BLW or Baby Led Weaning

We have been doing BLW or Baby Led Weaning for the bast 10 days here in the Bell household. Basically BLW encompasses skipping purees and baby cereals altogether and instead only feeding your child finger foods. One of the advantages of BLW is that babies are able to play with their food and learn about the different textures and shapes. Another advantage is that it makes meal time a fun, learning experience rather than a stressful one. One last benefit from BLW (there are many others) is that it puts the child in charge of what, when and how much he or she eats. The thought is that helps reinforce to the child to trust his/her hunger cues and with the obesity epidemic that we have in this country I would say that is a great thing.

We gave Matthew his first taste of solids on the 17th and as you have seen from our previous post, avocado was not a big hit. (We still haven't tried avocado again as I needed to buy some more. I am thinking that today we might reintroduce it to him at lunch time as I bought an avocado last night). Matthew's next solid food was bananas. Originally I had planned on offering him another type of food but he saw me eating my banana and was very interested. In fact, he kept on trying to eat the peel. So Cass and I put him in his high chair and let him have a go with the bananas. They were a huge success. The last food that we have since tried was sweet potatoes. While Matthew enjoyed them more than the avocado, he was definitely more intrigued with my spoon and with his bowl than actually eating the sweet potatoes.

Here is a video of Matthew enjoying his bananas:



Here is Matthew inspecting his sweet potatoes:



And here he is enjoying my spoon:

Matthew's 1/2 Birthday

Matthew started off his half birthday by kicking off his six month growth spurt. It has hit both him and myself with a vengeance. He spent most of the night waking up to eat and as a result neither one of us got much sleep. We then went to the pediatricians for our 7:00 am appointment, where Matthew was weighed and measured as well as given a clean bill of health. He is 15 pounds 12 ounces (20th percentile), 28 1/4 inches (96th percentile) and his head circumference is 43 cm (74th percentile). We then spent the rest of the day at the house, where the sleep portion of the growth spurt did not occur until late in the afternoon and Matthew insisted that I join him. (He really did every time I got up to leave he would open his eyes. Once he saw that I was there he would close them and go back to sleep). When Matthew woke up, we spent time together as a family. Cass and I decided that we couldn't wait until the weekend and so we decided to give him his first taste of solids. Well Matthew let us know loud and clear that he does not like avocado. I will post some pictures and another video clip later but for right now please enjoy this one.

6 months already?

It has been way too long since my last post and for that I must apologize. It seems that it has just been one thing after another - nothing bad just things and events that leave one very tired. By the end of the day I have just been wiped out and so the thought of getting up to update the blog just wasn't very appealing. I did update the blog several times while I was trying to fall asleep if that counts for anything.

Well today Matthew turned six months old. It is hard to believe that a half a year has already passed since he was born. One piece of wisdom that has been oft repeated to both myself and Cass is "not to blink" that "it goes by so quickly" and I must say that is definitely the case. Six months has never before in my life passed by and left me wondering where the time went. As it is late I will spare the sentimental anecdotes but just know that I often look at Matthew's tiny hands and think that he will one day too soon not have tiny little appendages any more. I think the same thing when he falls asleep in my arms that one day he will be too big to do that or too big to even want to fall asleep there. It makes me want to cherish the time that I have with him even more but it is difficult as I also feel the "present" calling, telling me to unload the dish washer, do another load of laundry and not just sit there staring at my son. It makes me reflect and realize that being a parent is like being a trapeze artist in that both professions make you walk a fine line between basking in the moment and recognizing reality.