7.07.2010

Baby Led Weaning

After much research prior to Elijah's birth and during his first few months earth side, I knew I wanted to do baby led weaning. BLW is gradually weaning from milk and allowing your baby to self feed solid foods at their own pace. No purees, which means no spoon feeding. A lot of parents start the process at 6 months or so, but many parents are waiting longer if their baby isn't showing much interest in food. You can exclusively breastfeed your baby up to a year old until you need to start introducing solids.
Eli hasn't been totally exclusively breastfed, he's had some solids here and there, but no full meals. Until your baby is a year old food is really just for experimentation anyway, but now that he's had his first birthday it's time I start introducing more foods into his diet, and daily.
Today for his first full meal I gave him some brown rice, black beans, apples, and pears. I have to admit, coming up with food ideas for Eli is a little tricky. I obviously want him to have a wide variety of foods every day and of course it needs to be well balanced.
I'm going to work on making a weekly menu and making foods that both Eli and I can eat together, rather than making my food and then making him different things. I will appreciate any and all suggestions! We eat a vegetarian diet, so no meat suggestions please.
I'm looking forward to this new chapter, it's always fun watching your little one learning and experiencing new things!


Jessica

5 comments:

ashley said...

we have been following BLW too, and edie essentially just eats what we eat. with the exception of soy, peanut butter and the other allergens/chokeable foods. we eat a ton of curries and were totally surprised to find out that she LOVES them too!! she also loves any pasta (of course) taht we eat, and wehn we have a salad we usually just cut up a few of the veggies a lot tinier for her. she also LOVES any and all berries. as far as veggies go, peas are the biggest hit of all time. she will eat as many peas as we give her, any time of the day, no matter how much she has had before hand to eat. we also really like to give her quinoa because of its protein content (we're veggie/vegan in our house too). have fun feeding him, we're having a blast with edie and food. i've also noticed though that things really vary day to day. one day she will stuff herself on blueberries and the next day won't even want one and will only want quinoa and peas, etc. i try to remember that as long as her diet evens out over the entire week or so not to worry too much about the day to day fluctuations of what she will or won't eat.
~ashley

Nadya said...

Kudos!
I was a La Leche 'League Mom' in the 70s, & nursed my two kids ~ 3 years each, with baby led weaning - & no solids till ~ 6 mo (my son was grabbing earlier - our rule of thumb was to watch to see if their tongue can move food INTO the mouth!) but way gradual . . .
Green onions were great 'teething tools' - my daughter would gum the tops! We found they pretty much ate what we did - Rice n Lentils was a standby (2 parts rice, 1 part lentils, various veggies partway thru) & now I adore quinoa!
Coconut milk has the great Medium Chain Fats that make breast milk so good for our littles, so I'd second the curry idea - with gentle spices.
smoothies - I make coconut milk kefir, & use that in smoothies - total control over whether I sweeten it or not (sometimes ad a bit of honey or molasses - now that he's a year, he could have honey) a good way to get more greens in the diet!
Have fun!!

TheGirl said...

We have been giving Coraline food since she was about 5 months, because that is when she was ready. We gave her purees for a little while and that went well but it was really only for about a month or so before we started giving her just what we eat. Now that is how she eats, we just give her our food. She loves peas, totally her favorite, but veggies are in general a huge hit. Quinoa is a fun food for her, she loves the texture, and rice. Pasta is great, potatoes, and bread is a new favorite as well. It's amazing how they will eat things you never thought they would like, like pickles. :)

♥ Sarah @ FFP ♥ said...

Here are some common items I share with my daughter that she usually likes; broccoli, cheese, yogurt, peas, macaroni, applesauce, cauliflower, pasta, boca chik'n nuggets, flavored tofu cubes, olives, rice, tomatoes, goldfish crackers, fruit smoothies, granola, oatmeal, mashed potatoes, banana, strawberry, avocado, cheerios, etc.

I do not want to discourage you but a weekly menu has a large chance of failing with a toddler! My 14 month old changes her mind DAILY about what she likes and does not like, you might get lucky and have an easy guy but it is a very, very common issue at this age.

Also expect that some days he might refuse food all together or only want a couple bites and then the next day be constantly hungry. Or refuse food and want a whole bunch 20 minutes later, or go days while only wanting 1 or 2 particular food items....My daughter has done ALL these things in the past 2 months! It is very trying!

My advice is to buy/make SMALL amounts of a wide variety of different foods and introduce them to him. Let him graze and feed himself and make food a fun thing! GOOD LUCK! It is a fun time but it can really wear you down if you spend a lot of time and/or money preparing meals to only have your dear one spit them out!

Just my opinion though :)

A Baby Peach said...

Some of Lucas's favorites:
avocado pieces
Ezekiel toast with cottage cheese on top or melted cheese on top
berries (strawberries,blueberries, blackberries)
kiwi
spaghetti (we use meat in ours, but we do 100% whole wheat pasta, organic sauce, and parm cheese - he loves it)
Morning O's (Whole Foods cheerios)
Yobaby Yogurt
broccoli
he will only eat rice (brown) if it's in something with flavor- not plain, so like rice salads and stuff.
I keep trying beans, but he's not a fan :(

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