Bread crumbs

The Goose Moon brought them.  

The flashy care taker is what keeps them here.

 

Baby Led Weaning-first foods

So many choices!  Where to begin when introducing foods?  Following Baby Led Weaning's advice, here's what I did:

                                                     ham from our friend's pig

Foods were introduced in no particular order.  In the beginning it was a bit more geared to baby, but now pretty much whatever we eat, Ace gets.  There is a caveat here: we mainly eat organic, local, or homemade foods which are just the type of ingredients I'd want Ace to be taking in.  It's not ideal all of the time- I've seen him slipped a french fry or two and last night we were all so tired that I let him nibble on some pizza- but in general, his food is pure and fresh.   I stayed away from some of the conventional no-nos like nuts, berries, and egg whites for the first month, but after that no limits were set on what he could have.   We have no allergies on either side of the family to these things, so I wasn't worried.  He still has not been given whole nuts, raw carrots, or raw apples due to the choking hazard.  I also toasted most breads in the beginning 2 weeks or so rather than give it to him soft.

I don't have much time today, but I do want to list some of the first foods my boys have had:
~cooked egg yolks, yogurt, wheatabix and rice cakes spread with cream cheese, bread dipped in soups, cucumber, roasted eggplant, banana, mango, steamed carrot and parsnip, steamed broccoli trees, oven baked sweet potato, avocado, pear, applesauce, hunks of steak or ham to suck on, rice balls: bits of leftover fruits rolled up with cooked rice, hummus...

I'll stop there for now, but basically the list is quite extensive and it can all depend on your baby's preferences.  You might also notice that a lot of the conventional first foods are there, but the difference is in the form that they are offered.


Remember that ham up there?  Well, I'm off to meet our friend's newest piglets- Bear is bedside himself excited about it!  Take care til we chat again.

Baby Led Weaning- Prep work

Bibs.  Definitely bibs for baby led weaning (blw) and I'm telling you, they will only be about 60% useful in the beginning. 

YET... once a baby gets the hang of blw he or she tends to be amazingly neat and tidy with their food from then on.  This turned out to be quite true for Bear: it's too early to tell with Ace- he's still imbedded in the messy stage!

 

Along with bibs, preparing for a blw eater is parallel to preparing for a more conventional way of introducing foods.  High chair, utensils, cup... all are used except that it is the baby, not the grown up, who is handling them (well alright, not the high chair).  As for signs of readiness, it is recommended to begin introducing solids @ 6 months or later and BLW advocates for the same timeline.  The reasonings are many, but one I highly favor is the data that shows a baby is much less likely to develop food allergies AFTER 6 months.

Here's where I admit Ace began at 5 1/2 months, so there is a bit of Mama's intuition involved in all of this!  He was wildly expressing an interest in foods and joining us at the table in the high chair.  We began by giving him his spoon, fork, and cup to explore.  Then came the mesh bag with a ripe pear, avocado, or banana in it.  Within days he had figured out how to suck the mesh dry and reality hit- he was ready. 

                            ok, so cute nieces can spoon feed him yogurt

If Ace had been a full 6 months I would have skipped the mesh entirely- it wasn't a safely measure that I did it for, but rather to give him a food experience while we ate.  Turns out he didn't want to play with his food, he seriously wanted to eat it.    

Up tomorrow: well, what exactly did he eat in the beginning?!
 

Baby Led Weaning- Prelude

                                                                    carrot face

I first came across the concept of "Baby Led Weaning" when Bear was beginning with foods.  At that time it was little known in the US but well accepted in Europe-especially Britain- and a book was about to be published on the subject.  I read the online UK forums about it and devoured (ha!) the book; baby led weaning was exactly what I was looking for.

                                                banana

Follow the links for full details but in a nutshell:

Baby Led Weaning means the child determines what to eat and how to eat it.  Babies are given properly proportioned (and cooked when need be) bits of food (this does not mean bite size!) and then they have at it.  They pick up what they want to eat and explore food with their hands. 

                                                   mango

~baby led weaning is messy - but really only in the beginning until they get the hang of it
~baby led weaning does not use purees or mashing of foods
~baby led weaning is fascinating to see in action
~baby led weaning has been around forever under different names-now it is having a rebirth of sorts

                                                         pasta night


I can read your minds: but but they will choke for sure!  but they will never learn to eat properly! but but how will I know my baby is getting proper nutrition?! but my baby always takes huge bites so there's no way this will work for her...  
 

                                                    rice cake with cream cheese

Easy Now!  It's not complicated at all and your baby will amaze you.  Go and read up on it- do your research- and then decide for yourself.  Everyone is different but I personally love the concept and the science behind it: both my boys continue to grow up healthy and strong with glowing reports from the pediatrician every time.  What more could a Mama ask for? Especially a foodie Mama like me!  And so- for my family - baby led weaning is an important tool in early nutrition.

                                   first "sippy cup" aka shot glass

Come back next week for episode two on the Food Network- Baby Led Weaning Channel...

*by then I really hope my comma button will be back in action because this is getting old and dash marks just don't cut it. 

Night Owl in the garden

Since Saturday, the garden has slowly been waking up.  Truthfully, it's been a bit longer than that, but pulling out last year's leftovers (I disdain turning down beds in the Fall.  Just a quirk of mine.), pruning up some of the trees, and helping watching Champ add manure, compost and ash to the soil hardly counts in my book.

Now is the exciting part when the seeds and sprouts go in and the magic begins.  It's the time when, if I were a more organized gardener, I'd be taking planting notes and reviewing last year's garden journal entries.  However, the full "flower" moon has just passed and the hermit thrush are returning to the woods; that's as good a notebook entry as any for me.

Yesterday was to be the planting push for getting some hardy herbs, the remaining onions, escarole, spinach and a few cucumbers into the ground.  Oh it happened, but not during daylight hours- there were croquet rounds to be played and babies wiggling in the sunshine.  To the left of me, there was even a dog needing a sturdy pat or two.  In short, it was a busy day for this Mama.

Thankfully, the other gardening convention that I'm not too attached to is gardening by daylight.  Sure, sure that is the BETTER way to go, but when the inevitable occurs as it did yesterday, I don't mind finding myself in the garden while the moon is rising and the geese are beginning to settle down for the night.  It's a different kind of peace than I feel in the early morning hours of gardening: a winding down for the evening rather than an awakening to the day.

 (I do not yet have all the skills for taking night shots without a flash, but a girl's got to start learning...)

This morning my muscles are a bit sore and my eyes a bit bleary but I'm grinning from ear to ear.  The weather forecast is rain for the next three days and all my freshly planted seeds and sprouts are gonna love it.

*it seems my comma button decided to stop working midway through this post.  Maybe it is tired today too?
* quite clearly night gardening would not happen without the help of Champ.  You are the best XOXO!