Week 5 of BLW: skills starting to develop

Week 5 meals included:
A mini slice of pizza.  Baby M liked this, and if she hadn't I would have stolen it off her.  It was yummy

Pitta bread and houmous. Baby M copied me dipping the pitta into the houmous and I was incredibly impressed, but she only did it the once.  She then decided to just pick the houmous up with her hands as it was more fun.  She was a big fan of the houmous which was shop bought, but I will look at making some myself in the future.

Banana.  The banana was rather soft and I was amazed at how much mess it made.  I think she ate quite a lot, but there was a thin layer of banana EVERY WHERE.  As I know that banana stains I made sure Baby M was well covered up in a long sleeve bib and that any clothes covered were put straight in to a Napisan solution to soak.

Homemade fishcakes.  These were my own recipe.  I basically mixed some mashed potato with chopped steamed leeks, some tinned tuna, lemon zest and a little bit of lemon juice.  I shaped them into little burger shapes and covered them in breadcrumbs (the breadcrumbs were made from left over homemade bread whizzed up with our Bamix handheld blender).  I fried the fishcakes in a small amount of oil.  In total I made about about 12 fishcakes and after Baby M, her Dad and I had eaten what we wanted I froze the rest (uncooked).

I think they were a hit

Noodles with tomato and vegetables.  Onion, pepper and courgette were stir fried with straight to wok noodles and tomato puree was stirred through.  I'm not sure how much she ate and how much was spread around everywhere.

Meatballs with penne and tomato sauce. The meatballs were fresh beef ones from the supermarket with a home made tomato sauce.  The meatballs were definitely a bigger hit than the penne.

Skills development

The amount of food Baby M ate continued to increase this week and I have started to get better at identifying what food makes a big mess and what doesn't.  Baby M's ability to pick up food has improved and she started picking up food that she had dropped down the side of her chair for the first time this week.

The importance of eating together

With baby led weaning it is recommended that you eat the same food as your baby and at the same time.  Sometimes I do this and sometimes I don't, it depends on if I'm craving naughty food or not.  This week I saw for myself one of the reasons why you should eat together: copying and learning how to eat.

I saw this for the first time when she copied how I dipped the pitta in the houmous. I saw it again when she was eating a bit of apple.  I was eating the core so I was eating it sideways.  She looked at how I was eating mine and turned hers round to copy.  Finally I noticed that she kept on taking food up to her mouth and down again without actually putting it in her mouth.  After she did it a few times I realised she was copying how I lift food  up to my mouth (although I actually eat it).

Week 4

Meals in week 4 included:

Cow & Gate Sunny Start wheaty biscuits.  These are like weetabix but slightly smaller and lower in sugar.  I added a small amount of expressed breastmilk: enough that it was all wet, but not so much that it was just mush.  She didn't eat much but she enjoyed playing with it.

Fruit including blueberries.  I've read that babies often love blueberries and will quite happily eat the entire packet if allowed.  They are also great to see how the pincer grip is doing (being able to pick things up between one finger and thumb).  Well Baby M wasn't that interested in the blueberries and her pincer grip still isn't very developed.  Maybe I'll leave it a month or so before trying again

Gnocchi with bolognese.  Baby M loved this.  She found the gnocchi easy to pick up and eat and what mince made it to her mouth and not spread around the high chair was enjoyed.  Possibly due to it being rich tasting?

Oops I'm a bit behind

Over the next couple of weeks I'm determined to catch up with this blog.  In short though it is all going well.  There continues to be lots of mess, no fussiness and lots of fun

The difference between Baby Led Weaning and Finger Foods

I read a forum post where someone was venting their frustration about when people say they are baby led weaning when really they have just introduced finger foods.  It was an interesting thread and it made me think.  I suspect I have used the words interchangeably on occasions, but I think they were right.

Baby led weaning in it's purest form is a philosophy.  It is an overall approach to how you are going to start giving your baby solid food.

Finger foods are a type of food: food that is easy for babies (or anyone) to pick up with their fingers.

In "traditional" weaning you start feeding your baby purees, move on to thicker mush and also offer finger foods. With the purée and mush the adult feeds the child. When they are offered finger food they feed themselves, but parents will normally still spoon feed them as part of some or all meal times.

With BLW the baby is offered food. It is up to the baby if they eat it or not and how much they have. There is a confidence that before 1 "food is for fun" and that the baby will get used to food in their own time. It is a very laid back approach that doesn't worry about quantities eaten because milk continues to be the main source of nutrition.

The forum post also said that you can't move from "traditional weaning" to baby led weaning. They argue that if you started weaning by spoon feeding and then go on to letting them feed themselves (with finger foods) that is just the normal progression of weaning. In the purest form of BLW this is right, but I would argue that you could move from one approach to the other. If you started feeding your baby with a spoon that is always how you will have started the weaning process; how you introduced them to solid food, but it should be possible to stop this approach and start again with baby led weaning.

From what I have witnessed in friends it is very hard to change to the BLW approach. When spoon feeding parents control what goes into the babies mouth and quite a large amount of food can be consumed early on. To move to baby led weaning requires acceptance that in the short term very little food will be consumed. While i'm sure some parents can go from spoon feeding to just sitting back at EVERY meal most mum's I have seen have moved to a combined approach of spoon feeding at some meals and self feeding at others. This is not baby led weaning.

I have never spoon fed my baby any thing other than calpol. Yes there are times I find it frustrating how slowly she's eating, how much she's dropping on the floor and how much she's smearing over everything. Yes at times it would be faster and cleaner to put her food in her mouth for her. But Baby Led Weaning lets the baby lead. All the time.

There is nothing wrong with using both spoon feeding and finger foods. I would encourage all parents to allow their child to feed themselves as often as possible as soon as they are able to, but that is "traditional"or "normal" weaning. Baby led weaning is an all or nothing approach.

Through out this post I put the term "traditional" in inverted commas because while spoon fooding is the most commonly used weaning approach currently, and it has been for some time I would argue that it isn't traditional  and was introduced in the 20th century.  I have used the term to help distinguish between the 2 approaches to weaning.

Breastmilk Ice lollies: great for teething and hot days

Following a suggestion by someone on facebook I made ice lollies from expressed milk.  As the weather was hot in week 3 I thought it was a great way to cool Baby M down and to get her to have more milk.  They will be brilliant when she starts teething as well.  She loved them and after I handed her the first one she quickly demolished it.

I bought Annabel Karmel lolly moulds which come in a pack of 4 (£4.99 on Amazon).  These moulds are easy for little fingers to hold and make brilliantly manageable sized lollies.  I just poured expressed milk into the moulds and left them to set.

Week 3: much of the same and drinking from cups

Week 3 was pretty much the same as week 2: similar foods, similar mess.  The only changes were I tried introducing drinking from a cup and some self feeding with a spoon.

Why introduce a cup?

Baby M is breastfed and at 6 months I may as well get her used to drinking out of cup than a bottle for milk when we aren't together.  Lots of parents have reported that if they introduced a cup with water their baby wouldn't later take milk from it (and vice versa). I think it's more important for Baby M to learn to drink milk than water so I put expressed milk in the cups. 

Many people introduce water at meal times when starting solids.  This isn't necessary while she is so young and I want to ensure Baby M continues to get as much breastmilk as possible.  This is a personal preference.

The Cups

I gave Baby M expressed milk in a few cups: a nuby sippy cup, a tommee tippee sippy cup and a doidy cup.  She managed to drink with varying success, but I needed to hold the bottom of the cups to help her drink.  

The Nuby "Grip N Sip" is non spill so Baby M could throw it around without making a mess.  To get liquid out the silicone mouth piece needs to be squeezed and the cup tipped up.  The first part Baby M managed without any problems.  The second not so much so I had to tip the cup up for her.

The Tommee Tippee First sips cup is also non spill and it requires the baby to suck to get the liquid out.  I've heard that sucking is meant to be easy, but Baby M struggled to get any liquid out.

The Doidy Cup from Bickiepegs is like drinking out of a normal cup except it doesn't need to be tipped up so far.  Baby M took a little while to get used to sipping (orginally she was lapping like a cat).  I wasn't brave enough to let her hold it herself until it was practically empty.  And then she turned it straight upside down.

The spoon

I gave Baby M curry mixed with rice. The curry rice made it easy to pick up in handfuls, but I thought I would load some on to a spoon and give her the spoon and see what happened.  Impressively she put the spoon in her mouth.  The right end of the spoon!  She then took it out of her mouth and put her other hand in the bowl and straight to her mouth.  She continued holding the spoon for a while longer, but showed no interest in using it as a tool for feeding herself.

Curry: my other half made the recipe so I don't have the recipe but it contained chick peas, vegetables and beef.

A strip of ham

Scotch pancakes for breakfast

Eating the back of the chair

Curry off a spoon isn't as good as...

Curry with your hands

Tommee Tippee First Sips cup and roast dinner

Eating steamed peppers and courgettes

After Baby M had finished with the veg

A breadstick

Nuby Sip N Grip- fortunately it's non spill

Eating a doidy cup

Week 2: getting more adventurous

For breakfast this week I gave Baby M the exciting tastes of eggy bread (just bread and egg, lightly fried), banana, clementine and porridge.  The porridge was made with organic jumbo oats and water (more about this in the post Baby Meets Porridge).

The biggest surprise was the banana: as it was perfectly ripe it mushed and was easy to eat, and smear absolutely everywhere.  Oh and in case you didn't know banana stains:  a lovely brown stain.  

As Baby M still isn't actually swallowing all that much I shared a couple of "naughty" meals.  Naughty meal 1 was a taste of junk food: an ikea meatball and a bit of hot dog and roll.  She was no more interested in these than healthier food I had given to her previously.  I know junk, processed food isn't great for anyone, but I balanced out the salt for the rest of the day and very occasional bad food hopefully wont do any of us any harm.

Naughty meal 2 was a cream cheese bagel with some smoked salmon.  Smoked salmon is high in salt so again not something little people should eat regularly.  There's nothing wrong with some bagel and cream cheese though.

Eggy bread for breakfast

A little taste of junk food (a one off)

Roast parnip and sweet potato

Banana.  Surprisingly messier than porridge

Bagel, cream cheese and a tiny bit of smoked salmon

First go with a bowl.  Suction didn't work too well

Porridge.  Went down well until she turned the bowl upside down over the edge

A new day, a new bowl.  This one stayed suck

Baby meets porridge

A lot of people start their baby's path to solids with baby porridge so as Baby M had been 'eating' for a week I thought maybe should try some. The BLW way of course.

I used one measure of porridge to 2 of water (you can use milk, but I'm trying to limit how much dairy Baby M has). I stirred in a pan for a few minutes and had a rather thick porridge.

I put some of the porridge in a Mam suction bowl (which I got from the Baby Show) and put it in the fridge to cool down. I then added some sneaky sugar to what was left in the pan and put it in a bowl for me.

When cool enough I put the bowl on her high chair tray and let Baby M dig in.

Baby M didn't seem too bothered either way with her first experience of using a bowl or porridge. She was a bit tired from a restless night do she didn't stick with it for very long.

I'm thinking next I might try porridge fingers. A bit less messy and a bit easier to get into her mouth.

Using a bowl

Sometimes I don't want to put food straight onto the tray.  So far I have used 2 bowls with Baby M, they both use suction to keep the bowl on the table (in the aim to prevent them being used as a hat or having the food emptied out).  Here are my thoughts on them:

The Mam bowl
I love that it has a lid so it is great for travel and leftovers.  On the downside I found that it had a tendency to come unstuck most of the time (except for once when it got stuck down really well).  The rubber suction bit comes off the main bowl though so if baby yanks hard enough and the suction bit stayed stuck the bowl would come up.
I got this bowl from the Baby Show, but it costs £5.99 full price to buy.

The Boon bowl

I like this bowl a lot.  It sticks down well. I love the design and the bright colours.  It has a rubber "catch" designed to funnel food dropped by the baby on the way to their mouth and direct it back into the bowl.  The downside are that the funnel is made from the rubber which gets stained easily and Baby M managed to use it to (accidentally) propel food across the room.  I suspect with a little time and practice this catapult could make meal times even messier.

I received this bowl for free with an order from Just Another Baby? and at £7.99 to purchase they aren't cheap, but I'll definitely be interested in buying a Catch plate when they go on sale.

Baby Led Weaning: it's *ahem* no choke

One of the questions I have been asked most is "aren't you worried she'll choke?".  So for the 50th time "No I'm not", at least not to the point that I need to intervene.

Watching Baby M eat over the last month I have been really impressed with the human body and just how well it is designed to eat.  Shocking I know but it looks like a baby really can feed themselves and we didn't evolve with the need to be spoon fed.

I was confident from the outset that Baby M wouldn't suffocate due to the advice in Gill Rapley's Baby Led Weaning book and I had my first aid training as back up.  I'm happy to say I've never had to intervene.  Yes she bites off too big a chunk at times and yes she has gagged, coughed and even vomited to remove the offending item, but she hasn't been in the least distressed by this so neither have I.  In fact as soon as she has removed the over sized piece she has continued stuffing the food in her mouth.  In the first week Baby M would gag at most meals, but it got less and less and now after a month she rarely does.

In the Baby Led Weaning book it says that at around 6 months a babies gag reflex is further forward than in older babies.  This means babies who are allowed to feed themselves around 6-8 months can safely learn how far back to put food in their mouth without any real risk of suffocation (I would include the page reference, but I returned the book to the library).

To ensure safety I would recommend:

• Always feed your baby sitting up, ideally secured in a high chair, and not reclining backwards.
• Never leave your baby to eat unattended
• Use some caution about what you offer your baby to eat in the early days eg whole grapes and peanuts are more likely to be a choking hazard
• Go on a baby first aid course if it makes you feel more confident. Hopefully you will never need any of the skills you learn, and I suspect you wont when your baby is sitting in their highchair, but you might at another time.  There are even some free courses that cover the basics eg the British Red Cross normally give a short demo at the Baby Show

First Roast Dinner

How else should you finish your first week of food, but with a roast dinner?

Roast pork, roast potatoes and steamed cabbage.

A selection of foods from Week 1

To start with I gave Baby M quite simple foods to see how she would handle them: fruit, sweet potato, toast and egg. Some meals I gave her just one thing, other meals a selection. The first meal I gave her something she seemed to enjoy it, but when I gave her the same thing at another meal she didn't always seem interested.

On two occasions Baby M seemed to be in pain several hours after eating: after the kiwi and the strawberry.  I avoided giving her these foods again for a week or 2 (she had no problems when I reintroduced them).

I gave her 3 meals a day from the beginning and continued to breastfeed on demand. After a couple of days she seemed to drop feeds during the day and spend a lot of time feeding at night, obviously this wasn't ideal for either of us to get sleep so I dropped a couple of meals for a few days to up her milk feeds. When I reintroduced the 3 meals she took most of her milk feeds during the day as normal.  

Kiwi

Toast

Toast fingers and a quarter of a hard boiled egg

Roast sweet potato 1

Roast sweet potato 2

Apple

Strawberry: Before and After

Omelette, cut into strips: better worn than eaten