Baby Led Weaning

Art will be 9 months old on Thursday, who stole the last 3 months?

First taste of jelly

Tonight we had jelly for the first time! He managed it pretty well considering it was very squishy jelly (baby-friendly jelly recipe made with orange juice and gelatine). We also had vegetable casserole with dumplings for tea, first time he’s had dumplings and he really seemed to enjoy them.

Art now picks up food, takes a bite, chews and swallows, then takes another bite. He chooses the correct hand hold for the type of food, so pincer grip for peas (and boy does he love peas!), fistfuls for mash and fingers and thumb for things like toast. The picture on the right shows how he eats a lot of food, he picks it up, then pushes it from the inside of his fist up to the top, so that it pokes out, or pops into his mouth. His eating skills remind us of tribal people we’ve seen in documentaries, where they’re eating with hands, very skilled. Makes you wonder what extra skills we’re giving to our child that he wouldn’t necessarily gain.

He sips from a Doidy Cup by himself, so picks it up with both hands holding the handles, and brings it to his mouth, tipping it up enough to get water, and tipping again at each mouthful.However, once he’s drunk what he needs, he tends to bang it on the table, so we only tend to offer it rather than leave it for him to pick up and put down freely, but he’s getting better.

We continue to put his food on his tray, though it starts off life on a plate or bowl and then gets moved to the tray, so we do often give him the plate or bowl towards the end of a meal. If it’s something like porridge or soup then he has the bowl from the outset.

He continues to amaze us every day, and not a week goes by that we don’t wonder at why this isn’t the norm for introducing solid food to your baby. I really hope it gets into the mainstream more and more, sadly it’s down to health visitors and if our health visitor is anything to go by then that’s not hopeful. She didn’t even know what BLW was. This is the woman giving advice to parents on weaning/introducing solids. Great.

We only get more and more impressed by BLW. At 8 months old, Art will happily eat most things, or at least give them a go. He took a thick Scotch broth directly from the bowl last week, big handfuls of it, and didn’t chuck the bowl around until it was empty! I mean, honestly, eating soup from a bowl by himself at 8 months, that really is impressive.

I’m struggling to think of things he hasn’t eaten to offer him, which is pretty amazing at 8 months old. Oh, the fish pie from the BLW Cookbook was a massive success, we used smoked (undyed) haddock and it really was very tasty.

I always said that I wouldn’t give my child separate meals to us, they will eat what we have or go hungry, none of this making different meals for the family in this house, but I meant when kids are older, not a baby, I never envisaged how successful this was going to be. Love it.

If you’re out there contemplating, stop thinking, just give it a go!

33 Weeks

Although he isn’t a great fan of curried food as such, intense flavours and highly spiced foods are just fine, such as cumin and coriander, fresh ginger and garlic, and even my panch phoran mix seems to go down just fine (recipe to be added).

Last night we had a fennel, mushroom, wild garlic and pea risotto, all of which was tasted (some of which ended up on the floor). Art’s pincer grip is getting much better and peas are much more exciting now, especially when they go whizzing across your tray )

Tonight we had spaghetti and meatballs with a tomato sauce of tomato, carrot and celery. The first thing to go to Art’s mouth was the spaghetti! He got some in then sucked it up, very funny to watch.

Followed by a banana, most of which he ate!

Yesterday was very impressive, he ate just short of a whole Weetabix, along with fruit. He really is full of beans, and also teething!

Tonight we all had a pork stir-fry, and Art ate noodles for the first time! We haven’t offered them for over a week, but previously he wouldn’t even put them to his mouth. Tonight, they went in in fistfuls and chewed. The funniest thing is that he put them in, then sucked up the bits that were dangling out, just like his Daddy.