Baby Led Weaning
Yesterday was Freyja's 6 month birthday and, as I'd decided to wait until 6 months to wean her, time to start on solids. A lot of people I know have already started on solids but I'm with the whole 'wean them at 6 months' thinking so she has been exclusively breastfed up to this point (apart from a sip of pina colada my mother gave her when we were in Dubai...) We have decided to go down the Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) route which basically means letting Freyja take the lead and feed herself - no force feeding with spoons!
I chickened out of the whole finger foods things yesterday and gave her some mashed broccoli and mashed carrot. She played around with both of them and put some in her mouth though I'm pretty sure she didn't swallow any of it (but then neither did she recoil at the taste of well-steamed broccoli either!) Today, she had sticks of melon, which she managed to suck and chew in between them shooting out of her grasp in comedy, slimy fashion (I don't think any was swallowed again). Interestingly, when I blended what was left and tried to spoon feed her, she wasn't as interested and gagged a bit on what she took. At lunch time I gave her a rice cake to chomp on.
It seems strange that she hasn't actually eaten anything yet and I have to keep reminding myself that at this stage it is not about calories and nutrition (which is still provided by my breast milk) but about exploring tastes and textures. The fact that she is waking up so much at night makes it very tempting to just try and fill her up with baby rice and carrots in the hope she will sleep through, but in actual fact breast milk is fattier and higher in calories than baby rice/carrots etc so solids are no guarantee of a full night's sleep. We'll see how it goes over the next few weeks and decide whether to stick with this approach once we have more of an idea of how well Freyja responds to it.
In other news, we've had loads of deliveries from Ebay. Freyja's Tippitoes door bouncer (thumbs-up - she had a little go this afternoon, never her best time of day, and seemed quite happy in it), Tomy Dreamshow (she was asleep as soon as I laid her down so haven't tried it yet - it's more for those 4.30am wide-awake times.), her 2 doidy cups and her first reusable nappy, a Clwt Twt, from Ebay. It is gigantic.
I chickened out of the whole finger foods things yesterday and gave her some mashed broccoli and mashed carrot. She played around with both of them and put some in her mouth though I'm pretty sure she didn't swallow any of it (but then neither did she recoil at the taste of well-steamed broccoli either!) Today, she had sticks of melon, which she managed to suck and chew in between them shooting out of her grasp in comedy, slimy fashion (I don't think any was swallowed again). Interestingly, when I blended what was left and tried to spoon feed her, she wasn't as interested and gagged a bit on what she took. At lunch time I gave her a rice cake to chomp on.
It seems strange that she hasn't actually eaten anything yet and I have to keep reminding myself that at this stage it is not about calories and nutrition (which is still provided by my breast milk) but about exploring tastes and textures. The fact that she is waking up so much at night makes it very tempting to just try and fill her up with baby rice and carrots in the hope she will sleep through, but in actual fact breast milk is fattier and higher in calories than baby rice/carrots etc so solids are no guarantee of a full night's sleep. We'll see how it goes over the next few weeks and decide whether to stick with this approach once we have more of an idea of how well Freyja responds to it.
In other news, we've had loads of deliveries from Ebay. Freyja's Tippitoes door bouncer (thumbs-up - she had a little go this afternoon, never her best time of day, and seemed quite happy in it), Tomy Dreamshow (she was asleep as soon as I laid her down so haven't tried it yet - it's more for those 4.30am wide-awake times.), her 2 doidy cups and her first reusable nappy, a Clwt Twt, from Ebay. It is gigantic.
posted by solveig at
7:53 am
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