Baby Led Weaning

When I was approaching my due date with Landon, a friend in the office who had her baby a few months before brought up introducing solids and a method called Baby Led Weaning.  I knew that I wanted to make my own baby food instead of buying jarred baby food, but I was curious about this "new" method so she filled me in.  The idea behind Baby Led Weaning is that 1.) you don't introduce solids until around 6 months of age IF your baby is ready and 2.) your baby feeds his/her self.  If you have interest you can read more about it in this blog.  I love this resource because the Momma documented week by week with her daughter and I found it to be SOO useful.

Confession:  When Landon turned 6 months I tried it for a few weeks and then got scared of potential choking (one of my biggest fears anyways) and with Chris deployed at the time, I just didn't feel comfortable on my own.  A few weeks later our lives were turned upside down when Chris was brought home on emergency leave and we just did solids the old fashioned way for a bit.  I was browsing through my blog trying to remember when exactly we started back up with Baby Led again but Landon was 10 months old and he was already pretty much eating what we eat. 

As Emmilyn approached 6 months, I knew that I wanted to do blw (baby led weaning) with her from the start.  The second time around I feel much more comfortable with the gagging (yes, there is gagging involved) and realize it makes so much more sense for her to eat what we eat because that's what I expect in the years to come anyways.  So of the first foods we tried are banana, sweet potato, red potato, and avocado. These lend themselves as easiest to hold, and easily mushable.  Emmi was definitely ready as she reaches for what I put on her tray immediately and takes it straight to her mouth.  I remember Landon playing with food a bit more but Emmi means business!  Here are some snaps from our first couple weeks.

We started with banana and since theycan be slippery I leave the peel on the bottom so E had a handle to grip.

 



Next was sweet potato.

 

 

 

I fixed steak fry red potatoes with dinner so I decided to give E one.  She loved it!

 

 

Landon felt left out of the picture taking tonight.

 

 

Tonight I gave E a slice of avocado. 

She always grabs food off of the tray the second I lay it down.

 

 

 

I think the avocado felt good on her bottom teeth coming in.

 

 

 As with the introduction of any solids, we introduce one food a few times before introducing another.  I also don't sweat it if I don't give Emmi food one day because, as the jingle goes....

 

'Food before one is just for fun!'