Baby Led Weaning

Growing healthy babies with healthy appetites

Archive for the ‘Top Tips’ Category

We are keeping our dishes in the freezer, oh yes we are.

Friday, December 29th, 2006

I'm still experimenting with this, but over the last few days I've been flinging Babybear's bowl into the freezer for about five or so minutes before I'm due to serve up our dinner. The idea is that it gets cold, so that when the hot food hits it everything cools down nicely so that we can all achieve Baby Led Weaning nirvana and EAT AT THE SAME TIME.
As it happens we use melamine dishes, a rather attractive Babar set that my mother brought back from France and an utterly scuzzy cheapoid set of 'Chinese' food bowls that I am slightly ashamed to own. Anyway it has worked so far, but I don't know about doing it with ceramic or plastic bowls. Feel free to conduct your own crockery tests and report back.

Post Script. My laziness knows no bounds, clearly… I've started leaving the dishes in the freezer all the time as I kept forgetting to put them in. It works brilliantly with the melamine ones (she says modestly).

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Frozen peas, my love affair continues…

Friday, December 29th, 2006

You know that you can add them to ANYTHING that you want it to cool down quickly, don't you? Well, anything savoury, I suppose.

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Coping with sceptical Mothers-in-law and other animals

Thursday, October 12th, 2006

My mother, as I many have mentioned once or twice, was very dubious about Baby Led Weaning when I first suggested it. She seemed convinced that my having kept her grandchild in one piece until the age of six months was largely a fluke, and that any further off-piste baby decisions would surely result in disaster. (Remember that Babybear had been sleeping in a hammock since the day she'd been brought home from the hospital, so my mother felt that she had paid her dues already with regards to toleration of her daughter's loopy childcare ideas.)

So I mention Baby Led Weaning and she tells me that I should go ahead so long as I don't mind Babybear choking to death, or words to that effect. Babies must have their food mushed for them, otherwise how will they learn to chew?

Now I know that there isn't a great deal of information out there about BLW even today, after all why would you be reading this godforsaken prose if you had a choice? But at least now more people are talking about it on websites like Mumsnet and others. A few months ago it felt like there was nothing but the excellent Yahoo users group and that spooky Dutch website… after that you were on your own, with just a vegetable steamer for company. No leaflets, no recipe books, no Annabel Karmel ticky-box calendars of weaning… nothing.

So there wasn't much that I could employ to fend off my mother's concerns, other than clear-eyed logic. It worked, and I am delighted to pass on my wisdom to you all.

Simply ask: “When did you start weaning your children?”

(In my case the answer to this question was an astonishing two weeks but really that wasn't my mum's fault, it was the midwives at the hospital putting Farex infant rice into my bottle. And yes, I do suffer from IBS thank you for asking.)


Generally, however, the British matron will reply 'three months', for that was the advice back then.

Now leave them to think about whether they spooned and spooned and spooned for, what, six months, before offering so much as a slice of toast? Didn't happen, did it?

Of course after three whole months of spoon feeding, women of our mothers' generation were only too happy to try finger food with their babies, it's just that they fondly assumed that their children had needed the three months of puree to get used to the idea. (Which was kinda true in a way, in that a three-month-old is incapable of self-feeding).

So when my mum realised that I was doing was my best to adhere to both modern WHO guidelines and copy her own shining example, she suddenly chilled right out about it, surprise, surprise. And the funniest thing is that I've now overheard her recommending baby led weaning to her golden girl grandma pals and she is proud fit to burst when she sees her grandchild eat her roast potatoes.

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How long did it take Babybear to defeat the Tommee Tippee stick-the-plate-to-the-highchair thing?

Thursday, October 12th, 2006

Who said 30 seconds? Yep, that's right.

The bowl was stuck tight, tight, tight to the tray, there was no way it was shifting… until I turned around and Babybear frisbeed her spaghetti bolognese across the room. I've tried it again a couple of times with different plates and things and she overwhelms them all with her Hulk-like strength.

It cost a fiver… available from all good supermarkets selling baby shite you don't need that doesn't work.

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Out and About

Monday, August 28th, 2006

While out and about I always pack a ‘lunchbox’ for Boomer. Common contents are some rice cakes or rye crackers, some fruit (usually nectarines or a banana), dried fruit (apricots, apple slices), and pieces of cheese. All these types of food travel well in a plastic box and can be fed whilst on the move. Although I would watch out for banana – our buggy has a few sticky patches.

Boomer and I are going away for a couple of days (travels including airports, trains and buses)  so I there may be a few top tips direct from the field – watch this space.

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Eating together

Sunday, August 20th, 2006

Now I know that the absolute ideal is for the whole family to eat together every day, and if you have other children then baby led weaning must be perfect as the bubs should fit right into your existing schedule, but I do find it a bit tricky to organise in our rigidly disorganised household. Plus, as yet neither my husband nor I has any desire to eat our evening meal at 5pm.

So the point I was wanting to make is that despite this, I do make quite an effort to eat when she is eating, even if it is only some peach slices and a bit of cheese. And I have noticed, to my delight, that if I put quite a few different bits on her highchair tray, draw up  my own chair and we both make a grab for the things we fancy then she eats more and for longer. So, not quite as sociable as a big 'insieme' Italian family meal but if you're not Italian and not that sociable then it does work, I promise.

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Mountains of Mess

Saturday, August 5th, 2006

Having had it pointed out that the spare bit of lino in our bathroom would make the ideal mat for under Boomer’s highchair (thanks Aitch!). I’ve been using this square of lino for a couple of weeks now.

 

It’s great , the bits that Boomer has finished with pretty much land on the square. So once breakfast/lunch/snack etc is finished I just shake the lumps of banana or whatever into the bin and give the lino a quick skoosh with the anti-bacterial stuff and a wipe down.

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Why Not Try It?

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

I think my main top tip is ‘Try It Out’ – you really don’t know if your baby will like a food unless you try them. Today, for example, baby Boomer loved some crayfish tails with pretty spicy sauce. Grandmaw was quite surprised especially as she drank quite a lot of water after her spicy crayfish salad.

 

Other surprising things Boomer has tried and liked are ;

 

Lovely juicy organic mint and lamb burger (eaten outdoors at a food fair)  – admittedly I held this while she sucked at a bit but she was peeved when I removed it.

 

Very, very, very mature cheese – this stuff was strong, the kind of stuff that even the smell makes you wince

 

Bit of Naan dipped in curry sauce – admittedly quite a creamy sauce , and before you shriek in horror it was only a tiny bit so she could join in with the social side of Mummy and Daddy’s Friday night take away binge.

 

Please don't judge me harshly , these represent only a small section of our diet, there is plenty of fruit and veg in a normal day – honest.

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What To Do With A Freezer Full of Mashed Broccoli

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

At about 5 ½ months I went to get Boomer weighed, I was instructed to immediately start feeding my undernourished baby (baby who is complete with bracelets of fat and double chin). I rushed home and started mashing everything in sight – cat escaped relatively unscathed. Over the next few days Boomer seemed nonplussed about any of the tepid mashed delights I offered her.

 

I then discovered baby led weaning, I instantly loved the idea unfortunately it left me with the slight issue of what to do with my ridiculous sized portions of frozen mashed carrot, broccoli, sweet potato  etc.

 

These are the few ways I have devised to use the frozen delights and still stay pure to my ‘waste not want not’ ethos

 

  1. make that margarita interesting and almost healthy with a carrot ice cube
  2. soothe those tired eyes with slices of frozen broccoli
  3. be the life and soul of  any party with pre-frozen comedy vomit
  4. have ‘conscience free’ playtime fun with you baby and biodegradable building bricks

 

or alternatively sod it and chuck it all out

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Stains

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

A lovely word, that…stains. Really sums up the glamour of being a mother, I find. Anyway, I am most flattered to have been asked (by a real live person called Jenn who I don't even know) to start thinking about how to get food debris out of clothing, bibs and soft furnishings. Hmmmmm.

I can tell you what NOT to do, for a kick-off… under no circumstances spray Vanish onto sofas or carpets, as it bleaches the colour right out of them. I am now forced always to sit on the same cushion to conceal the fact that it is markedly paler than the rest of the couch. My husband has pointed out that it also affords the best view of the television but he is just being needlessly critical.

As far as I can make out, banana is indelible. You could use it to write protest graffitti  on council buildings and it would be there until your baby is old enough to vote. I tend to dunk banana bibs in water as soon as she's finished eating. In fact, I think that's perhaps the secret. Make sure that you scrape any actual food off the bib and dunk it in water. After a few days in the laundry bin they start to smell, which I find to be a handy reminder that I need to put another bloody  washing on.

And I do use Vanish for other things, such as peach and pear, with some success, but I'd be very interested to see if anyone has any tips which don't involve me burning my Fairy-soft hands with an industrial solvent.

So come on Mysterious Jenn, whoever you are, or anyone else… can anyone help?

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