18 weeks + 3 days.... Just over 4 months old and I started weaning our little boy. I felt he was ready, the doctor felt he was ready. She wanted me to start him on puree fruit...I wanted to start him on baby rice and porridge. But I wanted to load the spoon and let him feed himself. Although I wanted to do baby led weaning I didn't feel he was quite ready yet for real fruit and veg so I broke him in slowly to the wonderful world of food. I'm a member of a few groups on facebook for BLW. There's a lot of people on there that are all for starting at 6 months and that baby just isn't ready before then for food and often quote references to why you should wait etc. Well tosh to that. There's also many reasons why you can start early. Especially for babies with reflux. My baby, I am more than sure, will be just fine. He was very advanced with a lot of things and if he wanted food then I wasn't going to stop him taking it from me. I mean had he been born a few years ago the guidelines back then were to start weaning at four months!..... He is a strong, big boy and is very tuned into the world. And so we began! Porridge. Well that was fun..... his hand to mouth co ordination with his hand or toys has been great. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting his main problem to be the spoon. He was mainly getting the spoon in his mouth but I'd bought spoons with a bendy end... He was basically bending the spoon round in his mouth and not getting much off for his efforts. Bless him. It was quite a struggle and I must admit I did help him put some in his mouth as he was eager for his food, even after a bottle of milk. So started mission find a better spoon. 5 baby spoon purchases later and he seemed happier with a slightly smaller and slightly harder end to his spoon....this was a few days later though! And baby rice the day after.....sorry no pics of him eating on this day! I started to realise that baby rice wasn't his most favourite thing in the world. But try it next to creamy porridge and you'll soon see why. I could eat his creamy porridge for breakfast myself! I'd love to be able to add video onto this too but for now I can't as it would no longer be a free blog :( One thing I realised was that small bibs just weren't going to be practical. The bigger the better, I think. I found some larger ones in my local supermarket but I realised I needed to invest in some long sleeve ones one day soon. 18 weeks + 6 days. I've been making his porridge really thick to get him used to textures. He is really good with swallowing it and there's no gagging but he loves dribbling it out of his mouth while trying to soften it. Luckily he soon grew out of this. He's getting a lot better with the spoon too. Most of it's at least going in or near his mouth! Which is a relief as he hates having his face wiped. I've noticed when I go in for the attack with a wet wipe that he moves his head left to right in protest. So I just hold the wipe in that direction and he basically wipes his face for me. haha! I love a technique. I must admit I'm a bit lax with wiping his hands before he starts eating. I really must get into the habit of this. He seems to love having his hands wiped though so that's good. I also must admit that some days I helped direct his spoon in the right direction - just to get him used to where he was going!! Feeding himself with a spoon doesn't always work when tired. I try not to let him have food when he's tired but sometimes you just don't realise how tired they are. Here we are at 19 weeks +2, nearly 1 week after we started and he was a bit tired this day so his face got painted. I'm still only giving him porridge or baby rice (both thick). I don't think his tummy is quite ready for real food yet. Although it would be nice to see if real food cures his reflux. It's not as bad now but it's still there. I should add that my BLW book recommends spoon usage/introduction for baby to try and use from about 8months + so maybe I was expecting too much from him starting him right away using one. But he did me proud and as I was already doing things differently by starting him early then I guess it didn't really matter. Here's a cute 'after' picture... he wanted to help wet wipe himself too :) I was giving him about 1 ice cubes worth of porridge or baby rice at this stage. Plus 5 bottles of milk a day (around 210ml in a bottle). 19 weeks + 4. I have devised a technique of letting him have one spoon and then loading more food onto it with another spoon as he can sometimes have a tendency to keep hold of his spoon long after he's finished sucking off what's on it. 20 weeks old and my little fella had his first taste of 'real' food. I chose to gave him some roast sweet potato. I lovingly roasted some wedges in a little olive oil the day before and I was actually intending to give him some that day. But you know what I did? I dropped it getting it out of the oven. I never drop food! So I had to cook some all over again and give the floor diseased food to our chickens. (our chickens are going to love BLW) The roasted wedges were just too soft and when he picked it up it all just squished everywhere. He then proceeded to wipe that hand all over his highchair. Then he had a mini break down as he really wanted feeding (even though he'd just had his milk!) so I fork mashed some, pre loaded the spoon and let him mostly feed himself with it. It was honestly like he'd been eating sweet potato all his life. He ate it just like he ate his porridge and baby rice. I'd left it quite lumpy and some small lumps got pushed back out. Good to see his tongue reflex was working well. The first photo I'd fed him myself....after that you can see he did a great job of feeding his bib....and his mouth. Trying to get the little fella used to water.... this beaker was no good though. Even though it said 4months+ it's just a bit too heavy and bulky for him. So we have another item I'm going to have to buy a few of to see how he does with them. I also got him a sucky highchair toy. I give him this after he's eaten so I can clear up etc while he's still happy sitting upright in his chair. It's currently his favourite toy. Especially when he pulls it out of it's holder as he can chuck it about then on his table. It's great having two trays as he can eat off the blue one and then I can whisk that away for cleaning and leave him with a nice clean tray underneath. 20 weeks + 5. A friend ... and one of my BLW books .... both recommend giving them banana with the skin left on at the bottom... Oooooo I thought what a great idea. Hmmmmmm. It doesn't work for my boy. He can only hold on for a few seconds before he drops it or the banana pops out of the skin, or breaks in half leaving him with nothing edible. But giving him the banana without the skin is even worse. It squidges all over the place. I'm sure he'll get used to how much pressure he has to use to hold it properly but for now it's not easy. He loved what he managed to suck off but as he got frustrated quickly (who said BLW wasn't stressful!) I fork mashed some with some soft pear and he went mad for it. Here he is with his new cup.... introducing it to one of his favourite toys. :) He has his own little dating agency going with his toys. This cup seems a winner for now. When he holds it it goes in at such an odd angle but aside from spitting some out he drinks water from it better than most of his cups that I've tried him with. A couple of weeks later we were at the point were he was drinking nearly the whole cup in a day. Which for a baby who didn't seem to like water that's pretty good going. 21 weeks +2. Christmas day. I roasted some easy to pick up chip type potato for him. I gave him some fork mashed carrot first and then let him do as he pleased with the potato. He loved it. Happily picked it up himself and had a good old suck of the inside. 21 weeks +6 - 5 months old today......... :) Roast parsnip. I cooked this pretty much like the potato he had the other day. I slightly split the skin open so he could suck out the insides. He enjoyed this but I'd already given him some roasted red pepper (fork mashed) so this was just an add on to see if he was at all interested. The pics don't say a lot about how he did....lol. They're more for entertainment purposes. I did film him though which was much better. Parsnip is one of his firm favourites. Although the outer part does worry me a little when it goes in whole. *sigh* This is now where I could happily add a couple of videos....but I can't as it's not free! I have two lovely videos of him trying his first broccoli florets and cucumber sticks. I didn't take any photos those days though and so I don't have anything to add picture wise :( The first time he had broccoli he was 22 weeks +3. I steamed a few florets for 10 mins. He kept eating the stalk instead of the main head. Which I guess is OK but a lot of big bits went in and a lot of big bits came back out again. But he did eat some, mainly the head part. Then the day after he tried cucumber for the first time. I cut the skin off a long section (longer than the width of his hand) and then cut that into four 'sticks'. He was quite good at picking it up and sucked quite a bit off. I think he enjoyed the coolness of it as he is teething at the moment. He started getting tired though and he kept thinking he'd picked his piece of cucumber up when actually he hadn't. Very cute! A piece got thrown on the floor too but he did really well. Any big bits that he couldn't have possibly chewed on enough or swallowed got pushed or gagged back out again. He loved sucking the middle. One of the essential things to do with baby led weaning is to eat at the same time as your baby. They gain confidence and skills by watching you eat. They also love to feel that they are joining in. It helps their confidence no end. Well I certainly believe that's true with our little boy. We have a dining table but it's in a room I'm not 100% happy eating in, plus hubby uses the table for work. So we bought a small fold up table and couple of chairs for the kitchen so we can eat with him whenever he does....or pretend to eat if timings go to pot! ( I have pretend sucked a few things). For the first few days he spent a lot of time staring at my plate trying to work out if I had anything better than him but he soon got over this and is happy to just get on with what he has on his highchair tray. I'm not going to lie and say it's all plain sailing. It can be just as stressful as spoon feeding sometimes. Usually if he's struggling to pick something up or hold something. I mean you'd get stressed if you wanted to eat something and couldn't do it very well! So anyone who says it's easier and less stressful may not be telling the truth when it comes to the earlier days. But it's all a learning curve and I'm sure we'll get there in the end. He improves each day. These things just take time. They are only babies after all. I should also add that you may notice he's not always strapped into his highchair. While he's not over active enough to climb out I thought it was in his best interests to not always strap him in. Just in case there's any problems I want to be able to get him out quick. (I youtube'd what to do in case of choking) So while we're both gaining confidence I don't strap him in when he tries new food or chewier food. He seems really good with the gag reflex though and also with pushing anything he finds too big back out again. He's had a few coughing moments too where he's had to try and cough something out but nothing major and ...touch wood... no choking. Choking is silent... that's what you have to watch out for. Everything else they're better dealing with themselves. Here's his highchair up against our new table and chairs. He feels a part of meal time now. 22 weeks +5. I roasted him some squash for the first time in a little olive oil. He loved it...easy to pick up, easy to chew and easy to suck and swallow. He seemed to really enjoy the taste too. There were no issues with this at all and he loved it just as much the day after too.....I came back on here to read through and I just need to add that I live in a country where supermarket fruit and vegetables are mainly seasonal. As much as my little guy loved butternut squash I can no longer find any to buy so he may have to wait another year to try it again :( Unless I remember to get him some next time I'm in the UK!! 22 weeks +6. Have you had your Weetabix? Well my little fella has tried his. Wheat and gluten before 6 months! Shock horror! He seemed to like Mummy's favourite. Weetabix along with Corn flakes, Shredded wheat and Rice crispies are apparently the only cereals low enough in salt and sugar for babies. I cut a Weetabix into three long pieces and dribbled on a little milk so it was soft enough to eat but not too soft that it squished to nothing when he picked it up. I probably used about 2-3 tbsps. You can use breast milk or formula but I used the real thing. So long as he doesn't drink a glass of it before 1 year old cows milk is meant to be fine in moderation (ie. cooking sauces etc).. I'm not entirely sure if it was the comfort milk he was on or the introduction of Weetabix but he did get a bit constipated after so I don't give him this very often. It could have been the extra rich comfort milk mixed with food or the banana or the Weetabix. I'll never know for sure. But one thing I did want to do was change his formula to something less thick. He had reflux quite bad from the day he was born. The muslins I'd bought in before he was born turned out to be very useful! Poor fella would often be sick and it was something that used to upset and worry me. But you know what?! The further we got into weaning the better his reflux. So much so that before 6 months he was 99% cured and sickness was a far distant memory. Sure it happens every now and then. Sometimes for no apparent reason but to me he's over it and his body either fixed itself naturally or it was the introduction of food that cured him. So I weaned him off his comfort milk and now he's back on regular formula again. Which has meant more teat headache as the ones I had in were just too fast flowing for regular formula. That saying he could down a bottle of comfort milk way too fast anyway. But it was the only teats I could find that comfort milk actually came out of! So now we have new regular formula and new teats and he is back to drinking his milk at a far more sedate pace and this must be much better for him too. So all good in my eyes. 23 weeks +2. Apple. I didn't start off nervous about apple but I am a little bit now. No matter how much I cook it it just never seems soft enough for him at this stage of his weaning. I'd baked a whole apple in the oven in a little water and a sprinkling of cinnamon for about 30 mins (until soft). I loved it myself and I must admit I ended up eating most of it. I cut into wedges to serve. He ate and picked it up OK but spat out the cinnamon pieces. As time went on it also got a little slimy and hard for him to pick up. Although he did eat it OK I felt he could easily bite off large pieces and forget to chew them properly. Although this didn't happen now it did happen with apple in the future. There's also a bit of controversy around cinnamon. A friend of mine on fb said that her doctor had warned her off giving her twins cinnamon until 1 year old. Apparently it can cause heart problems. I'd not heard of this before and I must admit I'm finding it hard to find proof of this on the internet. But for now I'm going to avoid cinnamon and only give it to him a few times before he is 1. I don't want to avoid it totally as I don't want him building up an intolerance to anything. The odd thing is I have a file of 100 BLW recipes and most of the breakfast recipes include cinnamon. Hmmmmm I'll omit that for now I think, just to be on the safe side. I have two BLW recipe books from Amazon, and the 100 recipes from the internet. Plus a few BLW pages/blogs bookmarked on the web. So there's plenty of things to cook and try. I can't wait to get started on proper recipes. But for now I'm sticking to food individually and I'll probably start cooking meals from 6 months old. If he's allergic to something I'd like to know about it. 23 weeks +2 Toast Toast wonderful Toast! Aw he's just like his Mummy. Loves his carbs. I started by giving him brown bread but again as I'm not sure if it's a constipation risk I'm now giving him white bread with seeds in. Very tasty and he's still getting some nutrition from the seeds. I will give him brown bread every now and then as I want him to grow up liking it but for now he can have some white with seeds. Pics below are him with brown bread with salt free organic butter on top. I gave him half a slice lightly toasted (in toaster). I cut it into 3 long strips and added a little butter - he mainly sucked on it and loved what he had, i had to stop halfway to give him water - nothing came back out and what he had went down well. Just one slight cough. I'd been quite nervous about giving him bread. No worries here in the end. 23 weeks +3 Carrot. When he has this by itself he loves it. If I give it to him with anything else he tends to ignore it. Carrot remains something I find hard to cook soft enough for him. Too hard and it's a choking hazard, too soft and it's hard to pick up. When I first cooked it for him I steamed chip like sticks for 18 mins (until just past al dente). He loved them. They were a little slippy to pick up but he managed. He bit big bits off and then seemed to bite off a smaller amount in his mouth. He then spat out the bigger bit and then spent ages chewing what was left in his mouth. He had carrot again a few days later more al dente than normal and I had to take it off him - big mistake - he kept trying to swallow massive bits! I must admit I've never cooked it as well as I did the first time.... that's not without trying. I guess all carrots differ in hardness to start off with. I love how he lovingly holds his carrots. It's so cute. 23 weeks +4. Potato & Tomatoes .... mashed and roasted. I caused a bit of confusion by giving him something he couldn't figure out how to pick up and then eat out of his hand. So I ended up pre loading the spoon for him so he could have some mash. He certainly seemed to like it. I made sure there were no big lumps before giving it to him but I'm sure he would have managed fine had there have been any. Once he'd had a few pre loaded spoons he wanted more quick so he started getting stuck in with his hands and managed to work out he just needed to lick or suck it off his fingers. He wasn't too sure about the tomato. He pulled a very dissatisfied face when it went in his mouth and didn't attempt to eat anymore. He did pick it up a few more times but took one look and dropped it again. I have a feeling he may dislike tomatoes like his Daddy. I love them but his Dad will only eat sun dried tomatoes... which is the only 'form' of tomato I don't like! 23 weeks +5. Avocado. Aw Little fella loves his avocado. It's so good for babies too. Full of lots of good things. And as BLW goes it's a very safe food as so long as it's soft enough it's really easy for them to eat. As he was finding it hard to pick up slippy foods I cut an avocado into long slices and then carefully cut off the skin off half of each slice. This provided something for him to grip onto. When he does struggle to pick up slimy/slippy food I do help him. I don't think it's not fair or right for a baby to be chasing it's food around. Sure people say they need to learn but how would you feel if you were trying to pick something up to eat it and it kept moving away from you. So long as they are given a chance to try I think it's then fine to either stop the food moving for them or pass them what they were chasing. I'm sure he'll get the hang of it in his own time. He did pick up some of the slices but I did hand him some too. He sucked loads off though. One wedge barely had any avocado left on it by the time he'd finished with it. I hope he continues to enjoy avocado for a long time to come. Saying that about it being a safe food he did manage to gag on some and even went a little bit silent on me but after only a few seconds out popped the offending piece and back he went to eating it. Totally not bothered! I did give him it again a few days later with half the skin on again and he accidentally ate a bit and as I have now discovered it tastes really vile. He was so repulsed by it he refused to eat anymore. So I have to say that since then I no longer give it to him with the skin on. But as time went by he got really good at picking the slimy wedges up. As you can see by the photos it was a little messy but I've seen far worse avocado puree pics that my friends have taken when feeding their LO's. And to be fair he hasn't been as messy since as most just goes in his mouth. I just love his expression on the first photo. I also gave him a little bit of puff pastry from a tart I was eating just so he had something if he didn't like avocado.... that wasn't needed :) 24 weeks. Strawberries. These pictures look a bit like something out of a horror film! haha! I simply cut the strawberries in half and took away the longer slightly harder white bit from the middle. He could pick them up even though they were rather slippy, so it's good to see he's improving with this type of food. Almost gone are the days now of crushing whatever goes in his hand. He already seems to know that all he has to do is hold it, not pulverise it. Although to be fair he only did that a few times anyway. He seemed to enjoy them even though he was pulling faces as he was eating them. He went back for more so surely he liked them!? He did struggle to bite bits off so sometimes quite big bits went in. He managed just fine with the big bits in his mouth though. He also sucked at them quite a lot. So long as you soak the bib in some washing up liquid once your baby has finished strawberries don't leave a permanent stain. I should also add that this bib he has on used to be cream. The pink bibs that Asda delivered lose dye in the wash and basically turned anything not pink pink! whoops!! 24 weeks +1. Courgette. He loved this! I cut a courgette into half and prepared one half as wedges and the other as three long but thin slices (I cut the skin sides off the long slices). I then griddled them on the hob, in a pan, until soft. I added a small dash of olive oil and water just to add a bit of flavour and softness. He loved both the wedges and slices. It was so easy for him to pick up and hold. Massive bits were disappearing into his mouth. He even sucked on one wedge with skin for about 15 mins. (Yeah! It was getting a bit boring for me! lol) He then sucked in the final bit, chewed and swallowed. Yikes! Big success and since then he's had courgette on quite a few occasions and so far, touch wood, he still enjoys it. He's still a long way off from figuring out how to drink out of his cup by himself! 24 weeks +2. Raspberries. I gave him a big handful of raspberries on his tray. I broke each one slightly so they weren't whole but that probably wasn't necessary as they are such a soft fruit. He loved smearing them about!. Those he picked up he struggled to eat out of his hand but he seemed to like what he managed to put in his mouth. I also gave him some Weetabix at the same time. He had some fork mashed the next day with porridge which he loved. 24 weeks +2. Aubergine. I griddled big but thinish slices in a pan until soft. I tried them and thought they were pretty yuk (I'm not a big fan of aubergine). But he ate loads. He nearly loved it as much as the griddled courgette. He basically sucked and chewed away at it. He gagged a little on the skin but it easily came back out. Knowing me though it'll be ages until I give it to him again! He was so keen on it he had a piece in both hands and kept trying to stuff both bits in his mouth in one go. He is starting to get a bit over zealous with his food. I am sure it's just a phase that won't last long though. 24 weeks +3. Cauliflower (& more broccoli, as a cauli broccoli cheese.) I have already given him some fork mashed cauliflower cheese (Mummy's fave) but today I gave him the real thing. His grip is starting to improve and is using more of the top half of his hand to hold his food rather than his whole hand. He loved the broccoli (as always) but he wasn't keen on the cauliflower. I am actually a bit confused as to why they recommend cauliflower as an early food for BLW as it always seems too hard to me and even when soft it's not easy to break down with no teeth. It was easy for him to pick up and hold the cauliflower but as you can see by the pics below he pulled some very disgusted faces when it went in his mouth. The broccoli was a total success though and he was picking it up in favour of the cauliflower and happily munching away. I did give him some fork mashed cauliflower cheese again at a later date and he loved it. Maybe it's just the feeling of it whole in his mouth that he doesn't like rather than the flavour? 24 weeks +4. Sweet potato with more success. So last time he had it it got pretty much squished and smeared about. I pre heated the oil in the oven this time and cooked them just a bit longer so they were a lot firmer on the outside for him to pick up. It worked, they were a great success. He loved sucking the soft insides out. And best of all I have some new long sleeve bibs for him. They were a bargain on ebay. I am happy with them. They are more like a cloth in material so they seem to wash better. I have to be careful of where the Velcro is though when I'm rinsing them as if it attaches to the sleeve it can rip a hole in the fabric. But for the price they're great. And they won't turn my washing pink and he won't be wearing pink everyday anymore. 24 weeks +6. Cheese and lentil wedges. Today I decided it was time to make a start on the vast amount of BLW recipes that I have. So I picked the cheese and lentil wedges out of the Gill Rapley cookbook. Now I have a LOT of recipe books that I've bought over the years so I know how to follow a recipe. But these were pretty dreadful. They were just so dry and fell apart as soon as I tried to take them out of the pan. No matter how hard he tried he just couldn't pick them up without them collapsing. I barely got a chance to eat as I spent most of the meal trying to reform the crumbs into something he could pick up. Luckily he liked them but let's say the chickens ate well this day. It may be a long time until I try them again and when I do the recipe needs some serious revision. LOADS and I mean loads ended up on the floor. This was mainly because it was just sliding down his front and ending up on the floor. Not at all successful. But he liked what he could finally pick up. There were no issues eating them at all once he got the food in his mouth. He looks confused in the first photo. A bit like he's saying Mummy why does my food now all break up, lol. 25 weeks +1. Drop scones. I braved another recipe from the GR book. Drop scones. I can make pancakes etc off the top of my head without measuring but I decided to follow these as instructed. They were nice. I added sugar to mine though. hehe! He seemed to enjoy them. They were easy for him to pick up. He loved them and just basically sucked and chewed with no issues/problems. Certainly something to make again for breakfast. They will probably be good to take out with us for a snack or lunch too as there was very little mess. Not very exciting as is though. He's still mostly wearing pink bibs because although I ordered lots from ebay I am missing most of them from my order. So I'm currently waiting for replacements :( 25 weeks +2. More toast. With butter on top this is becoming a firm favourite. He is very confident with it. His new thing is to mostly suck all the butter off and leave most of the bread but this habit didn't last for very long. I need to start serving it with other toppings really. He discovered his reflection friend this morning in the door. haha! He's also starting to pick food up a bit differently and isn't having to use his whole fist all the time. You can see how he's using his fingers more in the second picture. Although he isn't opening his fist up yet at his mouth to get out what's in it he is doing better when it's in between his fingers rather than his whole fist. 25 weeks +2. He seems so much more co ordinated nowadays. I'm sure it's because of baby led weaning. I'm sure all babies can play with a rattle at this age and put it in their mouth but he just seems to do it like second nature. No thought involved. It's nice he can now chew properly on his toys as it helps his teething no end. During the early BLW days you will notice he's mainly eating with his left hand. We thought for quite a long time he was/is going to be left handed as he does everything to the left. Rolls, turns his head to sleep, grasps toys, holds food. But at some point, and I'll have to try and spot and point out when, he does start favouring his right hand more for eating. His left starts to become the 'storing' hand and for weeks he'd pick a piece of food up in his left hand and there it would stay for the whole meal. Odd boy!! 25 weeks +3. Egg ... scrambled. Egg can be an allergy trigger so I guess I was nervous to try him with it but he's been fine with everything else so far (strawberries etc). So I decided today was try egg day. Why on earth I decided to give it to him scrambled for his first try I have no idea as for early days BLW it's not the easiest of foods to pick up. It was a bit like the cheese and lentil wedges problem all over again. He took a few failed attempts at picking it up and got in a mood. I ended up having to hand him some of the slightly larger pieces. But I figured how do they learn to pick up smaller food if you don't challenge them. He did have a go in the end but he wasn't overly happy trying. He seemed to like what he had though. He looks rather unimpressed in most of the photos! It's amazing how much scrambled egg you get from one egg! Maybe putting it all on his tray in one go was also a bit overwhelming for him but I thought it'd be easier to pick some up if there was lots to choose from. I think I ended up changing my mind on this though as sometimes too much can just be overwhelming. He got so fed up at one point that he just started staring out the door instead. He then just sat swishing it about on his tray. This wasn't a high calorie meal that's for sure! 25 weeks +3. He's so good with his hands now that he can pick up balls like this and waft them around with his new found grip. These balls are great. They come as a set of 5 and each is different. He loves them. I often give him one or two to play with when he's in his highchair waiting for his food. I figured I wanted to try and teach him some sort of patience early on so he's not used to getting food as soon as he goes in his highchair. So far so good. He often stops playing and watches what I'm doing instead .... they often get chucked too so I don't pick them up more than twice for him. 25 weeks +3. Nothing new here eaten just two cute photos. I love how he's holding his broccoli now. He just loves it. I so hope that continues. He seems to be getting loads more hair on his head now too...... maybe it's all the fruit and veg :) 25 weeks +3. Stewed prunes. Trying to cure his constipation. He is pretty useless at doing number twos and rarely tries so ends up constipated. (been like this from birth) He has lots of water and it makes no difference. I have also noticed that there's not really one particular food which can make it worse or better. He just rarely has the desire to go. If it gets past 2-3 days I give him some stewed prunes. I have also tried orange segments and a little bit of all-bran. I think it's just coincidence when he does eventually go after having these things. But he quite likes stewed prunes and orange segments so I will keep offering. For some reason all he wants to do is waft the spoon about when he has prunes so I spoon feed it him .... not exactly BLW but more Mummy led desperation. 25 weeks +4. I give him one of his favourite balls to entertain him while I make breakfast in the morning. Most days it does the trick. If it goes on the floor I don't pick it up for him more than 3 times. lol. He's still constipated so we're on the orange segments now. First time he tried these he wasn't sure of the taste but he can't get enough of them now. Although they're slippery he finds them easy to pick up. They go down well too. All the oranges I buy seem to be pip free as well which is always good. 25 weeks +5. Some of Mummy's salad. Boiled egg, cheese and ham He loved the egg. I think this boy is going to love eggs as much as me. He ate it surprisingly easily. The ham was sucked on but soon dropped in favour of more boiled egg. He picked up the cheese but didn't really attempt to eat it. It has made me realise how little he was eating then compared to now, as I'm typing this, just a few weeks later at 7.5 months. I'd also griddled him some courgette in case he wasn't keen on my salad. 25 weeks +6. Second time eating in a restaurant with us. Pineapple and chicken curry Enchiladas. We eat out at lunch time at least twice a week. It's a way of life in France and one we adopted easily. So he's already more than used to being in a restaurant. A couple of days before this we were at our favourite Chinese buffet place and I gave him a little of the batter coating from a deep fried prawn and the outside of a steamed parcel. He loved both and was a very happy boy. Today he had some pineapple that I'd brought along with me. We'd all shared a chicken curry Enchiladas for a starter and I gave him a small bit. Thinking he wouldn't really like it! He loved it and sucked away at it for ages. He even seemed disappointed when he finished it and I wished I'd saved him some more. I did give him a chip or two from my main course though. This is often a really easy thing to give him when out. Easy to suck and causes little mess. We just sat him upright in his pushchair to give him food today but for awhile we used to bring in his car seat and sit him upright in that and just hand him some food. I have purchased a booster seat with a tray for restaurants but he flops about in it. So until I can work out how to keep him upright the car seat will do for now. French highchairs in restaurants are officially useless and look like they were all bought about 20 years ago so we are in no rush to put him in anything they supply .... yet. As we don't want any fuss I am just using his big over the head bibs for now in restaurants. He did really well eating/sucking at the pineapple and there were no issues. But since then I've given it to him a few times and he's either ignored it after one suck or has been over zealous with it and tried to swallow pieces that are obviously too big for him. So although it was a success at the time it's not been as much so since. 25 weeks +6. Egg and avocado toasted sandwich. He loved this and so did I. It didn't even need any butter or mayo. He was sucking it off the toast like it was the best thing he's ever tasted. Why does boiled egg stink the house out so much though. yuk!! Needless to say it didn't stay as a sandwich for long and I did keep having to spread the filling back on for him. I need to work out a way for it to stick to the bread better. 25 weeks +6 cont.... So we're just a few days off his 6 month birthday and today he wore his first 9-12 month outfit. My boy is growing so fast. It's amazing to see how much he is growing. It's a shame he doesn't get to wear any particular size of clothes for more than 8 weeks though!! But then I guess nearly new condition clothes will be easy to sell. 26 weeks. Today was the day I decided it was time to start fastening his belt in his highchair. As you can see by the pic below he is suddenly a lot more flexible and not exactly sat nicely for eating pineapple. But I knew this day would come and I am a lot more confident in him now and certainly not as worried about him choking. 26 weeks. Avocado sushi. This is officially the last time I ever try to make Sushi. No matter how hard I try I just get into a sticky mess and it turns into a huge gigantic inedible pile of mush. Poor boy just couldn't work out what it was that I put before him. It was awful. Most of it went to the chickens!! 26 weeks. Pasta with ham and red pepper. I had been putting off giving him pasta. But it turned out he was great with it and I needn't have worried/put it off. I bought some mostly egg fusilli which cooked up really big and so was really easy for him to pick up. He loved it. He mostly ate it really well. No major issues. Although he has started a habit of picking things up and putting it in one of the round holes on the tray and then ignoring it until I move it back in front of him. I think pasta could become a bit of a favourite with him. There was quite a bit left over so I gave it to him the day after with some roasted tomatoes .... he still doesn't really like tomatoes!! And to be fair they still seem something he's not sure on how to eat properly. But I'll keep offering. Maybe it's something that'll get easier for him to eat when he can pick up smaller pieces and just pop them in his mouth. The last of the four pics below is of him trying to get the unwanted tomato out of his mouth! He's still putting the bits he thinks he doesn't want in the circle parts of the tray. I'm thinking I may have to start using just the white tray underneath instead so he can't do that. 6 months old ..... time to move to a new post :)
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Well here we are.... 1 day away from my 38th birthday and Mummy to a 5 month and 2 week old miracle baby boy. We'd been trying for five years to have a baby and to be honest we'd given up hope. Five fibroid operations and four attempts at IVF later we finally got that elusive whiff of a second line on a home pregnancy test. We were over the moon, yet cautious. My pregnancy held many problems. I had gestational diabetes later on and placenta previa that turned out to be stuck to the womb wall. So basically I spent 11 nights in hospital a few weeks before he was born and 11 nights with him in hospital after he was born! Not the best start to being parents but we coped. When we were trying for a baby I had heard about baby led weaning from a friend. I had no idea what she was talking about and so over to mr.google I went. Well I was impressed. The whole idea of letting your baby feed themselves food that we eat really intrigued me and I knew then that if we were ever able to have children then BLW was certainly something I wanted to do. I have to admit...I was naughty...and we started weaning before he was 6 months old. But he was ready!!! And well I'm not the best in the world at following "guidelines" Especially when they keep changing the goal posts. He'd been watching me eat for quite a few weeks beforehand and was fascinated by what I was doing. More often than not he would practice his chewing while I ate. His hand to mouth co ordination was also fantastic and as he was quite a long and very strong boy his ability to sit up properly in a high chair was also spot on. I just knew it was time. My doctor did say I could start weaning him when I saw her for his four month review. Little did she know I'd be starting baby led weaning...I still haven't told her now! What she doesn't need to know and all that...... So as I'm starting this blog about 6 weeks after he started on solids. I will have to start by back tracking a little....so bare with me. I don't have a lot of spare time but this is something I'm very passionate about...plus it'd be a lovely thing to look back at one day in the future with my son. I still can't believe I get to say "my son"...... So I plan on sharing just about everything my little fella eats and at what age he eats it. Also for anyone just starting out I really recommend this book - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Baby-led-Weaning-Cookbook-delicious/dp/0091935288/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389538432&sr=8-2&keywords=baby+led+weaning+book |
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