BLW Update

messy boy. messy house.

We've been at this Baby-Led Weaning business for about three months now, and I can say that it is really going well. It's so fun to watch Hunter trying new foods. The great thing about BLW is that it's not about making progress but about playing with food so that babies think food is something to enjoy rather than fear. Have you ever heard this saying? "Food before one is just for fun!" I think it sums up our experience up to this point.

(But I have to admit, we're not sticking to the philosophy 100%. You see, the whole point of BLW is to allow baby to feed himself, but sometimes we shovel a little something into his mouth with a spoon or with our fingers. Like, lentils or Greek yogurt. I tried freezing yogurt drops, but he just played with the frozen chunk and wasn't interested in trying it. When I fed it to him on a spoon, however, he loved it. I don't want him to miss out on yummy Greek yogurt just because he can't feed himself. Also, while eating out, if I don't have something packed for him, he eats off our plates, but it's often food that is not tiny-hands-friendly, so we just pop a piece in his mouth and he is happy. We've also let him suck on organic pureed food pouches a couple of times. Anyway, back to the update...)

So far, Hunter has been the most successful at getting food into his mouth when we cut the food into stick-like pieces, with one part to hold onto and the part "sticking out" gets eaten (or sucked on in the very beginning). The first few weeks, he did a lot of gagging and barfing up any food that he would start to swallow. A lot of it just ended up on the floor or all over his hands and face. Then, by seven months, we could see that he was actually chewing (or gumming) and swallowing food!

We have recently started to offer him smaller foods, like grapes cut in half, to give him the opportunity to work on his pincer grasp, but he's not there yet. With the grapes, for example, he gets to eat about half of them by using both hands to wrangle the slippery fruit and bring it to his mouth, the other half falls to the ground before reaching his mouth. He seems to prefer meat over fruit and vegetables. I find I have to steam the veggies until just falling apart for him to even try them, and then he will actually eat the veggie if I cover it in tomato sauce. Haha.

I have updated in red the new foods he's tried. Click here for my first post on BLW.

Fruits:
-watermelon :) R
-cantaloupe :) R
-honeydew :) R
-plum R
-blueberry R
-apple C & R
-banana :) R
-avocado :( R
-tomato :) R & C
-nectarine :) R
-grapes :) R
-pluot :) R
-strawberry R
-raspberry :) R
-fig :) R

Vegetables:
-sweet potato :) C
-zucchini C
-cucumber C & R
-cauliflower C
-green beans C
-bell pepper C
-yellow squash :) C & R
-beets C
-eggplant C
-purple potato C
-butterball potato :) C 
-broccoli C
-carrot :) :) :) C & R (for teething)
-okra :) C

Other:
-chicken {breast and drumstick} :) C
-egg yolk C
-black bean patty C
-roasted turkey :) C
-ground beef patty :) C
-ground turkey patty :) C
-lentils :) C (though spoon/finger-fed to him)
-lamb meatball :) C
-braised lamb :) C
-bacon :) (this I am kind of ashamed of because of the high salt content) C
-yogurt :)
-canned tuna :)
-canned salmon :)