Baby Led Weaning - how it has worked for me

If you have read my old posts you will know that when I weaned Freyja onto solids I decided to go down the baby-led weaning route (BLW). This involves letting your baby take the lead and eat as much (or as little...) as they want, by themselves - i.e. with their hands. You don't purée or mash their food for them but provide them with soft finger foods which you do your absolute very best to resist helping them get into their mouths. There is not a massive amount of information around about it, though as more people start following it, it is easier to find out what you need to know. Useful links that I have found, for anyone who may be interested, are the Gill Rapley Guidelines, this Baby-Led Weaning Blog and, my most recent find which has prompted me to write this post, this My Baby Led Weaning Experiences Blog.

I admit that there were the odd occasions when I panicked that she wasn't eating enough and tried to 'encourage' her to take a little more - usually with very little success and a lot of tears. On the whole though, I have followed the BLW approach, letting her feed herself the majority of the meals that she has. However, in the early days, if I was out and about with my mum friends when I needed to feed her I would quite often go with the traditional approach and spoon feed something alongside her finger foods, because I felt a little bit awkward about explaining the way I had chosen to wean her. Next time, I will trust this method more as I have found it to be very effective.

I have never puréed or mashed anything for Freyja, apart from the very first meal she had when I chickened out of the whole finger foods thing and presented her with a plate of mashed broccoli and carrots to play around with. For the first month she lived on steamed broccoli florets , rice cakes, cubes of pear (and sometimes whole ones) and cubes of avocado, with the odd taste of other things here and there.

She very quickly got the hang of getting the food into her mouth. I had no problems moving her onto the sort of food that we eat for dinner and she was eating stews, pasta dishes and risottos by the time she was 8 months old. I did sometimes give her the more messy foods by spoon - spaghetti bolognaise, that sort of thing - although even this I would often just leave her to dive into!

There were many times in the early days when I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I found it hard to overcome my concerns about her choking, even though I trusted the reasoning behind why she wouldn't choke (in fact she has only ever 'gagged' occasionally and I can count the number of times on one hand). I was extremely careful not to let her have food that was too hard or too difficult to chew and I am still quite paranoid about it now - after all, even an adult can choke. I will cut up her food if I think it is a choking risk. I also found comparing the amount she was eating to other babies being weaned in the more traditional approach quite disconcerting. Often, we would go out and they would all wolf down a bowl of baby food while Freyja ate a rice cake and maybe a chip or two. This was one of the main reasons that I sometimes ended up spoon feeding when I was out with friends; I felt very conscious about how I would be perceived thinking it was okay to have my daughter survive on half a rice cake for lunch. Again, next time I will not be so worried about what others think.

I can't actually remember when it happened but certainly by 9 months, when we went on holiday to France, she had 'got it' and was pretty much eating her meals with us and, in general, happily taking the same foods as we were eating. Here she is eating dinner at about 9 and half months:




Now, at 14 months, Freyja is very self-sufficient when it comes to feeding herself (and has been for quite some time). Again, for the odd 'messy' meal I do spoon feed her but on the whole it is put on her tray and she shovels it in herself. I have introduced the spoon - she's actually been capable of getting a loaded spoon into her mouth almost from the outset - but I need to be better at encouraging her to use it. She loves doing it but, as I still need to load the spoon for her at this stage, it's so much quicker when she uses her hands and I can leave her to it. This is her using a spoon:




I don't want this to sound like some big old brag about how well I have weaned my baby, because I haven't. There have been ups and downs, successes and failures; the same as with any approach to the challenges of first-time motherhood (and very possibly 2nd and 3rd time too...) but I just wanted to take some time to outline my experience of the approach I chose to follow. I've had many weeks when she has thrown everything I've offered her on to the floor and has hardly eaten a thing and with that came the obvious doubts about whether I was doing the right thing. But, on the whole, it has worked very well for us. I would say she is now a 'good eater' but it certainly hasn't been plain sailing. She took a quite a long time her to develop her appetite but that's kind of the point of baby-led weaning: they'll start eating when they are ready.

3 Bottles of Wine

Now, this is a hangover. Oh. My. Lord. Adrian and I polished off the best part of 3 bottles of wine last night while watching The Top 100 Sex Symbols on ITV. It's the most I've drunk in 2 years and the first hangover that has not been resolved with a glass of water, Vitamin C and a few paracetamol. We drank the last bottle in bed and I don't actually remember going to sleep, though I do remember that Angelina Jolie won the Top 100 and it was my idea to open the third bottle. I was woken up at 5am by Freyja, stumbled to her room with a mouth like sandpaper and a stomach that felt radioactive, remembering exactly why it is that I don't drink much any more. A full Sunday roast at The Honor Oak, our new posh, non-smoking, baby friendly pub (hurrah) with Katie and Paul has helped a bit but I still feel pants.

I stopped drinking almost completely while I was pregnant because I just didn't fancy the taste of alcohol at all. While breastfeeding, I didn't drink much either and I thought I would never go back to drinking a lot because I just didn't seem to really like it much any more. It must have been hormones, or something, because since stopping breastfeeding just over a month ago, I've found myself sharing a bottle of wine in the evening more often than not, and really enjoying it. But even so, apart from the odd nagging headache the morning after, I've not felt the full force of an all day hangover for a very, very long time. I don't like it much.

A break through!

Freyja and Esme hold hands:

More babies

Freyja continues to be unimpressed with my attempts to introduce her to babies who are younger than she is...

Four years ago...

Four years ago today, Adrian got down on bended knee and asked me to marry him. Well, actually he sat down on a bench, rather than got down on bended knee, but you know what I mean.

It was during our year out and we were in Australia, visiting our friends Will and Lucy who were living in Sydney. We had booked a trip to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and had woken before the crack of dawn to go and see the wondrous sight that is the sun rising over The Rock. Except that it was pouring with rain and we were stood by the minibus with a load of other tourists, watching the sky slowly get paler and greyer and the looming shape of Uluru appear out of the mist, with not one streak of colour in sight. Once it was fully light and it was obvious that we weren't going to be treated to the sight of Uluru coming to life with the rising sun, the driver advised us to visit the cultural centre and said he would pick us up later, when the rain had stopped, so we could do the walk around Uluru. Normally you would walk first, before it got too hot, and then would visit the cultural centre, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not realising that it would be shut at this time in the morning. He dropped us off and we waded around in the pouring rain trying to get in until finally the cafe opened and we trudged inside for breakfast, drenched to the skin and thoroughly fed up. By this point, I'd had enough and wanted to give it up as a bad experience and go back to the hotel. What I didn't know, was that Adrian had a ring burning a hole in his pocket and he wasn't going to give up on his plan to ask me to marry him at Uluru that easily.

So, while I harrumphed and sulked in the corner, Adrian scoured the little shop until he found what he needed to enable us to trek 10km in the pouring rain - 2 plastic pac-a-macs! Reluctantly I agreed and when the minibus arrived to collect us we were the only 2 people who asked to be dropped off so we could do the walk.
We donned the plastic macs and set off through the mud, at times wading knee deep through rivers of red water.


Turns out we made the right decision. You are supposed to be lucky if you see Uluru in the rain. The water cascades down it's steep sides forming hundreds of tiny waterfalls rushing through the grooves and rivulets on the surface of the Rock. The normal bright red colour is darker, almost silvery, with streaks of purple where the water runs down. It was spectacular.


As the bus driver predicted, the rain didn't last long and within about half an hour of starting the walk, the skies began to clear. We reached the water pool, one of the landmarks on the walk around Uluru and it was here, sitting on a bench, that Adrian asked me to marry him. Even though we had been in Dubai for the last few months, spending most of our time together, he had somehow managed to design and have made a beautiful ring, smuggled to Australia in his socks, without me having any idea. The proposal itself was not a huge surprise (although I wasn't expecting it there and then), but the diamond solitaire certainly was....I said yes.

This photo was taken just minutes after I had accepted his marriage proposal. It's a terrible photo, but it captures a special moment.


And we did get to see the sunrise over Uluru. We woke up early the next morning and went to a viewing point in the resort we were staying in.


Later that day, we headed back to Sydney where we celebrated our engagement with Will and Lucy by nearly killing ourselves drinking extra strength rum and cokes all night. Lucy admitted to me that after we had gone they threw away what was left of the bottle because they couldn't bear the sight of it. Hee.

A Lovely Weekend

We had a great weekend in York. Well, actually quite a lot of it was spent in a car stuck in traffic on the A1 (on the way there) or wrestling with a poo filled sleep suit in a motorway cafe toilet (that was on the way home) but apart from the getting there and back, it was great.

We stayed with Doug and Rowan, which was perfect because they have 2 boys so are fully equipped with baby stuff and weren't too horrified at being woken up by crying at 4am (Friday) and midnight (Saturday). Rowan fed us far too well with the most delicious beef and dumpling stew followed by something very naughty called Sussex Pond Pudding. Breakfast on Saturday was eggs Benedict with real, home made hollandaise sauce (I think you may have a lot of people inviting themselves up now, Rowan!) and then Chinese take away on Saturday night with lots of wine. Their house is brilliant because they have a play room just off the living room which all the toys live in and you know you can just leave the children in there to get on with it. I've added 'play room' to the 'must have' list for my next house (alongside the big kitchen diner, French windows opening onto a garden, en suite bathroom to the master bedroom, wet room, guest bedroom...)


We also had lunch with Adrian's parents and went to visit Oma, Adrian's grandma and Freyja's great grandma, whose birthday it is today.


During the day on Saturday we parked ourselves in Oscars wine bar and met up with a load of old friends. One was Jim, who we last saw almost 2 years ago when he stayed with us before he went travelling and I had just found out I was pregnant. He's been back a while but we've not had a chance to meet up so it was lovely to see him. The funniest thing was that Freyja took a real shine to him. She was completely flirting with him, giggling and resting her head on his shoulder. She does usually respond well to new people, but I've never seen her quite like this before - she was absolutely taken with Jim. He is very good looking and lots of girls do fancy him so it was nice to see that she has good taste, but I can see that we are going to have to watch her when she gets older.

Happy Valentines Day

Adrian and I don't really celebrate Valentines day. A few years ago he managed to convince me that it was a whole load of commercialised nonsense and that he didn't need some special day to show me how much he loved me, and I fell for it. To be fair, it did follow a few years of terrible Valentines experiences. The first was when we were booked to go to Rules for dinner and were 10 minutes late and they wouldn't hold our booking because of the sittings. We ended up at Mr Lawrence's, our local wine bar, who were not doing anything at all for Valentines Day, thank you very much, and had a lovely time. We've still not made it to Rules.

Second time, we went to the normally superb Babur, our local posh Indian restaurant, which was still superb in terms of the food but I might as well have been married to the man on the table next to me because, thanks to the proximity of our tables, we were very knowledgeable about each other by the end of the evening. The queue of people waiting for 'round 2' didn't help either.

In 2003, when Adrian and I had our year out, we were flying to Australia to visit our friends Will and Lucy on the morning of the 15th February. We were in Dubai and had considered going out for a meal together to celebrate Valentines Day. We had a few G&Ts with my parents while deciding where to go and before we knew it were all so drunk (including my parents) that I somehow ended up in the swimming pool fully clothed. I woke up at 5am the next morning with a half packed suitcase, a head like concrete and a flight to Australia to catch. It's the only time I've ever experienced real jet lag and I suspect the hangover had a large part to play in it taking me 4 days to feel normal again.

Then, while writing this post about how we don't celebrate Valentines Day (even though Adrian has just cooked us a lovely meal for the occasion...) I remembered that I had bought Adrian a Valentines card last year from Freyja. Freyja, the poor little mite, was, this time last year, suffering with a surprisingly potent and embarrassing wind problem. I found this card in our local gift shop and it was too perfect to ignore just because we supposedly don't celebrate Valentines Day:


Hee. Happy Valentines Day.

Please Hold On

Trains and Dolls

I have always thought of Freyja as a bit of a tomboy. She is quite rough and tumble, seems to prefer boys and gravitates towards the train sets and cars whenever I take her to any mother/toddler groups. While I know it is still very, very early days, my hopes of long days shopping together were fading as fast as Adrian's plans for a female cricket champion in the family were growing. Today, however, while I was sorting out the chest of toys in the living room, Freyja made a beeline for this doll:


Although she did spend quite some time poking it in the eye, she was also cuddling it like a baby. I'm not sure how early the stereotypical male/female behaviour comes out in children as I'm fairly sure that at this age they probably show interest in whatever catches their attention at that particular time, but it was funny to see her mimicking the behaviour of a mother with a baby. Even better, I was pleased to find out that she understands even more than I realised - when I said to her 'cuddle the baby', she would immediately start cuddling her. This did leave me wondering why she has yet to cuddle me when I ask for one! Up to now, I have just assumed she didn't understand the word yet...


Mind you, at times, her cuddling technique is remarkably like her talking on the phone technique....!

First words?

I'm starting to think that I may be a little too strict when it comes to accepting something as Freyja's first word. According to other people, she has said 'Drink', 'Water', 'Dada', 'Hi', 'Bye' and 'Katie'. I'm not so sure. She is good at imitating sounds and when I read to her she often copies a word that I say. But I do still feel the words she is saying are just imitation rather than actual understanding. Although, thinking about it, I guess when she points at her cup and says something that sounds a bit like 'dink', ' it might really be 'drink'....hmmm. She is now over 13 months old and it is entirely conceivable that she may actually have started to speak. I'll keep an ear out. I have no idea how parents are able to say 'oh, her first word was 'Mama' or 'Dada' or 'Moon' (that was my nephew Harry). I think they just make it up.

Hangover

I have a hangover. I went on my mums' night out last night and it's the first one I've been on since stopping breastfeeding. We went to Tapastry, the new tapas restaurant on Honor Oak. We drank loads of red wine and then got really carried away and ended up in the General Napier pub and the end of my road. I drank loads of water, took paracetamol and a huge dose of vitamin C when I got in and I think I may have got away with it if it wasn't for the fact the Freyja decided to wake up at 5.30am.

She's in a wonderful mood though and is just getting the hang of how to bounce properly in her door bouncer. It's making my head hurt just watching her.

New babies

We went to visit Meabh today. Oh, she is lovely - very, very small. Except she's not that small, she was 58cms when she was born. Freyja was not measured at birth and at her 6 week check up they forgot to write her length in my book but I am fairly sure that she was 54cms at 6 weeks. She is now 75cms tall and weighs 20.8 lbs. We moved her into a forward facing car seat today and yesterday I packed away another load of clothes that she has outgrown.

I looked at Meabh and I honestly couldn't remember Freyja being that small and helpless, I just couldn't relate to it at all. It feels like another life - a dream I had. Was she really that tiny and dependant? Did she really sound so small when she cried? I didn't wish that she was that small again but, as ever, I did wish that she wouldn't grow any more...

Freyja was funny. She behaved beautifully, unlike when we went to see Esme and she was being a bit of a pain. But she was a little unsure about this tiny scrap of a thing and, very uncharacteristically, kept giving Adrian and I little hugs and resting her head on us. She wasn't sure at all.

Dusting Dog!

I've just bought something brilliant from Sainsburys. It's called a dusting dog and makes dusting the house easy peasy. And the great thing is that I have tried it and for once it does actually work. It is so great:

Our house is really quite dusty, partly because we live in London, partly because our floor boards have massive gaps between them and partly because I hardly ever (never?) dust. It's been bugging me though, as it looks awful and it can't be very good having all this dust lying around. I tried to dust the top of the bathroom cabinet yesterday with a damp cloth but I just ended up creating a much worse mess than I started with. But today, salvation in the form of the dusting dog. Hurrah! I have dusted the blinds, the photos, the sofas, the bookshelves, the doors and Freyja. I love it!


Oh no - I am so sad. This must be how Julian felt about his new juicer...

Annoying Ebayers

There is something on Ebay that I want to buy for Freyja. The person selling it is selling 4 exactly the same - same price, same description, same title, same thing. As of yesterday, no one had bid on any of them. So I bid on 1 of them, leaving 3 with no bids. Today, I check my Ebay and see that I have been outbid. I assume that someone has either decided they want all 4, or else the others have now all been bid on too. I go to check. But no! 3 of them still have no bids on but the one I bid on now has 3 bids! Someone, instead of placing a bid on one of the other 3, which would mean that right now they would get the item for the starting price of £1.75 , has instead placed 2 bids on my one to outbid me. Why?

Little developmental steps

Freyja can now do this:


She was given that toy on her birthday, a month ago. She couldn't do it then - she could see what she was supposed to do, but didn't have the coordination to get the hoops onto the stick. I couldn't fit the toy in my suitcase when we came back so my mum bought it over with her last week and as soon as Freyja started playing with it, she could put the hoops on the stick. I know it is only a tiny, tiny thing and it would be much more impressive if I came on here and said, hey, Freyja can now walk, or talk or some other major developmental milestone. But I love all these tiny, little things she gradually learns to do - when I suddenly realise that she has started pointing at her drink when she wants it, or she starts stacking her Miffy boxes rather than just un-stacking them. That in the space of just under a month she has developed the ability to coordinate her movements that much better, (without any encouragement from me - I was still on the stacking boxes thing) just seems wonderful. I'm glad she knows what she's doing.