Baby Led Weaning

Growing healthy babies with healthy appetites

Archive for the ‘Getting Started – Finger Food Basics’ Category

Brussels Sprouts

Sunday, October 15th, 2006

Not my first choice of vegetable I'd have to say, but we were out for lunch at a friend's house and in addition to cooking roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, asparagus and baby carrots, he knocked up a bowlful of brussels.
Babybear thought them rather marvellous, actually, and very much enjoyed biting chunks out of hers with her four new top teeth. Later, while her parents were discussing how tiresome it is to be driven onto the pavement and into a fence by some tit in a 4 x 4 (so often the topic of discussion, I find), she contented herself with peeling the leaves of the sprout back, fanning them out and blowing on them in the manner of Citizen Kane's Jedediah Leland at the opera.

Did not notice any increase in her already prodigious farting after the meal, so that's one worry crossed off the list for Christmas Day.

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Remember, this is a blog.

Saturday, October 14th, 2006

…so for everyone who's thinking 'where do I start?', the answer is generally 'at the bottom and read up'. In the case of Finger Foods, however, I have 'organised' (and I cannot use that word too loosely) the first couple of months' posts into Month 1 and Month 2. Look to your  left, two new sub-sections have just appeared as if by magic!
It's just what I happened to give Babybear, though, so you must absolutely do what you like if you want to give different foods (apart from things like peanuts, obviously). Good luck!

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Bread and Butter

Wednesday, October 4th, 2006

For all that I do like cooking more complex meals, doing Baby Led Weaning with Babybear has re-introduced me to the simple pleasure of a slice of bread with a decidedly generous slathering of butter. (Hey, Babybear needs her fats, doesn't she?) As it happens I buy an unsalted butter and if possible organic as I once read an article on how they make spreads and those room temperature butters and it turned my stomach.

Certainly if you are just starting baby led weaning, the advice would be to toast the bread so that it doesn't go all claggy and get stuck in the roof of their mouths, but once the babies get better at eating (you'll know when) then I cannot recommend a good old slice of B'n'B too highly.

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Wagamama’s Chicken Ramen and Edamame… oh yes…

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

Now come on, this is impressive…

Went to Wagamama, where they have dinky little highchairs pre-attached to the tables in the children's section and ordered some Chilli Chicken Ramen (chilli, salty soup, chicken and noodles – didn't 100% think that through, if I'm honest) while my dining companions ordered some Chicken Itame (a noodley coconut-y soup) and some of that mad breaded Chicken Katsuo curry with rice.

To keep us from falling off our perches with city centre-induced exhaustion, we also ordered some edamame (soy beans) and asked for the salt on the side. Well, I can't tell you how much Babybear enjoyed those little beans, but if I explain that she was operating a two-handed approach whereby she was picking up her next bean before the first one was fully chewed then you begin to get the idea.

The edamame comes in a little bowl and looks for all the world like mangetout in which the peas have been allowed to grow fat. You don't eat the pods, you just pop the beans out into your mouth and chew them. Delicious, but dangerous for a baby so it was up to me to pop them into my mouth and  burst them with my teeth so that they would fall apart more easily. She really loved them, so I'm now desperate to see if I can get some to keep in the freezer as that is one healthy snack, my friends. (I hardly need add that they made it through her entire digestive system with barely a dent.)

When the main courses arrived, Babybear was happy to eat slices of chicken from my meal (I had sooked the soup off first but it still had some kick), some beansprouts, bok choi, fistfuls of rice and she had great fun eating the flat rice noodles from the coconut soup.

And what joy for us, we got to eat our meals while they were still hot, hot, hot, with minimal interruption from a baby who was tickled pink to be playing with new tastes and textures. (Well, until her two new top teeth started hurting again and we made a hasty exit – but we got a good hour in there, which can't be bad.)

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Ham

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Take a look at the photo – priceless, isn't it? This is the face of a child who is thinking 'Mum, have you checked the ingredient list on the back of the pack?'



I hadn't, I'd just thought 'Ooooh, she might like ham. And it is from Marks and Sparks…' Anyway, her refusal to do anything other than hold it up with a rueful look on her face led me to look at the packaging. Ingredients: Ham, salt. Hmmmm, maybe another time, then.

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Peas

Saturday, September 9th, 2006

Well, petis pois actually, because that's what we happened to have in the freezer, but we might buy ordinary-sized peas the next time. Not sure, though. One of my friends (actually the mother of the rather spendid Bubby) pointed out that peas might represent more of a choking hazard. I'll have a think about it, but she is a Canadian and they are born worriers, that lot. If I do buy the normal-sized peas, I was planning to squash them a bit in advance. Your opinions and comments will, of course, be taken into consideration as well.

Oh anyway, she was a hoot with them, though… really the cutest thing. We had microwaved the peas, covered in a bowl with just a splash of water to retain as many vitamins as possible and we served them in the gravy of the rather marvellous beef stew that I've been banging on about. By 'served', I naturally mean 'spooned elegantly onto the highchair tray'.

She grabbed for them then clasped them in her wee fist, flicking them into her mouth like a Pez dispenser. For some reason, prior to picking them up she likes to point at them, move them slowly around the table with her index finger and then make a sudden but deadly  lunge at the pile.

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