First and foremost when it comes to YOUR baby it is YOUR choice,
simples. Hopefully your choice will be
an informed one, or a general mix of trial and error. I feel
in no way qualified to give advice, so please don’t take this post as a ‘do ‘
or ‘don’t’ it is simply taken from my own experience, and something I wish I
could go back and tell myself at the beginning of this journey.
1. Baby Led
Weaning is actually pretty great. There
is a heap of evidence to support the method, with a ton of benefits to go with
it (I won’t go into details but I really recommend doing some research for
yourself if you are interested, there are some great sites out there). I had
a pretty shitty first experience of weaning – my dear little boy had such a
strong gag reflex he couldn't cope with anything more than a puree until he was
13 months old. If we had been
exclusively BLW he wouldn't have had a meal in his tummy until then. Suffering from silent reflux, getting a bit
of heavier sustenance into him was an aim from the beginning of the game.
2.
One of the key advantages to BLW states that it
prevents fussy eaters. Erm, no…. often
maybe, but since when did children go by the book. I have seen BLW profiles that describe their
BLW toddlers as fussy, and that’s ok right because kids are kids…. However,
please don’t think that if you don’t BLW you will end the ride with a fussy
eater – I have a 2.5 year old as evidence that this is not the case! He loves his veggies and a huge variety of
everything.
3.
So we’ve all seen the despairing posts of
food-covered floors post meal time… (and yes this is ok too, these mammas are
doing a great job) … but surely no one can disagree it’s ok to spoon feed too??
Again going back to our reflux issues, getting food into my little boys belly
was the desirable result, and so I fed him.
He generally loved his food but I know that some babies don’t, and some
babies will refuse point blank to be spoon fed. While he is quite capable of feeding
himself, at 2.5 years he still likes some help, and I like that he has a full
tummy and the floor is clean. I always
encouraged exploring play with new foods, but I guess it’s your choice again
how much food lobbing you allow (and if you don’t have a lot of choice in this
matter that’s ok too, it won’t go on forever and it won’t be long until you
have Father Christmas as an ally)!!
4.
Slightly off topic, buts it is definitely ok to
reach for that Ella’s Kitchen (etc etc) sachet.
In reality pureeing a single portion from your own dinner is near on
impossible!! I learnt this the hard way,
which was actually quite stressful when you were relying on that spoonful of
spag bol you put back and its STILL too lumpy for bubba to cope with… EK definitely
saved my life!
5.
Most importantly it is ok because it’s YOUR choice. One way or the other, a little bit of both,
YOU decide!
