![]() There was enough left on the spoon for him to definitely be able to taste it, and initially he made the same face he made with the sweet potato … but then he grinned. But after that, he started working on getting it in his mouth. He picked up the spoon, and immediately dumped most of it’s contents in his lap. For the sauce, we decided to try giving him a “pre-loaded spoon” which is basically just what it sounds like. So I carefully took off just some of the creamy, spicy, sauce, and one piece of paneer. The dish that we had to share with him contained green peas, which are a choking hazard for babies who aren’t used to eating yet. This is when I got the most excited (what if he liked it!) and started to have my doubts (what if he hated it! and was I a terrible mother for subjecting him to this?). I totally believe in this theory, but I also am a nervous mom. So the theory is, that if we introduce our babies to really flavorful foods that we like early on, we’ll be less likely to be preparing a separate kids menu until they are teenagers. Many people believe that feeding babies bland, spice-less, foods has contributed to a whole generation of kids (like me!) becoming extremely picky eaters. He absolutely loved it, and cried when I refused to give him more than two tastes.įor dinner, we ordered takeout from a nearby Bangladeshi restaurant. In the morning, I was enjoying my lactation smoothie, and he seemed interested, so I let him eat a little off my finger. But we put out him in his high chair, and put three strips on his tray, and for better or worse, we went all in. What if he gagged? What if he choked? What if something else bad that I hadn’t thought of yet happened? Also, like most new parents, I tend to feel like my kid is growing up way too fast, and as I pulled his food out of the oven I thought, “I didn’t think I’d be cooking for my son this soon!” and I almost started to cry. I was incredibly nervous in the lead up to the dinner. ![]() My wife and I would have loaded baked sweet potatoes (yum) and the baby would have plain baked sweet potatoes, cut into a strip shape to be easier for tiny hands to hold. On the recommendation of several people in a BLW Facebook group, we decided on sweet potatoes for our first big meal. We planned out a meal the whole family could enjoy so that our son would see us eating the same foods that were on his plate and be tempted to give them a try. We settled on 10 days of trying - more than a week and less than two weeks in case he hated it and we’d need to try something else - and we decided to kick things off with a big family dinner. In preparation for our son’s 6-month “birthday,” we wanted to give baby-led weaning a shot. This way, babies get to control if and how much they eat, and experience a wide variety of flavors and textures early on. ![]() There’s some great instructions for BLW out there, but the basic idea is that babies are given table foods rather than “baby food” starting at 6 months of age (or sometimes later!) and the babies feed themselves, instead of being spoon fed by their caregiver. Seems pretty self-explanatory and simple, right? The name was coined by Gill Rapley in the U.K., and there the term “weaning” was meant to introduce solid foods to baby. It doesn’t have anything to do with weaning in the sense that you typically hear that word in the U.S. What is baby-led weaning (BLW for short)? It’s a method for introducing solid food to a baby where the baby, well, leads. A friend turned me on to the idea of letting baby take the reins, and after much discussion, my spouse and I decided we'd try baby-led weaning as our solid-food method of choice. With my own child, I did a lot of research and reading before even considering starting solid foods. When my mom was raising me, her pediatrician told her when to start infant rice cereal, and so that’s what she did. Recommendations for how to feed an infant (breastmilk or formula? when to start solids? which solids to start first?) have changed over the years, and these days there are several different schools of thought on what's "best" for baby. You might think that feeding a new baby would be simple, but you would be wrong. ![]()
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