So don't sweat it.
It really irritates me that so many Health Visitors I hear about seem to be making a virtue out of the fact that if you feed your babies puree 'you can have him on three meals a day within a fortnight'. Honest, my friend's HV told her that only last week.
I just don't understand what the rush is… is it not true that babies should be getting the bulk of their nutrients from their milk for the first 12 months? Did I pick that up wrong?
Well, I suppose that if I was spoon feeding my child every day while my own meal got cold then I'd be highly motivated to get onto the 'self-feeding' stage, but don't people who are doing baby led weaning get a free pass in that regard? Or is it just me who truly does not give a flying bollock how quickly Babybear takes to solids?
Now, I'm not saying that if she was refusing all food that I would be quite so relaxed, and I do understand that I am fortunate that she is prepared to give most things at least a try before letting them dangle precariously over the side of her highchair in the manner of a gangland boss dealing with a copper's nark. But if you read the BLW FAQ you will see that a lot, really, a lot of the Yahoo Group babies didn't take to self-feeding until they got to 12 months. Which is, not by coincidence I think, the same time as their milk needs to be supplemented…
So if you are new to BLW and freaking out because your friends' puree-fed babies seem to be wolfing down chickenandapricotandsweetpotato mush as fast as their mums can spoon it in, don't worry, your baby will get there when they are ready. To be perfectly honest Babybear rarely has three square meals a day and she's nearly ten months old, but that is I admit largely down to my lack of organisation. I reckon I've got another couple of months before I need to crack it so I'm not at all worried.
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