Baby Food

So, my flower baby quickly decided we would be using Baby Led Weaning (BLW). The term comes from Britain where the word wean has a slightly different meaning than here in the US. They use wean to mean the addition of table foods to supplement/replace breastmilk or formula whereas we usually us wean to mean the ending of breastfeeding.

It's the easiest concept  in the world. Give babies real food. Set it out and let them play, chew, smear, or swallow it. No purees and no spoon feeding.

I was wary but interested and had read about it during pregnancy. Babies will gag as they learn to chew and eat. It's scary to see and makes you wish you were using a jar of 'safe and easy' baby food.

I started feeding food at six months. I tried a bit of everything. She ate puree off a spoon for a couple days then stopped. She couldn't pick up the teeny tiny pieces I offered on her high chair tray. I thought I was stuck but I decided to do the scariest thing. I gave her big chunks of food, a whole spear of broccoli and a quarter of an apple. She was in heaven. She can hold it and control it and gnaw off whatever she wants. She is empowered at the table and I can already tell she's motivated to do things herself.

Tonight, at seven months and just one month into eating food, she ate eggs cooked with shredded carrot, corn tortilla, and avocado. Everything was cut into fingers or little nuggets. She will shove egg in as fast as she can grab it and eats almost a whole egg. It's amazing to see her pick up smaller and smaller bits. She'll have her pincher grip soon and be able to eat very  small pieces all alone. She will try more and more foods like red meat, diary, nuts, seafood.

The recommendation is changing on when to introduce allergic foods. They recommend earlier introduction and I was told to try things whenever I felt comfortable. I still won't be feeding her peanut butter anytime soon but it's neat to know I can try beef or blueberries or yogurt soon.

So all my plans of making her baby food are coming true but in a different way than I imagined. No airplane spoons at out house.