Hi, firstly some introductions: My name is Helen Fox, I am a first time mummy living in the UK with my husband and our son, who will be known to you as Master Fox, who is now 6 months old.
I wanted to start this blog to document our adventures in baby led weaning. Now let me tell you a truth. When my health visitor first mentioned baby led weaning to me I admit that I glazed over and had already decided pureeing was the way for us. I mean all those brightly coloured bags of frozen puree in the freezer, giving your baby your undivided attention as you spoon feed them every meal and knowing exactly how much your baby is eating is exactly what appealed to me. I had read up on the internet about introducing purees, bought books with puree recipes in the lot and we were ready and raring to go.
We started weaning Master Fox about 2 weeks before he turned 6 months. To clarify, by 6 months I mean 6 months from the date he was born, not 24 weeks. There is no right or wrong here, I think the only thing is that 6 months is the recommended age for weaning at the moment, but its more about your baby showing signs of being ready for food than the exact date. I mean how many babies are going to hit 6 months exactly and then instantly be ready for food? Just use your common sense. You as a mother know your child best. Master Fox has however always been a small baby and a little and often eater so I was in no rush to start him off really early.
So off we went. The first week went great. We were feeding Master Fox at tea time (6pm) at the table with us. Admittedly some of the first foods he wasn't so keen on, but others he wolfed down. We tried a different food each night to see his preferences and we were all happy, until one night. It was the night we offered fruit (pear) puree for the first time. My goodness we had a horrible night. Now Master Fox has only ever slept through twice which I think was a complete fluke and we are still getting up to give him a night feed at least once. He goes to bed around 6.30-7pm and gets up anywhere from 4.30-7am normally. This night however we were up hourly with a screaming baby, not my idea of fun! So I went off to see the health visitor a couple of days later and they spoke about things like reflux and allergies and to introduce one food at a time to look out for reactions etc. Well a panicky few night later and I think we can safely say the fruit just gave him wind!
What did we do about it? Well much to the disappointment of my husband, as he wanted to be around for mealtimes, we moved to offering breakfast instead of tea to allow any new food and digestive issues a few hours to sort themselves out before bed time. But before we made this move we gave the poor boy a few days off solids to let his digestive system settle.
The first morning came for breakfast and there I was armed with a spoon of puree and what has happened? He has decided he no longer wishes to be spoon fed. He screws his mouth up in protest, stiffens his body and squeals until you take the spoon away. Well I wasn't expecting that! The result; He seems to have found his independence and wants to feed himself. This is something I expect a lot of babies do once they get to around 6 months. Their hand mouth coordination is getting good enough and they want to play and explore the world of food on their own.
So what did this mean for us? Well it meant it was time to give baby led weaning a go. What was my health visitor saying to me when I was only half listening? Time to look into this a bit more.
I have to say I am so proud of Master Fox and how he has taken to self feeding. It is taking a little bit of adjusting to for me ,but seeing how well he is able to pick food up, put it in his mouth, play with it and how much more content he is with his food now I am now completely pro baby self feeding.
He was exactly 6 months last week and we have only been on our baby led weaning adventure for a few days now so I wanted to start sharing our experiences, talk about the foods we are offering and hopefully share some recipes/food ideas with you. I have always cooked all our meals from scratch so this appeals to me and so I hope you will find some tips and ideas from these pages and it will give you the confidence to give this type of weaning a go.
I imagine most of our posts being written on my phone whilst having a sleeping baby on me so you will have to bear with me :)
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