Will you look at this, the gender pay gap explained. AND IT’S OUR OWN FAULT.
Archive for June, 2011
Women, know your limits! (Then double ’em)
Sunday, June 19th, 2011Woman plans koi-assisted water birth
Friday, June 17th, 2011Oh please, please PLEASE let this not be a hoax…
They have their own tank, it’s not like she’ll be giving birth in the botanic gardens.
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Why, it’s National Tampon Alert Week. (Can it really be a year since we were last alerted?)
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011The good news, which I must impart quickly as I have a gazillion things to do, is that rather than ‘raising awareness of Toxic Shock Syndrome’, www.bodykind.com is taking 10% off Mooncups and other re-usable sanpro. CHANGED MY LIFE, seriously. Like, SERIOUSLY.
To give you an idea of how amazing these products are (once you get over the squicky element and get the hang of Putting Them In), might I link you to the TWENTY-NINE page thread on the forum where they are being discussed by normal human women who have normal human periods and have tired of sticking wodges of polyester and rayon up their nethers? Voila!
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Guardian food writer Emma Sturgess has written a BLW diary for us… how kind, and how cool.
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011http://www.babyledweaning.com/features/baby-led-weaning-diary/
here it is, it was written when her wee boy was 10 months old, so he’d been at it a fair while, so it really gives an idea of what they are doing.
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Baby Led Weaning Diary
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011Thanks to Guardian food writer Emma Sturgess for this excellent insight into What They Actually Eat.
“Franklin is 10 months and started BLW with toast when he was six months. Breastfed until seven months, he has three meals and two or three 210ml formula bottles a day.
Monday
Breakfast: Porridge ‘fingers’, banana, apple
The online shop doesn’t come till tonight so breakfast is from the cupboard. Frank will use a pre-loaded spoon for porridge, but it’s easier to take a tip from the BLW Cookbook and microwave equal quantities of oats and milk for two minutes. Cut into fingers while hot, leave to cool a bit, and you’ve got a soft, easily-handled miracle food. We’re supposed to eat the same thing, but while I’d walk through fire for Frank, I wouldn’t eat porridge fingers.
Lunch: toasted bagel with peanut butter and soft cheese, banana.
The electrician arrives halfway through lunch and I have to discuss circuit boards with him from the dining table. Bagels are great for starting BLW because they’re robust and chewy, allowing the topping to be sucked off; scrambled egg’s a good one.
Dinner: Stew with carrots, peas and potatoes
I’m out tonight but The Boy King and his Dad have beef stew. It is reported that he ate loads (he’ll have the chunks of meat whole, swallow some bits and let the rest fall out) but maintained an imperious frown throughout. I would normally add bacon to the stew, but it’s too salty, so I use extra mushrooms instead.
Tuesday
Breakfast: Crumpets
BLW has helped Frank with his fine motor skillz, and this morning he tears a finger of crumpet (supermarket own brands tend to be less salty) in two and eats the pieces. We have a packet of unsalted butter on the go for Frank.
Lunch: Cheesy lentil wedges with red pepper strips
Another dalliance with the BLW cookbook. If you cook a bit it’s nothing new, but the ideas are helpful. The cheesy lentil wedges involve fried onion, cooked lentils, cheese, breadcrumbs and an egg, baked for half an hour. Delicious, but the wedges crumble in Frank’s vice-like grip. I recycle bits by clumping them together with my fingers, but the recipe needs another egg. Also: windy.
Dinner: Salmon with fragrant broth
A Jill Dupleix recipe of pan-fried salmon served with a broth of mushrooms, spinach and shallots spiked with fish sauce, chilli and lime has been a regular since the heady pre-Frank days. Using low-salt stock and adding the chilli just to ours at the end (Frank doesn’t mind chilli but sometimes rubs food in his eyes) makes it BLW-friendly. I overcooking his rice for stickiness (we’ve run out of noodles) but it remains stubbornly free-flowing. I help him get a couple of spoonfuls into his mouth. The post-rice clean-up operation is heinous. I keep finding bits stuck to my socks.
Wednesday
Frank’s at nursery, where he dines extensively on hotpot despite refusing breakfast. I’ve had trouble with nursery: I explained BLW, then found them spoon-feeding him. I’d been wondering why he occasionally opens his mouth to be fed. Turns out they didn’t think it was important. Health and safety was raised as an objection to him eating with his hands from the chair tray, so they stopped bothering and didn’t tell me. Grrr.
I went through it all again with the manager, and they’re consequently impressed with how well he’s able to feed himself (I took a roll-out table mat in, so cross- contamination is no longer an excuse). I know they think I’m a mentalist and quite possibly use a Mooncup, but I don’t care. BLW’s the best thing we’ve done with Frank and if they couldn’t do it (a mistake since some health visitors here are now recommending BLW) I’d send him elsewhere.
Dinner: Vietnamese meatballs with rice and stir-fried vegetables
Meatballs are, as they say, amazeballs for BLW. Once your baby can grasp one and hold it up to his or her mouth (Frank uses an open hand to stop them falling out) you’re onto a winner, and you can glam them up a bit. We do a vaguely Asian version taken from a Diana Henry recipe, using minced pork with coriander, spring onions, ginger and lime zest and served with chilli sauce, rice or noodles and veg. Tonight Frank has either got wind or toothache and after dropping food on the floor and having a brief go with some rice, he’s had enough.
Thursday
Nursery again: two whole mealtimes’ respite from washing the highchair. It’s a Silver Cross Doodle which is sturdy, looks great and has a removable tray, but cleaning the bleeding thing drives me up the wall. The floor’s wooden so we just sweep and wipe it after he’s done, and take supermarket paper tablecloths when we visit people with carpet. Even when Frank’s not here, we eat at the table – another positive side-effect of BLW.
Dinner: Meatloaf and salad
Mince, mince, lovely mince. A new recipe, Jill Dupleix’s take on meatloaf, which involves beef mince squished together with sausagemeat, mustard, leeks, red peppers and an egg, and topped with canned tomatoes which form a built-in sauce. Cut into thick slices, it’s very easy for Frank to handle.
Friday
Breakfast: Crumpets, banana
Most babies have one food they’ll never refuse, and Frank’s is banana. We keep the fruit bowl on the table, so something placatory is always within reach.
Lunch: Leftover meatloaf and lentil wedges, salad, tomatoes
The lentil wedges are more resilient after a couple of days in the fridge, but Frank – the son of two enthusiastic meat eaters – prefers the meatloaf.
Dinner
Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic
Grumpiness descends as Frank displays a profound disinterest in his garlicky baked chicken thighs (from Nigella Lawson’s latest, Kitchen). They’re softer and fattier than chicken breast and crumble less easily, so they usually go down a treat, though it’s essential to remove the gristly knobbles at the ends. Either he’s disappointed that I’ve dropped a cultural/culinary clanger by serving his with stir-fried pak choi, or it’s wind.
Saturday
Breakfast
Porridge fingers
These used to be just as messy as everything else, but as his proficiency grows, Frank’s dropping less and less food. He makes up for this by dropping his sippy cup, which nursery has been a big help in establishing the use of. Now he can drink water easily, which started at about 9 months, I feel better about slipping him the odd bit of ham.
Lunch
Sandwiches
Lunch in a cafe, and I glow with pride as Frank tackles sandwiches (egg mayo, tuna mayo, turkey and cranberry sauce) with gusto. It’s his first encounter with tuna mayonnaise and he clearly hates it, which leads to some very amusing faces. We tidy up quite a bit before we go – I’m still not used to wandering blithely off, leaving bits of my child’s lunch caked to the highchair.
Dinner
Fishcakes with spinach
Made with mash, salmon, spring onions, lemon zest and an egg, fried and then finished in the oven, these are a textural puzzle; crisp on the outside and soft inside. Good fun to watch, until Frank sneezes into his.
Sunday
Breakfast
Weetabix, pear
Weetabix makes a horrendous mess, dries like cement and is as tenacious on the way out as it is on the way in. Nevertheless Frank loves holding a whole milk-soaked biscuit in his hands and stuffing it in as lumps fall damply onto the newspaper spread below. The pear is topped and tailed and Frank reduces the whole fruit to pulp in what seems like seconds. He’s come a long way – the skin used to make him gag, although he’s never come close to a choke. Now he just coolly swallows it.
Lunch
Cheese, toast, red peppers
Hard cheese is salty, but by the power of the traffic-light wheel used on supermarket packaging, I’ve tracked down some pasteurised Emmental which isn’t quite so bad. Sticks of this with toast and red peppers make a quick, boring but kind-of-balanced lunch.
Dinner
Frittata, bread and butter, salad
Leftover garlic chicken, spinach, potatoes and onions go into a one-pan Sunday night fry-up. We think Frank’s finished, but he gets a second wind as soon as we take the tray off the high chair, finding lumps of frittata in his bib and nestled by his leg, and using his freshly-wiped hand to convey them to his freshly-wiped face. And then it’s time to wash the high chair. Surprise!”
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Eleanor wrote us a piece about Reflux and BLW…
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011do pass it on to anyone who is struggling with this, will you? I think it’s so helpful to get help from people who have been there.
http://www.babyledweaning.com/features/999-2/
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Reflux advice from Someone Who’s Been There…
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011Eleanor, one of our forum members, very kindly wrote a piece about what it’s like to have a BLW head on while weaning her reflux-y little darling. Thanks, El!
Reflux and BLW
The following is what I’ve gathered from my experience with a baby who suffers from gastric reflux. Not all babies have the same issues and this isn’t meant to be a substitute for advice from your GP or health visitor.
What is reflux?
Gastric reflux means an inefficient valve at the top of the stomach lets food and acid flow back into the baby’s throat, causing pain and usually vomiting (in “silent reflux” babies aren’t actually sick). Reflux babies typically arch and writhe around during milk feeds. They can be very windy and are sometimes misdiagnosed as just ‘colicky’. They’re happiest being held upright and tend to sleep badly, especially on their backs. Many are comfort eaters, constantly wanting to feed to soothe themselves and wash down the acid, which creates a vicious circle because the extra milk has to come back up again. (The comfort-eating refluxy baby often gains weight fast despite frequent vomiting, and again this can mean misdiagnosis if it’s assumed that a good weight gain means no “real” problem.)
Why is it sometimes advised to wean refluxy babies early?
A baby who is uncomfortable with a tummy full of milk – liable to vomit which then causes pain, wind, more vomiting and disturbed sleep – may be happier having some of that milk replaced by mush. This was the case with my son, who was miserable and sleepless by 5 months. Introducing purees wasn’t a magic bullet but it made him more relaxed and the laundry mountain decreased slightly.
If I have to wean my refluxy baby early, does this mean BLW is off the menu?
BLW works by relying on milk to keep babies nourished until they’ve learned to feed themselves larger amounts, whether that happens at 9 months, a year or beyond. If you have to get some food into your baby because they’re uncomfortable on milk alone, it’s hard to be truly ‘baby-led’ – especially if your baby is sometimes confused about ‘hungry’ and ‘full’ signals because of the discomfort of reflux symptoms and the comfort-eating habit. But having weaned one baby the BLW way and now another the traditional way, I believe you can definitely do traditional weaning with a BLW hat on.
These are the BLW principles that you can still follow even when you’re spooning:
– Relax and enjoy it. Have fun helping them explore new foods and sharing sociable family meals.
– Like other babies, they’ll have times when they’re not keen to eat or even go on strike (teething, colds, just not in the mood…) Hang in there. It will pass.
– It’s easy for spoonfeeding to become all about ‘accepting’ or ‘rejecting’ the spoon, but try not to give in to that mindset. At least with a pukey baby there is little temptation to play “here comes the aeroplane” to try to get them to take more than they want!
– Offer chunky finger foods at 6 months or thereabouts, alongside the spoonfeeding – when the baby can reach for them and pick them up. Ricecakes, toast, melon, banana, broccoli and butternut squash were all early favourites here.
– Follow the baby’s signals: if a particular food seems to cause pain in swallowing, or make reflux symptoms worse, forget about it for a while. Plenty of time to try again later.
– Don’t worry about a ‘balanced diet’ yet. Food is still for fun and milk for nutrition until they’re one – even if you have to try to “get some into them” for tummy-comfort.
– Don’t worry about gagging. Most babies gag as they’re learning to eat, but if it doesn’t upset them it isn’t a problem. If it does upset them, just move on, offer water, something else to eat, or playtime instead. (It’s a very good idea to do an infant resuscitation course so you would know what to do in the event of choking.) Reflux babies may gag more and for longer, on mush as well as finger foods, and in our experience this ruled out ‘bookending’ meals with the offer of milk before and after: the slightest gag, and the whole bellyful came back up.
So what doesn’t work?
The big difference I’ve found between BLW and puree-weaning a reflux baby is there’s not much scope to feed on demand. Unrestricted milk feeds are central to BLW, so that they’re nourished even when they eat little. However, my son needs to wait at least an hour between milk and solids, preferably two hours. Extra feeds within that window end up making him feel worse, as the extra milk comes back plus whatever solids he’s eaten.
What can’t reflux babies eat?
Acidic foods seem to cause problems for many: this may rule out apple, tomato, onions, citrus and berries. (None of these are great early BLWing foods anyway but you’ll find them in most prepared baby foods.) And as with any weaning method, if you have a family history of allergies you may want to introduce dairy, wheat, etc. at intervals and keep a food diary. But don’t assume that you have to stick to ‘safe’, bland foods. Babies often love strong flavours and trial and error is the key.
I’m very happy to be PMed via the forum if anyone wants to compare notes. There’s some good advice here http://www.babyreflux.co.uk/knowledge/questions/41/Weaning+%26+Reflux – they also reiterate that health-care professionals should be your first call for personalised advice for your baby.
Good luck and have fun!