Wednesday 25 April 2012

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





Tuesday 17 April 2012

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

Monday 16 April 2012

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.

Friday 13 April 2012

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.



Thursday 12 April 2012

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



Wednesday 11 April 2012

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

Getting started advice part 1

This is what I do, obviously there are other ways.

I give milk feeds on demand and food meals at my normal meal times.  The exception for this is her dinner which I give after a milk feed at 6 because we eat dinner after she has gone to bed.

If Baby M is hungry at a meal time I give her a milk feed before food.  This helps prevent her getting frustrated and allows her to spend more time exploring the food

She has her main meal at lunchtime with a lighter meal before bed.  I was advised to do this by another mum who found too big a meal in the evening affected her child's sleep.


How to Baby Led Wean

Make sure your baby is ready
Most babies will not be ready until they are 6 months.  They are probably ready if they can:

  • sit up more or less independently
  • pick up food sized items accurately and put them to their mouth
  • move food to the back of their mouth ie they have lost the tongue thrust reflex that prevents choking in young babies
If you have a history of allergies in your family or your baby was premature or has a medical condition seek medical advice before starting.

Relax and go at baby's pace.
From 6 months to a year old milk is still your baby's main nutrition (boob or bottle).  When you are having a meal offer baby some of the food (assuming it is low in salt and sugar). I recommend putting the food on the table or tray in front of them; plates are just something else to try and eat. It doesn't matter if they ignore it, squish it, suck it or throw it on the floor: it's all part of the process.  To make it easier for your baby make first foods stick shaped so they can hold them in their hand with a bit sticking out they can eat.

Prepare for mess.
Eating at the beginning is about exploration and this will get messy.  During the meal let your baby make mess and only tidy up when they are finished.  The easier it is to clean your baby, the chair and the floor the more you will enjoy the BLW process. I use the Ikea Antilop chair and tray which is super easy to wipe clean.  I also put Baby M in old clothes, fabric bibs and place old cot sheets on the floor under the chair.  After a messy meal I stick these to soak in a bucket with Napisan. After putting them in the washing machine and drying in sunlight all but the toughest stains (like tomato and banana) are removed.

Enjoy
Weaning should be fun for everyone



Why Blog?

I know there are thousands of blogs out there about Baby Led Weaning.  So why one more?  Mainly I wanted to record my baby's journey.  I also think that despite all the info out there people want to know more.  My most popular blog post in my main blog (The Secret Life of Kate) is an article about starting BLW.

Since Baby M was about 3 months old I would get asked questions about weaning. Normally: when are you going to try her on baby rice/ porridge etc.  I knew from quite early on I wanted to do Baby Led Weaning so I held out until I knew Baby M was ready.

Babies all take to food at different speeds.  Some show no interest until they are 8 or 9 months old, Baby M wanted my food from about 3 months.  Finally at 5 1/2 months she started throwing tantrums if I took away the food she had stolen off my plate and put in her mouth.  This more than anything else was what persuaded me that she was ready.  From her first meal she was able to swallow some food (as I discovered when I saw her dirty nappy), but not all babies take to it so quickly.

Through this blog I want to record my babies journey and answer some of the most common questions like: "aren't you worried she'll choke?" and "How do you start?"

BUT

I am not an expert, I have no qualifications or training in nutrition.  My knowledge comes from reading Gill Rapley & Tracey Murkett's books (Baby Led Weaning and The Baby Led Weaning Cookbook), observing my baby, and talking to other mums.
Warning: tomato sauce stains EVERYTHING