that's not milk
When the time came to introduce solids Laura Dobson, mum to Sophie (18 months) decided to skip the puree but not the mess
Parenthood
In early November 2013 I was attending an NCT Post Natal course and our last session covered the topic of weaning. Annabelle was only 3 months old at the time and well established on the milk front so introducing food seemed a long way off and hadn’t yet crossed my mind. We watched an amazing video on the topic of Baby Led Weaning and I specifically remember seeing a baby about 9 months old taking bites out of an apple… incredible I thought and I was sold on the concept of ‘Baby Led Weaning’.
I was recommended the book Baby-led Weaning: helping your baby to love good food by Gill Rapley and I devoured it cover to cover. I really liked the notion of eating together as a family at meals to introduce the social aspect of eating and for Annabelle to be able to explore and play with food as much as eat it in
order to help her build a healthy relationship with food for the future.
In essence, the concept is about letting your little one feed themselves, explore tastes and textures and to launch into ‘finger food’ from the start in order that they learn the skills of chewing.
Waiting to start introducing food I encountered the dreaded 4 month sleep regression and what seemed like a huge increase in appetite….how could someone so small take so much on board?!! I received quite a bit of advice to start Annabelle on baby rice/puree at this point to help her sleep through the night. Instead, I increased her milk intake during the day and luckily it passed in a couple of weeks.
At 5 months Annabelle was starting to sit up and could easily bring things to her mouth, on Boxing Day she swiped a carrot from my plate and the next day ate some banana (a shock to see the evidence of that in her nappy! Who knew it would look like that?!!) And so the adventure began.
I invested in a high chair with a tray, as our dining table is a little too precious for a ton of food to be rubbed into it, and one of my best purchases was a cheap shower curtain to catch spillages and protect the floor as well as long sleeved bibs and huge tubs of vanish!!
“The key difference between BLW and traditional weaning, when you think about it, is in the order that children learn to eat. With a puree, they learn to swallow first and then chew, which works fine until they meet a lump. With BLW, the babies learn to chew first and swallowing might come some time later.” **
** http://www.babyledweaning.com/some-tips-to-get-you-started/