There comes a time in everyones life when 24 hour access to a boob just isn't enough anymore. Now days WHO, (World Health Organisation), suggests that time to begin weaning is at 6 months old, but previously advice was 4 months old. At 4 months old a baby hasn't acquired the co-ordination or skills to be able to do that thing we all take for granted - feeding ourselves. Now obviously when I say feeding ourselves I don't mean the ability to step into the kitchen a rustle up something tasty with the meagre contents of the fridge. I mean put the food sitting right in front of us into our mouths, chew and swallow. At 4 months old babies don't even know how to move the food from the front to the back of their mouths. For this reason a multi-billion pound industry was born - baby food. Food is pureed and spoon fed to babies. After time, the food spoon fed to them begins to get lumpier and eventually they move onto finger food - actual whole pieces of food. The Popster has skipped this, instead taking the route known as Baby Led Weaning (BLW).
As I said, WHO advises we should wait until our babies are 6 months old before weaning them. At this age, they should have the ability to sit up straight, and have the co-ordination to be able to pick up food and guide towards their mouth. They then soon learn how to move that food around their mouths and eventually swallow - i.e. 6 month old babies can eat. I should point out at this stage, WHO don't say you shouldn't use purees - they don't advise on how to wean babies, just that you should wait until 6 months old.
The principles of BLW is there is no need for "baby food". You eat with your baby, at the same time, at the same table and sharing the same food. It makes introducing solids easier and more enjoyable for the whole family and encourages your baby to become confident and happy at mealtimes and to enjoy, good, nutritious foods as she grows up. (Can you tell I copied that last sentence from a book?)
The Popster started her BLW journey around 6 weeks ago. I know of only one other person taking this approach and they have only started recently, what with her son being about a month younger. For this reason, and the fact that this approach was unheard of in our parents days, we have become a bit of a mystery to people. Perhaps even weird. It seems that most people don't really understand it and think we're a bit strange. It doesn't seem to help when I tell people, Poppy doesn't actually eat anything - at the moment food is play time. It is about exploring, not about eating. The main questions/comments we get are:
But doesn't she need to eat?
Doesn't she choke?
The choking thing is a big thing for people. They are so meticulous at squeezing every last lump out of their babies food and there I am letting The Popster put dried apricots into her mouth, (quite a sight, I can tell you). First of all, let me explain, that no, she won't choke. She will gag. In babies, the gag reflex is very sensitive, so it is activated more easily than in an adult, with the "trigger point" much farther forward in the mouth. You have to trust this - they need to experience gagging in order to learn to eat safely. She will not choke - have faith. Secondly, no, she doesn't need to eat. Milk is still enough to help her grow. Babies are fine on an all milk diet in their first year of life.
I didn't see the point of starting on purees and slowly getting lumpier, so we skipped those stages and went straight for actual food. The following is my memories of the progress and experiences we have had with BLW over the last 6 weeks.
We were going to wait until The Popster was 6 months old before starting her on food, but that half birthday fell on a Tuesday so Jon would be at work. I was going to wait until the following weekend but Jon got excited and couldn't wait so we did it the weekend before her half birthday. We sat her in her brand new, over-priced high chair and pushed her up to the dining table, (she doesn't have a tray, she's a grown up and eats at the table). I can't remember what we ate, but The Popster had the far less appetising strips of pita bread and carrots. The results of this first expedition into the culinary world were not amazing and no where near as exciting as we anticipated. The Popster slumped to the right, poked herself in the eye with her bread and started crying and trying to escape after a few minutes. Perhaps we had started to early - those few days before her 6 month birthday were too much of a hurdle.
Despite this disappointing start to her food life, we persevered and The Popster sat down to lunch every day following these first tentative steps. She was definitely not quite ready in those early days, but the only thing to make her ready was to keep going. It has been fascinating watching her progress and her skills have increased rapidly. To start with she would easily finish well before I had managed to finish my own lunch, meaning mine often had to be temporarily abandoned whilst "Operation Clean Poppy" would take place. I would then have to attempt to eat my own lunch with a slightly distressed Popster sat on my lap.
The PopstersBLW it is very important that you don't interfere. The baby has to decide what they want to pick up and what they want to explore. However, I did intervene in as much as I would hold my hand against the edge of the table so that when the food was swept aside it hit a barrier and the chances of something ending up in The Popsters hand was increased - this also meant, lunch wasn't over in 3 seconds flat. I had quickly learnt, that due to the low success rate of keeping things on the table I had to put a lot of food on the table. Whilst friends talked about their babies moving from half a jar up to two thirds of a jar, I talked of giving The Popster, a pitta bread, some broccoli, a pear and some cheesy wotsit things that are actually carrot sticks. I throw out a lot of food these days!
The Popster has since moved on to the "sweeping" method of picking things up and you can now see her actually eyeing something up and going for it directly. Roughly 95% of the time the food makes it into her mouth first time too - as opposed to her eye or cheek. Although, sometimes her fist goes in her mouth with the food and she doesn't let go so in actual fact she is attempting to eat her own hand. Sometimes, when we are trying a new food it can be extremely frustrating watching as she skirts around it. For example, I made some fresh pesto one Saturday as I had a Basil plant that needed using up. I was very proud of myself for thinking of something to use up the Basil rather than it dying and being dumped before it gets used which is what usually happens. I cooked some Fuselli, (Spiral pasta is far more exciting to a baby than boring old Penne) and mixed in the pesto. The Popster largely ignored the pesto pasta and instead concentrated on the other options given to her. She did pick it up once but it was quickly put down again. Never mind, I made plenty, she could have it another day. I offered the pesto pasta to The Popster every day for a whole week. Every day, she would pick it up, put it near her mouth and then put it back down again!! I was on the edge of my seat every day as the spirals made it closer and closer to her mouth, but never made it in!! She was teasing me. Eventually, after a week, it made it in but she didn't seem to enjoy it that much so it was quickly thrown to the floor.
Similar to the pasta we offered her strawberries, grown lovingly in our own garden. I placed 3 strawberries on her place mat along with some other options. She honed in on a strawberry and picked up straight away - great skills! It went in her mouth, she screwed up her face and it came out her mouth. She then looked to see what else she could get. She picked up the 2nd strawberry, it went in her mouth, she screwed up her face and out it came. Then she picked up the 3rd strawberry and, you guessed it, in mouth and out of mouth. She hasn't really figured out that things that look the same, are the same.
The progress has been amazing. In the early days I put her in her high chair and she would instantly protest. She would briefly have a play with the food and then start crying. We would do our best to keep her interested and to stay in her chair but it would invariably be all over within 5-10 mins. Pretty soon though I got to the stage where I would put her in the chair and her arms would shoot out trying to get at the food on the table - which happens to make putting the bib on a little easier as she is holding out her arms! Nowadays, I finish my lunch and then I have to sit there watching The Popster gnaw and throw hers around. That's not a bad thing, as it's very entertaining. She'll pick something up with one hand and shove it in her mouth - meanwhile, her other hand will be snatching at something, and that will come up to her mouth too. She then has two little fists, clutching two large pieces of food fighting over her tiny little mouth! To add to the entertainment she occasionally stops eating and drums on the table with her right hand - we haven't yet figured out what that means? Is she trying to get the waiters attention? Sometimes the show gets a little boring though - during every single meal there is a moment when she will stop everything she is doing and stare out the window. In these moments I would LOVE to know what it is she is thinking about.
In know way could you say The Popster is now eating lunch - it is definitely still play time. However, some food does get digested - I can tell by her poo! It is so exciting when you see she has small bits of food in her mouth and you don't see it come back out again! She often gags - sometimes it results in food shooting out her mouth, other times it results in her managing to swallow those bits. Whilst others are incredibly concerned about their baby choking, I'm ridiculously relaxed about it - so much so that in the first week of the BLW experiment, The Popster starting coughing and going bright red. I just sat there and watched. It was only when she actually finished and her colour returned to normal that I realised what had been happening! Before then I just thought she was coughing - it hadn't occurred to me that she was trying to shift a bit of food from her throat!! I'm more aware of it now, but I still have to just let her get on with it - she has to learn. The only time I have thought about stepping in and removing food from her mouth is when she ate a dried apricot. She sucked that whole thing in to her gob and it filled her entire mouth! She was sucking at that apricot for ages - I thought it was never going to come out. Obviously she wasn't going to swallow it, it was way to big. It had to come out - but what if she did manage to swallow? It would definitely cause her to choke. Once I realised how difficult it would be to actually swallow it, I relaxed and just watched in awe. Watching her suck a dried apricot is one of my favourite episodes of "Poppy Eating Lunch"
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