Baby Led Weaning (BLW).

Just posting this in case anyone wants to know more about a real-life BLW experience.

We got the okay to start Noah on solids at his 4 month check-up. And he liked them! However, with the purees came diarrhea. We had just gotten over 4 weeks of unexplained diarrhea, so when it started again the purees stopped.  A month and a half later when he was really into trying to grab our plates and was staring every time we ate, I decided to try BLW. (side note 1: our doctor gave us the okay at 6 months to let Noah eat whatever.... except the usual trifecta of cow's milk, honey, peanut butter/nuts, etc...  My family also has no food allergies that I'm aware of, so I was pretty confident in letting him try anything.)

Cucumber stick.

What BLW is:  Basically, you let your baby feed himself starting around 6 months because that is when he has more developmental skills. The whole idea is to let the baby decide what and how much he wants to eat and it introduces him to a variety of tastes and textures very early on. (Playing with food is highly encouraged.)

How you do it: Start with "sticks" of food (cooked to where they are soft) and then let the baby go to town! And he will do it with mucho gusto! Seriously. I was nervous that Noah would spit it out or throw it away because the texture was bad to him or the taste was too unfamiliar. But noooooooo. This kid loves food. He dug in right from the beginning.
   
   The hardest part of the whole process is making sure you don't panic when your baby uses his gag reflex when learning to swallow. The book goes in-depth on how babies have a different gag reflex than adults and that gagging is not the same as choking. After CAREFULLY (read: staring and hovering and minor panicking) watching Noah use his gag reflex many times, it really is crazy-amazing. He just spits that piece out and then will try to pick it up and eat it again! But we are there every time Noah is eating for the entire time. (And I read this and watched this multiple times to re-familiarize myself with infant choking rescue procedures.)

What we started with: plain cooked carrots, steamed apples, cucumbers, and broccoli. Then added squash, toast sticks, and sometimes cheese. Not a lot of actual eating happened. But he really seemed to enjoy the whole process -- picking the sticks up, gumming down on them repeatedly, and just trying new foods!

Broccoli was a BIG hit.

Where we are at now: Again, this kid loooooves food. He really enjoys it. It's at the point where we can't eat in the same room with him unless he can have some of it. I was trying to eat a pear this morning sneakily while he was drinking a bottle. Didn't work. He pushed his bottle aside so he could eat my pear. When/If we use a spoon, I just put the food on it and let him put it in his mouth.  At night, he mostly just eats what we are eating. (Side note 2: we really don't eat any "processed" foods and hardly ever go out, so we pretty much know what is going into each dinner we make.)

For example, from what we had this week:

• red curry soup - Noah ate potatoes, chicken, green beans, rice balls, and chewed on a slice of lime (which we thought he would hate, but nope. He kept trying to put the whole thing in his mouth.).

• homemade pizza - Noah got slices of fresh whole cheese, pieces of crust that had tomato sauce on them, and mango slices.

• this dish from Rachel's blog -- Noah eats EVERYTHING from it - the sweet potatoes, chicken pieces, black beans (all with spices on them and some melted cheese and cilantro and made with chicken broth), sometimes he gets an additional mini quesadilla and/or some fruit.

Here is everything else he has eaten so far that I can remember: squash, bell pepper, tomato, hummus (homemade), cottage cheese, hamburger, pasta, a little sausage (we added the spices to ground pork), toast, bagel, plum, peach, pear, grape, watermelon, apple, lime, banana, black beans, avocado, strawberries, cucumber, mango, scrambled eggs, french fries (He and I were in the airport. Just the two of us. And it was necessary.) 

a la airport with his french fries.

What I liked about it:

It is FASCINATING to watch his development. He was terrible at picking up food at the beginning and even worse at being able to get it to his mouth. Fast forward a month and a half. It is a completely different game. He knows what he wants and he can grab it so quickly.

 He is starting to use his thumb and first finger in a pinching motion, has significantly improved on chewing his foods and is still getting better at that, can now swallow with minor occasional gagging (usually on the tiniest of pieces which I don't understand, but hey...), and can even successfully scrape the "meat" off a piece of fruit and leave the skin with just his two teeth. He devoured almost a whole plum one day (not cut into sticks -- I just took a bite of it and handed it to him and he went to town). We were left with the pit and a little bit of skin.  

He started with only eating teeny tiny amounts; now, he is really starting to want more. But he still drinks his bottle every 3 hours and gets all the nutrition he needs from that. This is purely just exciting fun for him.  Now if we are going out, all I have to do is bring a bag of fruit or veggies. Or we have the option of just letting him eat food from our plates, which is fantastic too.

from a couple nights ago (during a world cup game, in the living room...)

The hard part: Your baby is going to gag no matter what. It doesn't mean he's choking. But the panic is still there. It's really hard to watch this happen and you worry every time (part of being a parent, right?).
• We still have to make sure certain foods aren't too big (grapes - because he likes to swallow those without chewing. yay.) and that the food we make for dinner has pieces that are a good size for him.
• He drops his bottle for our food. Which means we have to be willing to share and also really have to watch what we are eating. No more jelly beans or bowls of cereal in front of him.
• You do it on their time. It is best when they decide when they are done. Sometimes Noah liked to go slow and play around more.
• It is messy 98% of the time and not just him. The chair. The table. The floor. Trying to wipe him up is a bit of an effort and he sometimes gets an extra bath if it is really bad.

But I really love it. It feels like a normal family dinner time for us and I think Noah likes it too. So for me, the benefits >>>>> cons. I know this has been a rather lengthy post, but hopefully(!) it was informational for anyone interested. This was definitely the best way for us to go, but to each their own, right?

*I was totally not paid for this post. I think maybe 5 people read this blog and heaven knows I have no sponsors or anything like that. No, this is purely because I wished I could have read someone else's experience before starting ours. Just thought it would maybe help someone some day.