Adventures in Baby Led Weaning - One Week In

My little Squishy is 6 Months old and ready for weaning, how exactly did that happen!  The first 6 months has gone in some kind of glorious blur of loving, snuggling, vomiting, dancing, sleep deprived joy. I hesitate to say it as I know many mothers who have struggled with and been unable to breastfeed and I in no way want to belittle their equally transformational journeys as mothers but I have to say that breastfeeding my daughter to this point has been such a wonderful experience for me and feeding her has given me some beautiful opportunities to just sit and watch her and reflect on the journey I made to have her.  

Most of my moments breastfeeding have not been as beautiful as this 
one, there's been many difficult times tired, crying, rocking around the 
room but I wouldn't change a single one. Photo by the wonderful 
Pennycress Photography, check out details of her family lifestyle shoots here

Let the Weaning Begin

A few of my friends have done Baby Led Weaning with their little-uns, both had done traditional weaning with their first babies but then Baby Led with their 2^nd and 3^rd and would never go back (not that they’re planning on having any more).  Watching how their children progressed so well with it and how much their parents enjoyed it and raved about it was a great recommendation for me. If I hadn't known anybody personally who’d done it I don’t think I would have had the confidence to go for it and probably would have opted for the traditional route. The idea of letting Jemima feed herself and having meals as a family really appealed however and the thought of the mess didn’t faze me so I decided that it was the way to go. I’m not writing this post to try and convince you to do BLW, I’m not a weaning expert and don’t feel qualified to advise but I would say it’s worth getting the book, giving it a read and talking to others who have done BLW to find out more about it.  

Baby-led Weaning by Gill Rapley

It was a big milestone ‘starting solids’, I put that in inverted commas because I’m not sure Jemima has actually swallowed anything yet apart from maybe a little banana yogurt or perhaps a tiny bit of broccoli or potato.   I got up and made the family banana pancakes and blueberry yogurt on the first morning, we actually started when she was 6 months and 2 days so Matt was home too.  I wasn’t expecting Jemima to eat anything but I was a little disappointed she didn’t at least have a play and investigate it a bit more.  For about the first 5 days she barely even looked at the food let alone picked it up and put it anywhere near her mouth and apart from holding a spoon and licking some yogurt off it nothing had gone in.  Day 6 however we started to make some progress.  Having ignored another breakfast I couldn’t get my head round why she’d pick up toys and take them to her mouth but wouldn’t do this with food. It occurred to me that the food just wasn’t as interesting looking so I brought a bag of peppers, cut them up in really large pieces and we had a breakthrough, on day 6 she actually took the pepper to her mouth and had a little lick.  Then at tea she chomped on a piece of broccoli and got a small piece in her mouth – she then promptly gagged and vomited everywhere but apparently this is quite normal as they’re learning to manage food in their mouth and their hyper sensitive gag reflex is one of the reasons BLW works, because their gag reflex is further forward when they're little it acts as a protective mechanism and stops them taking bits that are too big back in their mouth.

Emotions 

Despite reading up on the benefits of BLW and it’s possible links to decreased choking risk and having seen other people’s babies doing it, when it comes to it watching your baby put food in their mouth it is completely terrifying.  There's a part of me that just wants to feed her purees until she’s 18 years old but she managed really well and I’ve manged my own nerves by starting with nice soft easy foods that I feel comfortable with.

What hadn’t occurred to me was the overwhelming emotion I’d feel when she actually started ‘eating’ something.  For the last 6 months me and Jem have been in our little bubble; I’ve been with her almost every moment,  I’ve been her sole source of food, kept her safe, been there near enough immediately to sooth her every time she’s cried, kept her so close.  Starting weaning just brought it crashing down that it won’t always be that way, I can’t keep her forever in my little bubble.  Obviously it’s going to happen very slowly but I can’t just wrap her up in my arms forever, I have to let her learn and grow and explore the world, always with me and Matt as a firm base to rely on but she has to grow into her own person not simply an extension of my person.  I’ve struggled in the early days to make sense of the love I feel for her, it was kind of like she was still such a part of me that I couldn’t get my head round loving her as a separate person rather than just a part of myself.  Then last night I realised what I’ve done, bringing this overwhelming love into my life, there’s no going back to the safety of just being myself, my whole happiness is so bound up in her happiness and her safety for the rest on my life.

Back in the early days when I could keep her close in our little bubble

Top Tips So Far

As I said I’m not writing this to put forward the case for BLW. I’m a big advocate of doing the research before you make decisions like this in parenting, looking at the pros and cons and making an ‘evidence based’ decision, I’m guessing this must come from my nursing background and having ‘evidence based care’ drilled into me!  If you are wanting to go with BLW here are some of my experiences/tips so far:

Go big and bright!  

Finally she noticed it!

 I wasn’t expecting Jem to eat anything straight away but I was expecting her to at least play with the food, move it about a bit, look at it, perhaps bring it to her mouth.  So I was really disappointed that she didn’t seem interested at all. I got myself a bit stressed about it  somehow worrying that she’d refuse to eat anything for months on end!  She’d play with toys and bring them to her mouth no problem but seemed completely uninterested in food. It occurred to me that perhaps the food just didn’t look interesting enough so I picked up some peppers, cut some really big colourful pieces and it worked a treat!

Give breakfast before getting dressed
I tend to just give Jemima breakfast in her vest from the night, put it straight in to soak then get her dressed after.

Loaded spoons

 

I wasn't sure whether these would be something that would work at the start but Jemima gets on great with them. She's not eating a lot from them but has had tastes of yogurt, weetabix and soup from spoons I've loaded up and handed to her.  The trick with the soup is to make it really thick so it sticks to the spoon nicely.

Kit yourself out
There's not a great deal that you need as much of the idea is they feed themselves with their hands but it's worth investing in a good highchair, full arm bibs, lots of short handled spoons that are easier for them to get to their mouths and some reusable baby wipes. I'll do another full post on what kit I've chosen and why.

Embrace the mess

I noticed today that Sophie Le Giraffe is still sporting a bit of dried on brocolli from this incident.  I was never phased by a bit of mess and I figure weaning will be messy whatever we do so I might as well throw myself in and enjoy it!

So one week into Baby Led Weaning and we're making good progress, it's still quite a mind blowing experience to suddenly let your baby feed themselves but she's doing amazing and today for the first time she eyed up my plate of food, winged and got something off it, so it looks like she's getting the measure of this food thing, nothing I eat will ever be safe again!