I said I wouldn’t let it get to me, the stress about weaning. I would let Maia explore solid food at her own pace and I’d do my best to make mealtimes enjoyable for all of us. Baby-led Weaning (BLW) made perfect sense to me and I wanted to give it a go when Maia would start showing signs of being ready for it.
In June when Maia was 6-months old she was ticking all the boxes – sitting up without support, showing interest for food, grabbing food and putting it accurately into her mouth (etc) – and so we started introducing solids. I thought we had made good progress over the summer and it wasn’t until recently when I took her to the Health Visitor (HV) when she turned 8-months old that my confidence crumbled a bit. This was because Maia’s weight gain had slowed down and the HV seemed to think she needs more solid food. She also seemed to think Maia would start sleeping through the night with more solid food during the day (is it that simple though?). I told her that I do BLW and Maia eats what she eats and in addition I still breastfeed her as much as she wants. The HV thought it would be better to spoon-feed her as well to make sure she gets enough nutrition. I felt a bit disappointed to be honest. Even a bit embarrassed… Like I had failed in feeding her.
During my 8.5 months of motherhood I’ve learned that there will always be numerous opinions and different advice about caring for a baby – as many as mothers I’d say. I’ve also learned to trust my instincts and trust I know my child and her needs the best. Maia is a healthy and happy girl, and is hitting all important development milestones one at a time (she started crawling on Wednesday – yay!). And yet the HV got me worried. As a result I started combining BLW and spoon-feeding a few weeks ago and now I have to admit there’s an element of stress related to our mealtimes. If and when Maia rejects food I can’t help but to think of the next weighing in a couple of weeks!
But let’s rewind back a few months! In the UK it’s recommended to start weaning – which here means adding complementary foods instead of giving up breastfeeding – when the baby is 6-months old. In May when Maia was 5-months old I started researching the weaning topic. The “Baby-led Weaning” book by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett had been popular in my NCT (pre-natal) group and so I read it too. I really liked the common sense-style of it. In it’s simplicity “Baby-led Weaning explodes the myth that babies need to be spoon-fed and shows why self-feeding from the start is the healthiest way for your child to develop. Your baby is allowed to decide how much he wants to eat, how to eat it and to experiment with everything at his own pace.” In the book it makes a good point about us allowing babies to learn everything else, such as sitting up, crawling, walking, at their own pace when they are ready for it. Why should the skill of eating solid food be any different?
With BLW, instead of spoon-feeding purées babies are given finger food from the start. This is what I have done with Maia. I started with fruits and vegetables cut into finger-shapes for easy grip – either fresh or steamed if too hard fresh (like carrot). Maia’s first food ventures included banana, cucumber, carrot, avocado, broccoli and watermelon. It was all very exciting and Maia did so well, tasting everything I gave her. Only avocado was rejected straight away but she’s since come around and has had bits of it too. For berries I have used Nuby’s Nibbler Mesh Feeder to avoid choking risk (it’s like a mesh pouch with a handle and the baby can eat the food through the mesh). Maia loves everything juicy like tomatoes, watermelon and orange! The mess is incredible but the main thing is she enjoys food, gets to taste different things, and learns to chew and swallow different textured food.
I’ve been asked if I’m not worried about her choking and the answer is yes of course I am, but the risk is limited when I cut the food into thing long shapes and always monitor her eating. It can be scary when your baby gags but it’s good to remember that babies’ gag reflex is sensitive to protect them from choking. Adults’ gag reflex is at the back of our mouths while small babies have it at the tip of their tongue. As babies grow older the reflex moves back towards the adult position. This is a great time to introduce solid food because babies learn to chew their food thanks to the still very sensitive gag reflex. And yes babies can chew with their gums! Maia got her first four teeth in quick succession when she turned 8-months old so for two months she was successfully eating and chewing with her gums only. Maia does gag every now and then and sometimes I fish out the bigger bits from her mouth. It’s very important to closely watch them eat! Before Maia was born we participated in a babies’ first aid course which I would also recommend to every parent, whether they do baby-led weaning or not!
Gradually I offered Maia more and more different foods, just normal home cooked food we were having such as roast sweet potato wedges and strips of fried chicken, or toast and scrambled eggs – just without added salt or other seasoning. I tried spoon-feeding her some baby porridge but she wasn’t very keen on being fed so I didn’t insist. In July we were travelling for a couple of weeks during which we were slightly less diligent with her weaning and we just gave her bits and bobs from our plates when we ate out.
I’d heard the saying “food is for one until they are fun” and because I breastfeed Maia I wasn’t concerned about the amount of solid food she was eating (which wasn’t much). But after my visit to the baby clinic and the chat with the HV I’ve been very diligent about offering her three meals everyday with (boiled and cooled) water from the sippy cup. I have been combining BLW and spoon-feeding at every meal so that she can still feed herself but the amount of food actually swallowed would be a bit higher.
Here is an example of what Maia had the other day (or what I offered to her):
Baby menu:
Breakfast at 8am: satsumas, small bowl of Baby porridge with a teaspoon of baby oil mix (for increased energy content), a few spoons of Ella’s Kitchen “Purple One” purée (blueberries, blackcurrant, banana, apple)
Lunch at 12pm: some boiled egg, avocado, tomatoes, peppers, roasted sweet potato wedges, Ella’s beef stew
Dinner at 5pm: boiled potato, home-made beef burger, cucumber sticks, a few spoons of Ella’s “Purple One” purée for pudding
On this day she ate very well at breakfast but lunch and dinner weren’t as successful. Maia wasn’t very keen on the beef burger, I think it was too dry and difficult for her to swallow. She just crumbled it all over the table.
In between meals she sometimes has snacks like slices of apple, baby rice cakes or maize puffs. In fairness the snacks are mainly to keep her entertained if we are out and she’s getting bored. Her finger pinch grip has improved significantly though so I think these little snacks have been useful in practicing her motor skills.
It takes quite a lot of time and effort to prepare the food, to feed her, and to clean up the mess. Sometimes I feel like all I do all day long is clean the kitchen over and over again! And yes, it gets frustrating when she doesn’t really eat much but just makes a big mess. I knew that was in the cards though and it’s a phase which will pass but at the moment I get more stressed about her getting enough food… While I can’t make her eat and I don’t even want to “force feed” her, it’s true that the more opportunities I give her to eat, the more she eats. So lots of time spent in the highchair at home recently!
Considering that Maia has been teething almost constantly in the last month I’m not surprised she’s not so keen on warm food. Maia likes cold and fresh foods like vegetable and fruit sticks, and juicy tomatoes and melon. She can now also eat tougher fresh fruits and vegetables uncooked like carrot and apple, chewing them up with her toothy pegs.
I don’t want to embarrass little Maia so I won’t describe how her nappy contents have changed since we started weaning… But let’s just say a face mask would be a useful add-on to our nappy bag. 😆
All in all, we’ve had fun and exciting times with weaning but although there has been no tears of frustration (yet) it can be challenging at times for parents! But I try not to get too stressed about it as I really want Maia to enjoy our meals and develop a healthy attitude towards food. In the meantime, we keep at it and I try to cope with the mess. More about dealing with weaning related mess in the next post!
xoxoxo,
Sini