the spoon for him and he will eat away to his hearts content
• Greek yogurt - I buy the aldi one which has no added ingredients. 
• Overnight oats - I made a variant of overnight oats with Greek yogurt and milk this week. He enjoyed it when eating it and it was thick enough not to fall off the spoon but vomited it up fairly shortly afterwards

Lunch/Dinner - I find that about 3 o'clock in the afternoon is when hes happiest having some more food, he makes it fairly clear if he doesn't want to eat or sit in his high chair! Most evenings he's getting a little too tired to eat anything when we have dinner (about 6:30) but we will normally give him something to nibble on. Restaurants and cafes have been pretty good about giving me some plain veg on the side for him which is great as Ive found that most of the food I have been served has a salty sauce of some kind on it. 

• Broccoli - He loves tenderstem broccoli and its great as it has such long stalks for him to hold and nibble on
• Cucumber - a big favourite which might be due to teeth coming up too. I peel it and cut it into fingers for him
• Melon - again I think he might love this because he is teething and its nice and cool on his gums. 
• Chicken - I fried up finger size slices of chicken and he happily chewed on these - this was his first meat
• Pasta - not a big fan of fusilli but I think it was a little small for his hand. 
• Mozzarella - he squeezed a lot of the goodness out of this but enjoyed it enough to have 3 pieces
• Pitta - I have made pittas for him with avocado spread on them and he loves chomping away on these. I have a great pitta recipe which Ill post up this week. 
• Mushy peas - while we were out for dinner he had some mushy minty peas - Ill definitely need to make these and put them on bread for him
• Apple - he ate half a steamed apple in one sitting! 
• Red peppers - I think these were a little too hard for him when raw but when fried a little (with the chicken above) he enjoyed them

Drinking - I give him a sippy cup with water when he's eating which sometimes distracts him and ends up being flung on the floor. After mistakenly buying a sippy cup that leaked I bought this Nuby one last week and he is slowly getting the hang of it although I often find him holding it upside down trying to chew on it! 

First days of Baby Led Weaning

As the little man had been increasingly curious about food over the last few weeks we decided to start him on solids over the weekend. Here's what he has eaten so far and his reactions:

Porridge beard

Day 1

• Steamed broccoli - I may have cooked this too much as it went everywhere, but this could have been down to the stems were not long enough for him to hold too. I'm going to try with sprouting broccoli next to see if that works better. As his very first taste he was intrigued. 
• Steamed carrot - Again I might have gone too far with steaming so it kept breaking in his fingers before he got it to his mouth. Its definitely a big learning experience holding something that breaks! I wasn't sure that he swallowed any of it until I saw his nappy the next day
• Galia Melon - He loved this and cried when we ran out of it. 
• Strawberry - I gave him this in one of these little net things. I'm pretty sure he has my sweet tooth as he was very fond of this

Day 2 

• All the same as day 1 - no real change. 

Day 3 

• Porridge - Ill admit I did spoon feed him this although it was still very messy as his hands kept going into his mouth. 
• Avocado - a little too slippery for him to get into his mouth 
• Steamed sweet potato - He chomped away on this but it spat a lot out too. 

Day 4 

• Porridge - this time I filled the spoon and gave it to him - incredibly messy but he loved playing with it. There's definitely no point dressing your baby before porridge! 
• Banana - lots of smiles, lots of mess

What we have learnt so far: 
Overall so far its been very messy and a little bit scary but I can see that he is learning a lot and enjoying eating immensely. A lot of the food was spat out after being gnawed, often a few minutes after he finished eating which was a great reminder to keep him upright for a while after eating. After a few days of using baby wipes to clean him Ive decided to keep a face cloth in the kitchen to wipe him down. Despite lots of warning from friends the gagging is very unnerving but doesn't seem to bother him at all. There has been no change at all to his milk feeds so far. 

Baby led weaning - what is it and why?

When the littlefoodie was born I had read a lot about the 9 short months of pregnancy and labour but very little about what to do when the baby arrives. This, although crazy, seemed to be very common among the other new moms that I met. Everyone reads what they need to know now and not much further. I definitely wasnt thinking as far ahead as introducing solids, so I was very confused when someone mentioned adding baby rice to milk at about the 8 week mark. Around this time one of the girls I know mentioned Baby Led weaning and it sounded like it made a lot more sense to me than baby rices and purees.

So what is Baby Led Weaning (BLW)? 

In contrast to normal weaning where you introduce food slowly by feeding your baby purees of increasing thickness, with baby led weaning you jump straight to finger foods and focus on the baby feeding themselves.

I have been reading the Baby-led Weaning book by Gill Rapley to find out more and the guidelines are all pretty common sense. Some of the main things Ive learnt from the book

• Wait until the baby is ready - comfortable sitting unaided, reaching for and showing interest in food and at least 6 months old (some people start with rice and purees as early as 4 months)
• Its great for appetite control, nutrition and avoiding food pickiness later in life as you are introducing all textures straight away. 
• Its great for babies fine motor skills as they learn to pick up food and bring it to their mouths
• Its ok for a baby to reject certain foods, but try introducing again in different formats as it can take up to 15 times to get a taste for a food (this is why I didnt like olives until my late twenties!)
• Makes life easier when eating out - baby just eats food from your plate at the same time as you
• Babies still get most of their nutrients from milk in the first year and choose to eat the nutrients they need when offered. 
• Offer a variety of foods but let baby choose what they want to eat - dont force feed
• Avoid sugar and salt - you dont want baby getting a taste for these! 
• Embrace the mess. Apparently its messier but for a shorter amount of time as babies get used to feeding themselves. 

There is a great getting started list here

Im really excited about BLW because of my own love of food. I want the littlefoodie to be able to join in at mealtimes and experience all the joys and textures of food as they should be served and I dont want him to feel left out from what others around him are eating (this will mean less cake in our household!). I know there will be plenty of mess to deal with in the short term, but look forward to the benefits and will document the new foods and recipes I find as we start over the next few weeks.