Baby Led Weaning Resources

Here are some resources for finding out more information concerning Baby Led Weaning:

1. Does Baby Know Best?

2. Guidelines for Implementing a Baby-led Approach to the Introduction of Solid Food

3. Baby Led Weaning (wholesome baby food)

4. Blog: Baby Led Solids

5. Blog: My Baby Led Weaning Experiences

6. Blog: Baby Led Weaning

7. Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food By: Gill Rapley

First Dinner

So far Matthew has had and sometimes enjoyed, avocado, bananas, sweet potato, carrots, butternut squash, applesauce, pears and apples. (Although I must add, that he pretty much just had juice and not very much of the actual fruit for the latter two). He really has developed an appreciation for feeling the different food textures and when he is able to he likes to squish the different foods through his fingers.

This evening was the first night that we were able to all eat dinner together as a family. Up until this point Cass and I will usually put Matthew to bed and then we will eat. (When Matthew was still a newborn, we used to eat dinner in front of him but then it got to the point that he would want to eat or go to sleep right when it was time for me to eat. As this wasn't really working for me we just moved our dinner time later).

I was really excited tonight for us to be able to eat dinner together as a family. Cass admitted that he was a bit nervous about letting Matthew have spaghetti but I reassured him that everything would be fine and even offered to show him pictures of children Matthew's age eating it. While he didn't take me up on my offer to see the pictures, he did give his consent and so pasta night it was! According to Gil Rapley's book, Baby-led Weaning, you should offer pasta both with and without sauce. Gil also states that babies should not have any commercial pasta sauce due to the sodium content and instead recommends using mashed up vegetables. With this in mind I made Matthew some spaghetti with carrot puree as a sauce. He started off his meal by truly embracing his dinner, as he dumped about half of the spaghetti in his lap. He then proceeded to play with his food, which he found much more enjoyable than the taste of his whole wheat pasta and carrot sauce. He did seem to have a bit of preference for the plain pasta that we served him next but at that point it was difficult to tell as carrot was everywhere. (A trick that Rapley shares in her book is to put the baby's bowls or plate in the freezer while you cook dinner. This way when the meal is ready it will cool the food down a lot faster so that the baby can eat with his/her parents and the parents can enjoy their meal nice and hot).

After playing for a few minutes with his dinner, Matthew started to get a little fussy as he was tired and so I tried to appease him by giving him the outer edge of my garlic bread. (I wanted to give him the edge so that he would have only be eating the bread and not the garlic). After picking it up however, he decided that it wasn't anything that he wanted to try. I then thought that we should offer him some banana because at the very least even if he didn't want to eat any he could still have fun mashing it between his fingers. Well the banana was a success! Not only did Matthew have a great time feeling the texture of the banana, but he also enjoyed feeding himself the banana and both Cass and I were able to finish eating our meal. This evening he did put some rather large bites of banana in his mouth, but just like Rapley's book foretold the pieces fell right out. As soon as we were finished, we took a mess assessment and decided that a quick bath would be the easiest and quickest cleanup. Tomorrow night I am hoping that Cass will okay for us to all eat dinner together as a family again. If so, we will be having buffalo burgers.

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures to share as I could not find my camera and Matthew was tired. We did film a brief video, which I will upload later.

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.

Three Months Old

It is hard to believe that Matthew is already three months old. He has really amazed both Cass and I with how much he has grown. Physically he has grown two inches in the past month and over two pounds. (We don't know exactly how much he weighs as he would not stay still when we went to get him weighed last Monday and so the scale never locked in place. The figure was hovering around 13 pounds 10 ounces). Matthew continues to love being outdoors and taking in all the sights. Indoors he really enjoys looking at lights and trying to "steal" glances of the television. Recently he has started doing the doggy paddle in the bathtub and is really proud of his accomplishment. He still loves music and enjoys kicking his legs in his crib. Recently at night he has started sleeping in bed with his mommy, which has resulted in better sleep for both of them. We are looking forward to the holidays and can't wait for Matthew to meet some more of his relatives at Thanksgiving. We will update soon with some holiday pictures. (Mommy is having a very hard time finding him a holiday suit but so far has found two other very cute outfits).

Here is a video from Friday night highlighting Matthew's love for stories:

Happy November!

Matthew has been growing by leaps and bounds. It is hard to believe that in just three days he will be 3 months old. He now weighs almost 14 pounds and I am curious to see how long he is, which Cass and I will find out on his mirthday (month + birthday = mirthday). He is now talking up a storm and has even started shrieking. Matthew also just started laughing and last Saturday was the first time that he laughed while awake. Daddy was playing with him and he laughed right back at Cass. Matthew has also been grabbing and playing with things though not as much development there as with his talking. He rolled over from his tummy to front on the 25th of October but hasn't done it much since then. He also LOVES to stare at lights and does so quite a bit. He has been trying to sit up on his own and gets extremely frustrated when he is unable to do so. Matthew and I flew down to Texas from October 20th until the 24th and we had a great time. Matthew behaved wonderfully on the plane and even received a few compliments. Matthew has also spent some quality time with Granddad, grandmama and grandpa/popop. Sorry to keep this short but Matthew has not been sleeping for very long without me recently and so I need to catch up on some much needed sleep. Please enjoy the pictures and video.

Talking up a storm: