Elle turns 11 months old today, which means she is entirely to close to turning one.
And since she is pretty much a big girl now she is eating almost anything she can get her hands on. The girl will eat clumps of dirt if you when I let her. Her favorite things are berries, eggs, and pizza crust. I still have yet to introduce her to sweets. The no sweets rule has nothing to with the sugar project I talked about last week by the way. The first dessert comes on the first birthday. It’s how we’ve done it with all four kids. Well, with the exception of what my relatives have snuck to them behind my back. Don’t even get me started.
With my first baby I introduced rice cereal with breast milk and did everything by the book. Then I ventured out with baby number two and made my own pureed avocado for her first meal.
I did the same thing with Ezie and Elle, but at that point I was tired of trying to force the baby food. They usually didn’t like it, so it felt more natural to allow them to pick up soft solid foods and experiment with eating on their own.
Even though it seemed like allowing my baby to eat solids right from the get go was going smoothly, I wanted to be sure it was safe and healthy. So I did some research. It turns out there is a name for skipping baby food and going straight to table food. It’s called baby led weaning.
This sounded like a funny name to me because I am still breastfeeding. It really has nothing to do with weaning. I guess the name comes from England where weaning means something different.
To be clear, I am not anti-babyfood, so this isn’t some crunchy mom propaganda. It’s just that when you think about it, baby food hasn’t always been around. It wasn’t until the the 1920’s that jarred baby food was manufactured. This was back when mom’s were encouraged to introduce solids and supplements as early as 4 weeks. Now that it is recommended to wait until 6 months it is totally appropriate and normal for baby to want to grab, bite, and suck on table food.
So that’s the direction we’ve taken. Elle has had jars of baby food here and there because we get them free from WIC. She has always preferred solid food though. When she was 6 and 7 month old she started with cut up avocados, bananas, soft carrots, tiny bits of chicken and even sweet peppers to chew on when teething.
Sometimes I use the mesh bag feeder, but they are such a pain to clean and then I loose pieces, so usually I just give her the food. I am always monitoring her to make sure she doesn’t choke, but it’s incredible what babies can gnaw on with little to no teeth.
Definitely don’t take my advice without doing your own research and talking to your pediatrician. Different babies have different allergies and abilities. However, if you are curious about Baby Led Weaning and want to know more, check out babyjourney.net which has tons of information. Also if you want to know the benefits of starting with avocado check out my post about it here.
Lastly, this is day 10 of a 31 day series called Captain of the Kitchen. For the rest of the series find the table of contents here.
Interesting. I learned a lot. Oh and I can barely believe she’s almost a year old!
I know I can’t believe it either. 🙁 Thanks for stopping by Tara.
I did baby led weaning with both my kids. Luke didn’t like food until almost 18 months, so baby food wasn’t really an option. For Jacob I do both, I heard from someone that giving them solids helps them learn to eat food and enhances their gag reflect so they don’t choke. I liked what you said on fb that it has nothing to do with weaning. Such a good point. 🙂 One of my friends said she would never use that method because she didn’t want to breast feed forever. Maybe they need to come up with an American name.
They definitely need to come up with a new name. I have heard of baby led weaning also referring to allowing your child to decide when to stop nursing (which I am not against). I am guessing that’s the one your friend thought you were talking about.
Great tips for new Moms! She is such a beauty but how can she be almost ONE?!