Travel, Twins and Trying to Live Outside the Box in the Big Apple
Monday, May 17, 2010
Baby Led Weaning
I am very, very, very interested in this method. If any of you have blogged about this process in detail, could you leave a comment with the link in your blog? That would be great!
You should get the book. It was a fairly easy read even in a sleep deprived state. Essentially you wait until 6 months and then offer whatever you're having. Food is just practice until age one and bm/formula should be the main source of their diet until then so it doesn't matter that they don't ingest a lot. No purees and you don't feed them. We planned to go thus route but neither of us could be comfortable with the gagging. However it dud make me more confident in intoducing table foods and we were totally off purees well before his first bday.
We love baby led weaning, but sometimes you have to tweak it according to what your child/children are ready for. Miles started on solids at 5.5 months since he seemed ready at that age. We started off with spoon-feeding, but quickly moved on to giving him chunks of solid food. Here's some of our experiences:
I agree that the book is an easy read. We've done this and loved it, and started early too, but because McBean was doing all the things described as signs of readiness at 4 months. Oh and no gagging happened here.
I thought I had blogged about it more than once, but could only find one (and our blog is dead, hopefully soon to be resurrected)
Here's the one I found: http://pbxmakesfour.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/baby-led-weaning/
Good luck! We found this method so much fun, and so much less work (having done it more traditionally the first time around).
As for CIO, our little guy was fairly easy going when younger, but has recently/is still going through about 6m of frequent night waking so would probably classify as a fussy fussypants now! We have never done CIO and have tried various methods without doing a great deal of reading or research. I have always found it easiest to just try and follow our instincts - and they never ever have told me it's ok to let him cry.
Jebus, I blog about it a LOT, sometimes in excruciating detail. If I have time today (ha!) will try to find you some good linkies. But in the meantime, buy Gill Rapley's book. Trust me - it is the BIBLE on BLW and chock full of good info. Plus, it is VERY easy to read and not too long. You can read it in chunks while you poop or something.
It is the WAY to go with twins, I cannot imagine spoonfeeding them. Coco would not let me, Isuspect. This way everyone eats what they want, as much as they want, no fighting or struggles, only happy babies. Mine will eat anything and everything!!
Tui's right, we did BLW with BB(where 'weaning' refers to introducing solids, not to stopping milk-feeding). The book "Baby Led Weaning" by Gill Rapley is indeed the most comprehensive information you can get on this approach. There are also many great resources online and we've found it to be pretty intuitive to be honest.
Another blogger sent me a great link to all of her posts on BLW: http://whozatshrike.blogspot.com/search/label/Baby%20Bites
There are also posts on our blog about it, and pics on everyday baby (link on veeandjay)but they're not tagged so you might have to search a bit.
The basic premise behind it is that once a child can sit unaided and put things in their mouth, they are capable of learning how to move things around their mouths, chew and swallow. After all, blenders are only a recent invention in the evolution of our species!
Our boy has tried out so many foods and has loved every minute of it. He did gag a few times at the start, as a baby's gag reflex is quite far forward in the mouth, as a protection mechanism, but gagging is perfectly fine (if a little stressful to watch) and is totally not the same as choking, where the airway is closed off. Now he tries whatever we put in front of him with gusto, we eat together at the table as a family, and we trust him to eat what he needs.
I could go on all day about this - honestly, it's been one of the best parenting decisions we've made. Sadly, I have to go to work now though, but if you have any more specific questions, please email me.
7 comments:
You should get the book. It was a fairly easy read even in a sleep deprived state. Essentially you wait until 6 months and then offer whatever you're having. Food is just practice until age one and bm/formula should be the main source of their diet until then so it doesn't matter that they don't ingest a lot. No purees and you don't feed them. We planned to go thus route but neither of us could be comfortable with the gagging. However it dud make me more confident in intoducing table foods and we were totally off purees well before his first bday.
We love baby led weaning, but sometimes you have to tweak it according to what your child/children are ready for. Miles started on solids at 5.5 months since he seemed ready at that age. We started off with spoon-feeding, but quickly moved on to giving him chunks of solid food. Here's some of our experiences:
http://1invermillion.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/924/
http://1invermillion.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/plenty-to-be-thankful-for/
http://1invermillion.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/food-glorious-food/
I agree that the book is an easy read. We've done this and loved it, and started early too, but because McBean was doing all the things described as signs of readiness at 4 months.
Oh and no gagging happened here.
I thought I had blogged about it more than once, but could only find one (and our blog is dead, hopefully soon to be resurrected)
Here's the one I found:
http://pbxmakesfour.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/baby-led-weaning/
Good luck! We found this method so much fun, and so much less work (having done it more traditionally the first time around).
As for CIO, our little guy was fairly easy going when younger, but has recently/is still going through about 6m of frequent night waking so would probably classify as a fussy fussypants now! We have never done CIO and have tried various methods without doing a great deal of reading or research. I have always found it easiest to just try and follow our instincts - and they never ever have told me it's ok to let him cry.
Clark.
From memory I think Vee and Jay have blogged about it a few times now so check them out.
Jebus, I blog about it a LOT, sometimes in excruciating detail. If I have time today (ha!) will try to find you some good linkies. But in the meantime, buy Gill Rapley's book. Trust me - it is the BIBLE on BLW and chock full of good info. Plus, it is VERY easy to read and not too long. You can read it in chunks while you poop or something.
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-led-Weaning-Helping-Your-Baby/dp/0091923808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274170099&sr=8-1
It is the WAY to go with twins, I cannot imagine spoonfeeding them. Coco would not let me, Isuspect. This way everyone eats what they want, as much as they want, no fighting or struggles, only happy babies. Mine will eat anything and everything!!
Tui's right, we did BLW with BB(where 'weaning' refers to introducing solids, not to stopping milk-feeding). The book "Baby Led Weaning" by Gill
Rapley is indeed the most comprehensive information you can get on this approach. There are also many great resources online and we've found it to be pretty
intuitive to be honest.
These are some good sites worth checking out:
http://www.baby-led.com/
http://babyledweaning.com/
http://community.babycentre.co.uk/groups/a3145/baby_led_weaning
Another blogger sent me a great link to all of her posts on BLW:
http://whozatshrike.blogspot.com/search/label/Baby%20Bites
There are also posts on our blog about it, and pics on everyday baby (link on veeandjay)but they're not tagged so you might have to search a bit.
The basic premise behind it is that once a child can sit unaided and put things in their mouth, they are capable of learning how to move things around their mouths, chew and swallow. After all, blenders are only a recent invention in the evolution of our species!
Our boy has tried out so many foods and has loved every minute of it. He did gag a few times at the start, as a baby's gag reflex is quite far forward in the mouth, as a protection mechanism, but gagging is perfectly fine (if a little stressful to watch) and is totally not the same as choking, where the airway is closed off. Now he tries whatever
we put in front of him with gusto, we eat together at the table as a family, and we trust him to eat what he needs.
I could go on all day about this - honestly, it's been one of the best parenting decisions we've made. Sadly, I have to go to work now though, but if you have any more specific questions, please email me.
Cheers,
vee
I haven't blogged about it yet (nor have we tried it because i have a choking paranoia), but she has:
http://chrysallys.blogspot.com/search/label/BLW
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