You may have seen my previous posts on our Baby Led Weaning (BLW) journey last year (If not they can be found here, here and here). Ailsa has now been on solids for 8 months - I know time flies! - and having done BLW I know whole heartedly it was the right choice for us and that it is something we would do again with any future children. If you are unfamiliar with Baby Led Weaning it is when baby's, from the recommended weaning age of 6 months, completely feed themselves instead of being spoon fed. In BLW there is no spoon feeding of puree or mashed foods by the parent. Pre loaded spoons of say porridge handed to baby are fine as long as they are the one putting the spoon in their mouth. Basically you give baby food the way you would eat it, So no puree is needed and for us that meant no faffing with blenders etc or having to buy pre-made baby food.
The best things we have found with BLW is that Ailsa can eat what we eat, well at least the majority of what we eat (we like a lot of super spicy food). Of course we do have to be careful and not add extra salt to our foods but it has just been so easy. We all eat together for breakfast and dinner and Ailsa and I eat our lunch together through the week. I have never had to worry about my dinner getting cold whilst feeding Ailsa as she does it all herself. We have found that overall our diet has improved greatly as we add in lots of extra veg to our meals and have cut back on using salty sauces. If we do end up having a curry we will normally just take out Ailsa's portion of the meat and veg before adding in our spicy sauce or we will cook up some extra broccoli or other veg to bulk out her meal and it takes no extra time at all.
A typical day's meals tend to be:-
Breakfast- Porridge and fruit or Toast topped with Avocado, Hummus or Ella's kitchen Prunes prunes prunes when she is a bit constipated (works just like jam would). We overcook Ailsa's porridge slightly so that it can be rolled into hand sized balls that she can pick up and pop in her mouth to munch on.
Lunch- Salad bits- so Tomato, Cucumber, Avocado, a little bit of ham or chicken or sometimes a sandwhich or wrap.
Dinner- Chicken and Veg or Pasta- Ailsa's favourites are Broccoli, Carrot and Sweet Potato.
Snacks- Childrens Rice cakes or Breadsticks, Fruit and yoghurt or Pepper sticks.
We also do give Pizza if we are having it (normally home made or Create your own from Sainsbury) and if we are out maybe a few chips, a bit of a burger or a little ice cream or chocolate if we have desert. As we do try to give lots of varied food and lots of fruit and veg, we don't see the harm in giving "naughty" food every so often. As with our own diet we like to think that everything is OK in moderation. We have an overall very healthy diet so having a little bit of Pizza once or twice a month isn't going to be doing much harm. There are much worse things we could be giving her and I know that she 95% of the time eats very, very well.
Ailsa's development has come such a long way since we started weaning as I am sure it does for all children and it's great to see her learning new skills such as using a spoon to eat yoghurt and a fork to pick up her food. Although she still prefers to use her hands most of the time she is getting the hang of using cutlery and sometimes we will sit on the floor together and share from the same bowl so she can copy what I am doing which she loves. Ailsa is also very good at telling us when she is all done with her food thanks to her baby sign class or is she would like some more.
Overall Baby Led Weaning has worked fabulously for us and although I know it wouldn't always work for every baby I definitely think it is worth considering as an option and looking into it. Yes it can be messy but I think that is just a part of having a baby. We have found that there isn't a food Ailsa won't try and she enjoys food with quite strong flavours such as garlic and onion. Baby Led Weaning has been a fantastic journey for us and we have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Labels: Ailsa, baby led weaning, weaning
