Baby Led Weaning (BLW) Post #1

Before I had kids, I worked as a nanny and a babysitter.

I encountered lots of different feeding methods, and eventually landed on the decision to do a version of baby led weaning with my little guy.

Now, I am not as strict as some are, and we have been doing some purees, and I occasionally will put the food into his little hands which makes it easier for him to get it to his mouth.

But overall, the general concept of baby led weaning is working great for us!

1) He eats whole foods
This has been so nice, as he is pretty comfortable with me giving him a stick of something and he is content to gnaw on it and get pieces off.

2) He gags
I would say this has been most difficult for my husband to see.  We have discovered that Aiden has a really strong gag reflex.  So after three days in a row of vomiting up all his food, I realized that I wasn't thinning out the sweet potato puree enough and it was getting a bit stick in the back of his mouth.  Enter: lots of vomit.  But for the most part, if he gags on something, he is able to move it around and goes back to happily eating.  Especially as he's gotten older, he is much better with thicker textures.

3) He holds his mouth open when he is done
It is the CUTEST little thing.  When he doesn't want anymore, he just holds his mouth open and won't swallow.

4) He makes sure we know when he doesn't want more of one thing
We recently introduced eggs and when he is done eating them, he grunts and pushes them out of his mouth.  He isn't done eating, but he wants to make sure I know that he is DONE with one thing.

5) He has progressed SO quickly
Now, as soon as I put anything on his tray, he grabs at it to put in his mouth.  In the beginning, he wasn't sure what to do with the food.  But now he goes for it right away!

6) He is willing to try whatever I give him
So far, we have done applesauce, pear puree, broccoli, cucumbers, toast fingers, avocado, cheerios, green beans, peas, sweet potato puree, sweet potato fries, bananas, steamed carrots, carrot puree, scrambled eggs, and oat cereal.  He was not a big fan of the bananas, but the second and third time he liked the chunks more.  Broccoli was SO funny to watch, and it seemed like he didn't like it, but he kept going back for more.  And he did not like carrot puree at all.

But everything else, he LOVES.  I make my own oat cereal by blending oats, and adding it to the applesauce, and that seems to be the best staple for each meal.
Eggs are new and the first protein.  I was nervous because of allergies, but he hasn't had any issues.

I am letting him do a lot of the eating, but then I feed him with a spoon for some too.  It seems to be a good balance for us.

More to come!