I do it quite often, actually. Since becoming a parent myself I've found that my tolerance for cooing over other people's babies has risen considerably. (And it's a good way of keeping Babybear occupied - she finds babies fascinating and appears entirely unaware that she is one herself.)

Anyway, one thought just struck me but I'm unsure how to express it without causing offence. Here goes.

None of them exactly look like they're starving, do they?

I mean, it's the biggest worry about doing this BLW thing, isn't it? That they aren't going to get enough, that somehow we are depriving them if we don't spoon the food into their mouths. And yet one look at the photos on this blog confirm that simply isn't the case. It has made me giggle a bit, actually.


For the record, anyone who wants to put a photo up is welcome to send them to my email (press my name and you'll find it) and I'll stick them on for you with pleasure. More strange creatures for Babybear to stare at...



(Weird, I've also just noticed that some of our photos of the early months have dropped off... wonder if the folder has become too big? Will investigate further.)

Boomer has recently had a bit of a snuffle and bizarrely this has seemed to see an increase in her appetite. This seems to be contrary to everyone else’s experiences when their LO is under the weather.

 

Now it may be that I don’t think she was ever really that unwell, or it may have just coincided with a natural increase in her self weaning process. I think that latter is probably more likely. So for all you out there concerned about when their appetite will really kick in , Boomer is now 10 ½ mths and it has only just happened.

 

Boomer is still breastfed so I have no real way of checking her milk intake, but she still has about 4-5 feeds a day. I have however left her a couple of days from morning to night with someone else and she has just had food and water, no milk.

...not that we are the experts...
That honour belongs to a health visitor and researcher called Gill Rapley, who wrote a paper in 2003 which explored the age at which children can and should be weaned onto solid food.

The research found that six months was the optimum age, which is the time that mothers are now being told to wean by Health Visitors.

However, the distinct advantage of weaning at six months is that by that time our children are developmentally capable of feeding themselves - which means no more mush!


Anyway, as I said before, we are not experts in this area. What we are, however, is a pair of first-time mums feeling our way through the minefield that is encouraging our babies to have a healthy lifelong relationship with food. Our children (little darlings both) will be reporting from the front line over the next few months as we experiment with this Baby Led Weaning. (Although we'll be doing the bulk of the typing.)

My baby is nearly seven months old and already she has enjoyed fistfuls of broccoli, banana, green beans, red pepper, rice cakes and hummus, toast and cream cheese, mature cheddar, peaches, apricots, avocado, cucumber, pear, pasta with anchovies, chilli and lemon (her father...), pork fillet, roast chicken, roast potatoes, Jersey Royals, sweet potatoes, asparagus, melon and butternut squash. All of which she grabbed in her own little fist and ADORED feeding herself while her parents ate their own meals. I can't even begin to tell you how pleasant it is to eat in a restaurant with your Baby Led Weaning child chomping on a piece of bread and butter or a chunk of cucumber from your salad beside you.

Because it is a fairly new phenomenon we will hopefully be collating some information on Baby Led Weaning for you - personally I found it a nightmare trying to get hold of information on the subject, which is why I wanted to start this blog - but the truth is that the best way to start is to jump in. So join us, read how we are getting on and please, please comment on what we are doing. I'm probably going to be writing the bulk of the blog, principally because I suffer most from Runningoffatthemouth Disease. Morv is largely immune, but will be offering her salient and sensible opinions on the comments threads, as well as the odd (sometimes very odd) recipe.

If you have any questions we will do our best to answer them, but remember, we are just getting started here. If you have any better ideas or advice to pass on then please tell us.

Also, I know that I use a couple of websites and message groups already and you may have heard of the blog through them but I would really appreciate it if you could address any questions or comments only through this site as I really don't want anyone getting cross with me. I'm pretty sure you are required to register but I promise that we will take your privacy very seriously.

Good luck to anyone starting out with the Baby Led Weaning - so far it's been great fun for us and I hope it will be for you too.

Kindest regards,
Aitch and Babybear, and Morv and Boomer.

PS I am probably about to have a big fat falling out with 'Blogware', who are the people that supply the software for this site, so if anyone has bookmarked this page with the address that contains the word blogware could they please change it to www.babyledweaning.com? If everyone uses that from now on then we will keep our Google ranking (which is actually astonishingly high) when inevitably part company with them. Thanks so much, and thanks for coming to see the site, it means an awful lot.