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).