Baby Led Weaning

When Harrison and Brooke hit about 4 months I started to plan their introduction to solid foods. I knew I wanted to make their food for them so I ordered a Baby Breeza and silicone ice cube trays. I visited the farmer's market and picked up a couple organic squashes and a pumpkin. I picked up some sweet potatoes and green beans from the store too. I spent an entire weekend when they were about 5 months old making purees and freezing them into perfect one ounce cubes. I was all set to start their introduction to solids in just a few short weeks.

I knew I wanted avocado to be their first food, so at around 5.5 months we introduced avocado to them. They weren't thrilled, but they were definitely interested. We waited a couple of days and tried more avocado. After a few attempts they still weren't thrilled with eating, so we took a week off. They hit six months and I decided to jump back into introducing more foods. They tried sweet potatoes, apples, squash, pumpkin, pears, prunes, green beans, mango and broccoli. Some feedings they loved it and other times I couldn't convince them to take a bite.

I had been hearing a lot about baby led weaning as a way to introduce solids to your baby. Essentially it is letting your babies learn to feed themselves with solid age appropriate foods. H and B did seem to enjoy grabbing food off my plate and they were always willing to eat anything I was having.

By 8 months we were completely off of purees. They don't even want me to feed them applesauce anymore. They want to do it themselves. Their spoon skills aren't great yet, so we are doing everything in easy to handle solid form. Sweet potato fries, pear slices, cheese cubes, pumpkin pancakes, whole bananas.

Since switching to baby led weaning style of feeding their interest in food and willingness to eat has skyrocketed. Since I'm not spoon feeding them I can sit back and enjoy a meal with them. They make a huge mess pretty much every time they eat, but that's what Tyson and Layla are for. I'm so glad we discovered BLW when we did. It makes perfect sense to let them learn about food with real food instead of something that could be fed through a feeding tube at the nursing home. They've already had food from a few of our favorite restaurants too. They were big fans of Cebolla's and Taj Mahal. I've listed a few great links for places to start as well as a sample daily menu for Harrison and Brooke.

Breakfast
1/2 a banana or a 1/2 cup of other fruit and a generous handful of Cheerios or one pumpkin pancake

Lunch
6 cheese cubes and 5 sweet potato fries or half of a cheese toastie cut into strips

Dinner
1/2 cup of pasta with veggies and chicken or whatever the adults are having for dinner

Baby Led Weaning Blog

Wholesome Baby Food - A great site for feeding babies in general.  Not just BLW.

Tyson and Layla anxiously wait for a stray piece of food to hit the floor.

Brooke Enjoying a pumpkin pancake.

Harrison enjoys blackberries a little too much.