Smug Mummy

I am so proud of my Princess! She is coping admirably with my decision to skip puree and to start her journey into the world of food with lumps and chunks. It's not true "Baby-Led Weaning" because I do hand-feed Princess, with the exception of anything from a spoon. Spoon stuff I load onto the spoon and then hand the spoon to Princess... with messy results but she seems to enjoy the autonomy and I reckon about half gets inside her. The rest she wears!



The added bonus to the route we have taken is that I don't prepare special meals for Princess. She gets what we are eating (before I add salt and spices). We had pasta bolognaise the other night and so this was Princess' dinner the following day: Bolognaise in spelt pasta shells (we are avoiding wheat until 9 months) with steamed carrot batons and garden peas, tinned peach slices and mummy-peeled grapes, and a mini fromage frais yogurty thing.


She ate almost all of it (the pasta shells were not appreciated) finishing with the yogurt. Princess smelled like a strawberry for the rest of the day, even after her bath!


I am the smuggest mummy in town! I have friends with much older babies who can't/won't eat lumpy or whole food, and my clever girl gobbles it all down...

Oh yeah, and the nappies are way smellier now. I don't mind because they are less explosive and easier to clean up!

Solids - more photos

You're going to get sick of these, but I'm having too much fun experimenting on the baby to resist!


Note to self - if the baby is hungry start with her bottle if you don't want a frustrated meltdown as she can't get solids in fast enough to be satisfied...

So today we started with a few spoons of (jarred, organic) pumpkin mush mixed with rice cereal to make it thicker and stickier on the spoon. Princess would be quite happy to be spoon-fed but we're trying to be baby-led so I load the spoon, get her to hold it, and she rams it in the general direction of her mouth. Between lack of coordination, trying to lick the food which knocks it off the spoon, and trying to bite the spoon which sends food everywhere she ended up wearing most of it! The mess OMG the mess! I won't be doing anything spoon-based in public any time soon! She seemed to like the pumpkin taste and was keen for more but was a bit frustrated with the spoon so we moved on to finger food.

I'm still feeding these to Princess as she hasn't quite got the grasp-and-bring-to-mouth-and-bite thing happening yet. In theory I shouldn't be giving her these bits until she can manage them herself but I'm having fun, so... bad mummy!

The tinned peaches and tinned pear were a big hit. The pear goes down easily as it turns to mush fast, although she prefers the taste of the peach. Carrot sticks (nuked until soft) are very popular. I thought she was just going to suck and squish the carrot and then spit it out but she she nommed a whole 1 and a half sticks! I was stunned! Grapes (peeled and hung onto fiercely by mummy) were nommed and sucked and swallowed with great delight.

Rice cakes were not a hit. They got sucked a bit and spat out. I tried dipping one in yogurt which got it a longer suck but she's really not keen! Maybe when she starts teething she'll like biting them.

Solids - photos

I have cheated a bit by putting the food to Princess' mouth (very non-baby-led), but she was totally in control. She sucked and nommed steamed carrot sticks, steamed brocolli and canned peach pieces. When she had enough she spat them out. Almost no gagging - I am so proud!

Carrot...


Brocolli...



I have no pics of peaches because she ate them completely! The nappies are getting interesting!

Solids! and "Baby-Led Weaning"

Princess had her first solids today. Because she is 6 months on Monday and because I've been itching to see her face when she tried some!

However, I'm going to be following the principles of "Baby-Led Weaning", which should really be called "Baby Self-Feeding". The idea is that if your baby is ready for food, and in the mood for food, she will grab food and nom on it. If she's not ready or not hungry she won't. When I was a baby people started feeding solids at 4 months, when babies weren't ready to chomp on stuff, so you had to do mush. Today we start solids at 6 months when babies are ready for lumps and pieces of food...

This is controversial with people who believe that you must start with mashed foods, and you must shovel said mush into your baby's mouth. As it is I'm taking flak from friends who believe you must start feeding your baby iron-fortified rice cereal at 6 months because of iron levels blah-di-blah whatevah.

So today I compromised. I loaded a spoon with rice cereal, let Princess grab hold of it, and helped her get it to her mouth (it counts as baby-led if they hold the spoon). She probably took in about 1.5 teaspoons of cereal, and wasn't particularly thilled or anti the experience. Pity - I was hoping for funny faces! Later in the day I microwaved some carrots sticks until they were soft and she grabbed and sucked at them. A few little bits detached... she may have swallowed some. She did gag a little but wasn't upset. So all in all a very successful first day starting solids!

"Food is for fun until you are one."

The bulk of Princess' nutrients will be coming from formula until she's 1, which seems ok from the info I can find (although it's all slanted towards breastfeeding until the age of 1. I did find a lot of hysteria regarding iron levels which is why I'm offering her rice cereal to cover my bases) and I'm not worried if she doesn't swallow much food provided she's doing well on the bottle.

No pictures as I had my hands full... but it was a fun day!