Cosleeping

Two of my favourites this month were about cosleeping. I love cosleeping. I can’t imagine not having my babies right there next to me all night long, where I can reach out to touch or stroke them. Meredith has started sleeping in her own room, sometimes more than others, and I’m really cherishing the times she’s in our room now (which recently have increased again). It’s hit home how short a period it really is in the scheme of life. Yes, we have hard nights, and often the ones with Meredith in the room are harder because my stirrings with Fiona can disturb her too, but waking up with two little girls snuggled into me, being able to kiss their heads and hug them close to me, having them wake up and see me watching them and smile up at me… it’s priceless. Nothing can replace those moments. Meredith napped on me every nap in the mei tei until she was 14 months old (and still many naps after that too), and now that’s generally where you will find Fiona napping too. Either there, or in my arms if she’s fallen asleep nursing.

Annie wrote about A Sleepy Moment and also shared a favourite album, which we ended up downloading from iTunes. Meredith loves it. Rachel shared her thoughts on Co-Sleeping, Night-Waking, and Growing-Up. I loved this post. Her descriptions of nights with a small baby are so spot on. And though Meredith isn’t as old as her son yet, I often have the same feelings about her growing up when we’re cuddled up together at night. Her post is so eloquent and beautiful, and has really made even some pretty difficult nights recently a lot easier. As she says: “I chose to have both of my kids know that I was there and I was their mama, no matter what the clock said.”

Living and Learning

September is back-to-school month, and so I think school is at the forefront of most parent’s minds, even unschoolers whose thoughts are how nice it will be to have the parks back to being quiet again. I loved this post on the Flow of Love blog about Limiting Beliefs and Freedom from Fear. She discusses the messages that we as parents send to our children through our words and actions. We try hard not to use labels (even unschooling), because I feel like you can become stuck in this rigid box with limited sides, and labels can be interpreted differently by different people. I try not to label Meredith in front of her (she’s shy, she’s outgoing, she’s a leader, she’s a follower), because she can be all of these things, and none of them, depending on the situation. Even positive ones can create a box. I was labelled “gifted” as a child and suddenly I had this label I had to continually live up to for fear of disappointing those around me. This post is a reminder that children and people aren’t the only ones who are labelled, but the world around us as well.

I loved the Solace comic on Mama-Is. There are many times while wearing my babies (either of them) out and about that I just have to stop and kiss their heads and give them a hug and forget all about whatever’s happening around us. It’s one big reason I prefer to wear them on my front as long as possible.

A local unschooler wrote a post on her blog in response to an article about stay-at-home moms that was going around Facebook that really connected with me: Thinking SAHM. I adored this post, and I think it’s one I will be going back to. It is another that pretty much sums up my own feelings much better than I ever could. And I love Wendy Priesnitz’s comment to the post too: “If we don’t value our work as mothers, how can we expect society to do so?”

Another great post is Sarah‘s guest post at the Mahogany Way on Allowing Ownership. It’s a great reminder to me to really look at the reasons behind any rules or requests we may have, and to examine my underlying fears. It was timely too. Shortly after reading the post, Meredith started drawing on her Jenga blocks. It’s a not-even-full set we got with a bunch of other wooden blocks from Value Village for something like $3.99. My first instinct was to ask her not to draw on her toys, but I was able to step back and just watch her having fun and being creative with her own things.

Nutritionism

I first heard the term “nutritionism” when I came across the Food Renegade post Food – Not Nutrients – Is the Fundamental Unit in Nutrition. It’s not a September post but I just came across it so I’m putting it here. It makes so much sense. For a class I’m taking, I recently had to do a report on my eating habits and how well I follow the Canada Food Guide. I had to answer questions like “Do I choose low-fat dairy products?” My husband and I joked about how easily I could make a case for a McDonald’s diet being healthy using the criteria listed on the homework page. There is still no emphasis on real foods… ones that don’t come from a package. As long as you’re meeting some arbitrary minimum based solely on gender and age (but not body type, weight, health), you’re supposedly getting the nutrients you need, but are you really getting the food you need?

This month, Breastfeeding Moms Unite had a great post on Understanding Nutritionism and The Problem with Infant Formula. It really puts into perspective for me what the problem with formula really is, and why it’s only fourth or fifth best and can never be “just as good”. (First being directly from mom, second being pumped from mom, third being pumped from someone else (preferably not pasteurized), fourth is debatable but some say a homemade formula made of raw goat’s or cow’s milk, and last comes formula.) I feel for those women who can’t breastfeed for some reason, I really do. I would be devastated if it were me. But there is no way I could honestly say that formula is “just as good” or even “almost as good” as breast milk. It’s just not. It doesn’t mean I think women who knowingly choose to formula feed should feel guilty, especially not those who really can’t breastfeed (I know it’s hard to get enough donor milk), but just because you don’t have any other choice doesn’t suddenly make it better than what it is. I think this post had a very good point, in that formula alone is certainly not a deciding factor in future health, and a lot of the studies done on the effects of formula may not take into account that people who formula feed may not place as much importance on food as a whole and may be more likely to feed less real foods later in life too.

Related posts:

1. Sleeping through the night
2. Continued blog overhaul
3. Been a while…

I feel that we eat very healthy compared to most of the population. Our suppers are pretty much all home cooked and from scratch. I make my own broths, and I plan to can tomatoes and make sauces and salsa this fall. We have grown quite a lot of our own vegetables this summer, and I’m trying out a winter garden this year. I started that pretty late so I’m going to try and not be too disappointed if that’s a bit of a flub though.

All that being said, we eat healthy, but we don’t eat a huge variety. We have lots of great tried-and-true recipes, but I find it difficult sometimes to get out of the comfort zone of recipes I know we all like, and try new things. There’s also a lot of vegetables we’ve never really tried. Not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I know we like other ones. In fact, when I was looking over the list of vegetables that work well in a winter garden, I almost gave up on the spot simply because a lot of the vegetables on the list are things we just don’t eat. (Cabbage, swiss chard, beets, parsnips, to name a few.) But then I changed my mind and went ahead and ordered them.

While I wouldn’t consider Meredith overly picky, she’s certainly suspicious of foods she’s never seen before, and she doesn’t like leafy greens much (though she ate almost an entire bunch of fresh spinach from the garden to herself once!). I think a lot of it is a texture issue. She used to eat mushrooms and onions no problem, now she pulls out even little pieces from ground beef. If any of the above foods actually do grow this year, I obviously want them to get eaten. So I’ve been reading a bit about hiding vegetables in food. There seem to be two sides to the issue: those who feel it’s best to get vegetables in your kids any way you can, and those who feel kids should be exposed to lots of foods and that you’re not doing them any favours (or giving them much credit) by hiding vegetables in food.

I agree with both sides. I want vegetables to get eaten, but I want them to be seen and enjoyed for what they are too. I don’t agree with forcing kids to eat things they don’t like. We don’t have a one-bite rule of any sort, though there have been times I’ve encouraged her to try something. With Meredith’s personality, it often works best if I offer it to her and then drop it and leave the food in front of her. Often she says no, but then if I drop it she will try some and before I know it she’s done hers and trying to steal mine too!

My way of going about “hiding” foods isn’t so much about hiding as it is about masking flavours and textures. When having pasta, we’ve always cut up and added onions, peppers, zucchini, mushrooms; basically whatever we have on hand. But even that she will sometimes pick out. I was reading about pureeing foods and decided to give that a go this week. Meredith often helps me cook, so it’s hard to hide something when she’s the one adding it to the food processor. She still sees the vegetable, I tell her what it is if she asks, she helps me pick them out of the garden, and she knows it’s in her food. My plan is that as she gets used to the tastes, I can puree it less and less and hopefully eventually just be chopping it coarsely. We also still offer other vegetables that we know she does like at every meal as well, so she’s still getting lots of exposure to different vegetables.

So far, it’s been fairly successful. We made sloppy joes with zucchini, green peppers, carrots, and onions pureed into the sauce, and then corn and mushrooms  in bigger pieces. We had curry last night with lots of peppers, mushroom, and onion. I have a menu plan for the next week all ready to go, with plans to add things like cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, and most of the above vegetables to various ones. We’re going away next week, but when we’re back I want to try buying some vegetables that may be out of my comfort zone and starting to add those in as well. Hopefully this will help get all of us eating a larger variety of vegetables, not just Meredith.

This post is my contribution to Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday this week.

Related posts:

1. Fight Back Friday
2. Snacking
3. Muffin Tin Wednesday

I recently came across the Food Renegade blog when a friend sent me the link to the book she wrote thinking I might be interested in it (I was, in fact when she comes out with her one for kids I may get one or both of them). I really love the blog. She seems to feel very similarly to be about diet and nutrition, but she’s a better writer and has been much more successful at actually putting it into action. My goal is to eventually eat that way, but I could make a million excuses why we don’t yet. (My own willpower is one of the biggest ones!)

I do feel very good about the changes we have made already. Compared to when I first moved away from home and was living with my best friend (we had Hamburger Helper several times a week), or when I first moved in with Kris and was so broke one day literally the only food in our cupboards was one bag of (white) spaghetti (we thought buying processed foods was cheaper than eating whole foods at the time), we have improved immensely. The majority of our foods are cooked from scratch including making our own broths, our pasta is organic rice pasta, we’re growing our own veggies and bake most of our own breads, last month we went in with some friends on a side of pasture-raised beef (and plan to continue buying that beef as well as free-range chickens from now on), and so on. Most of the canned food and soup in my cupboard has been there for years, bought with intentions to use it, then easier or healthier homemade versions were discovered and the cans have sat there unused. They need to be donated or thrown out.

There are some things I’d like to still change that would be easy to change. For a while I’d stopped buying white sugar completely and was only using sucanat, but I have started buying white sugar again. I’d like to go back to using sucanat for most things again though. I also want to use more whole grain flour in my baking. I find it very dense though, and don’t like the texture, so still mix it in usually with about half white flour. A friend gave me some tips for using whole grain flours that I’m going to try.

I also don’t know much (if anything) about fermenting foods. We use Tamari instead of soy sauce, but I don’t even like pickles. I want to learn more about it as a method of preserving foods though, especially since we will hopefully have lots of food to preserve at the end of the garden season this year.

I have a huge sweet tooth. I love chocolate, and though (generally) I bake my own brownies and cookies and muffins, they’re still sugary and carby. I love fruit and in the summer I will eat berries when I have a craving for something sweet. I recently made this chocolate pudding and it was so delicious and incredibly easy. We haven’t had pudding in ages because I couldn’t bring myself to buy those packages, but I assumed making it would be difficult (and full of dairy). More and more, I’m starting to find relatively healthy, dairy-free versions of all my favorite snacks and treats.

One of our biggest obstacles to eating well (and especially since Kris and Meredith are both allergic to dairy and I definitely have lactose intolerance) is going out. It’s easy to keep dairy out of the house, but I can’t stop other people from eating it. I don’t mean going to restaurants, that’s actually fairly easy, I mean going to other people’s houses or just being out with friends. Also, many dairy alternatives contain soy instead, which we also try to avoid. Meredith wouldn’t understand why all the other kids at a birthday party (for instance) are eating cupcakes and she can’t have one. I also don’t want to avoid going to friend’s birthday parties. We do talk to Meredith about food, and about how dairy makes her feel. I don’t want to force her to eat (or not eat) certain foods, as I think (from experience!) that that can cause some food issues in the future. More and more often, all she needs are gentle reminders about how certain foods might make her feel later and she will make different choices. But with other kids eating the food she wants, it’s harder. Currently, I feel good enough about most of our food choices most of the time that I’m okay with her occasionally eating that kind of thing though.

With the dairy thing, eventually I want to try raw milk. A friend let us try a bit of the raw milk she gets. Meredith saw it and proceeded to drink two or three cupfuls in one sitting, and then was peeing every 15-20 minutes for the rest of the evening. At least she liked it. We’re going to wait until we’ve been good and been off dairy completely for a few weeks, and then try again but not letting her have so much at once, or perhaps starting by making our own yogurt or butter instead of drinking the straight milk at first.

As you can see, the Food Renegade blog really got me thinking about our diet and the way we eat again. She hosts a blog carnival called Fight Back Fridays, and I think I’m going to try and join in every week. Click the link for more information. I’m hoping by reading the other blogs that join in I’ll learn a thing or two, and that  writing my thoughts or sharing recipes every week will help keep me motivated. I’ve only been to one of the blogs that has joined in so far this week, and already learned an awesome tip for making dairy-free whipping cream. I can’t wait to try it! Whipping cream is one thing that I really miss.

Related posts:

1. Changing up the Menu
2. “Hiding” Vegetables
3. Snacking

I think a lot of people don’t realize just how much a seemingly-mild allergy can really affect a person. For Meredith, besides far fewer accidents and the bed wetting, other symptoms she had while we were eating dairy that have disappeared or minimized (some of which I didn’t even think might be abnormal for her) are frequent night waking (and I do believe that for some kids it’s likely normal to wake up at night, and she still wakes once or twice most nights, but prior to discovering the allergy she was still waking up every two hours most nights), cradle cap, gagging when she cries (which again can be normal, but also is apparently a symptom of increased congestion and congestion is one of Kris’ main symptoms), etc. Kris’ tell-tale symptom is his eczema, which is pretty much gone now but while we were eating dairy it was quite bad.

One of the side effects of this is that we’ve had to become creative with our meal plans. Almost all of our dinners are completely from scratch, but many of them have dairy in them. Some of our favourites have been easy to find dairy-free and soy-free substitutes for (like Shepherd’s Pie); others have pretty much been taken off the list (like chicken burritos and meatball stroganoff, both of which have sour cream and the burritos have cheese too). So far rice milk hasn’t failed us in baking or cooking, and we’ve used coconut oil in place of butter with no problems (including one of my favourite cookie recipes). I make bread a few times a week and have been able to make the loaves completely dairy free. We’ve been trying out new recipes we haven’t tried before, and this week’s meal plan is actually mostly recipes we haven’t ever tried before. I’m excited to try them all out and add some more variety to our menu. Since we’re changing things up anyway, we also want to start eating one or two fish meals a week again (we have in the past but earlier in this pregnancy I had a huge aversion to most fish and we never really got back into eating it that often again, plus we’re picky about the fish we’ll eat), as well as one or two vegetarian meals a week (because they are often cheaper, and it will add more variety to our protein). I have a few recipes we’ve tried and liked that I want to save, and will post them over the next few days as I get a chance (as this is the place most of my favourite recipes end up getting saved to).

I’ve also had to completely rethink our meal plan for after the baby comes. Sometime in the next couple of weeks we are planning a cooking spree, and will be cooking a whole bunch of meals to freeze. Originally, I had things like lasagne, the aforementioned chicken burritos (they’d make great lunches), alfredo sauce, cream soups, etc. I have a recipe for yam and bean burritos I’m excited to try instead, and I’ve since made cream soups with rice milk. This means the baby will start off completely dairy-free as well. Meredith spat up and threw up a lot (but was pretty happy otherwise, as long as she was being held), but we attributed it to my extremely overactive let down. She gagged a lot while nursing too (again because of the let down). I wonder now though if some of it at least might have been attributable to dairy and I’m curious if this baby will spit up as much as she did.

Related posts:

1. Meal Plans
2. Fight Back Friday
3. Dairy-free Caesar Dressing

This has been something that has been on my mind quite a bit the past couple of weeks, since I found out I am pregnant. She still nurses a lot, more than she eats. I’m okay with that. I trust that she will eat when she needs to eat, and that she is getting the nutrition she needs from my breastmilk. She’s growing well, healthy, and happy. She’s not a picky eater, she just doesn’t eat much. I’ve noticed she is starting to eat a lot more recently too. So far, nursing and being pregnant hasn’t bothered me at all. I’m hoping I’ll be one of those people who it never does. I’ve always had problems with oversupply, not undersupply, and last pregnancy I started having to wear breast pads around 22 weeks or I’d leak. (Apparently that’s really early for a first pregnancy.) So I don’t think my milk will dry up, or if it does hopefully it will only be for a short time. One of the reasons we waited to get pregnant (besides my cycles not coming back, ha!) was that I didn’t want her to be forced to wean if I am one of those women whose milk does dry up in pregnancy, especially since she still relies on it so much.

My concern (and even that is far too strong a word at this point; I’m not concerned, just thoughtful) is the night nursing. Meredith is a very light sleeper. When I’m in late pregnancy and tossing and turning, am I going to be waking her up each time? And if so, will I have to nurse her back to sleep every time, making it harder for me to get back to sleep? Trouble sleeping was one of my most annoying symptoms last time and has already started this time. What about after the baby comes? Will the baby wake Meredith up each time he or she wakes up in the night? I can’t side lie and nurse two kids, so that means I’d either have to sit up and nurse them both, or make one wait while I nurse the other. Meredith will be over two and a half, so I’m sure she would be okay waiting while I nurse the baby, but I don’t want to nurse them both every single time the baby wakes up.

Really it’s all conjecture at this point. In 8 months, it’s quite possible Meredith will be falling back to sleep on her own without nursing, or that she will be a heavier sleeper and wouldn’t wake up. But again, I don’t want to count on that, and I don’t want to night wean her. If she sticks to her current sleeping pattern of sleeping until 5 or 6 in the morning, or even waking more when she’s sick/teething, I’d be fine with that with a baby. My concern is having to nurse them both every time the baby wakes up.

Thinking about it, and talking it over with Kris, I think we may try and have her start the night on Kris’ side. We have two queen beds in our bedroom pushed up against each other. (Which is heaven by the way, I love having so much space!) Meredith and I sleep on one, and Kris sleeps in the other. But really it’s like one huge bed because obviously we can move around from one to the other at will. Occasionally Meredith does crawl over to his side for a cuddle. Our thought was that I could nurse her to sleep for the night on Kris’ mattress, and the first time she wakes up at night I’ll bring her back over to my side and she’ll stay there the rest of the night. Which means on the nights she sleeps until 5 or 6 I have space the whole night, and the nights that she is waking up more frequently I would bring her over earlier and be right there for when she needs to nurse. That gives me space to toss and turn when heavily pregnant without risk of waking her up, and when there’s a baby in the equation he or she would be less likely to wake her up too. And of course, if we try it and for some reason she is really unhappy about it, we’d drop it for now. I can’t see that happening though, she does love to snuggle with daddy.

Related posts:

1. Baby Moon
2. Coming Back
3. Sleeping Baby

I spent this morning going through our cupboards and the flyer for the grocery store and have put together a meal plan for the next week and a half or so. I kept it mostly really simple, so it would be easy to start up again. I have a few recipes for next time that I want to try, but this time I just stuck with things I know we all like and that are simple to make. I haven’t included the veggie with a lot of these recipes, because that will depend on what’s looking good at the store.

Here’s the list, in no particular order:

• BBQ steak with bbq baked potato and mushrooms
• Shepherd’s pie
• Sticky chicken
• BBQ salmon
• Tilapia with homemade fries (sweet potato and regular)
• Pasta with mushrooms and capers in balsamic reduction
• Ham and butternut squash with apples and maple syrup
• Spaghetti with homemade red sauce

Related posts:

1. Meal Plan
2. Meal Plans
3. “Hiding” Vegetables

I am enjoying gardening so much this year. I really loved it last year too, but I had a crawling baby and not a lot of time or knowledge, and didn’t want to spend much money. This year we have more disposable income and Meredith is much more independent and I have a good friend nearby who has been giving me lots of good planting advice. I’ll have to post pictures later, but it is so much fun to watch things sprout and to imagine all the delicious food we’re going to have (hopefully) this summer. My dirt is still not very good, and my dog likes to run in the beds, so I’m not going to get my hopes up for a huge crop this year, but even small amounts of everything would be really great. Plus, looking at my before pictures and seeing all the work I’ve done this year (and last) pay off is really rewarding too.

Related posts:

1. The first…
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Kyre posted about Muffin Tin Wednesday on her blog. I’ve seen the idea before too. I have actually been watching on Craig’s List for a mini bar fridge that we could have set up that she would be able to open herself and we can keep food in for her to go in and have whenever she wants. But for now, I thought having some grazing foods in a muffin tin would be a good idea. I only put out half a muffin tin to start. My tin has buttered cheese bread, cheese, farmer’s sausage, orange, banana, and pear. So far it’s gone over well. She’s tried some of everything except the pear. She’s going through a bit of neophobia, though not as bad as I’ve heard some kids get. She’s cautious about new foods, but will normally at least try them, especially if we have it on our plate and let her eat directly off of ours.

Tomorrow I think I’ll try hardboiled egg too. We had a huge variety of fruits for a while but I’ve eaten them all and need to go shopping again. (And yes, I know it’s Thursday, but Kris was off Monday so it seems like Wednesday to me. )

Related posts:

1. Snacking
2. Wordless Wednesday: First step
3. Wordless Wednesday: Project 365

I’ve had to be a bit creative lately, as Kris is doing an elimination diet in an effort to find out what is causing his eczema and very enlarged tonsils (which are believed to be the cause of his obstructive sleep apnea). The foods he is eliminating right now are beef, eggs, dairy, wheat/gluten, and kidney beans. He is on week seven, and his eczema looks so much better. He hasn’t had to put cortisone cream on it since the first week and though it hasn’t gone away completely, it looks the best I can remember it looking in a long time. He wants to give it another week or two before starting so slowly add some of the potential foods back in, starting with beef. (He’s pretty tired of chicken, turkey, and ham by now!)

Annie often shares her weekly meal plan as well as many of her favorite recipes, and I love the idea. We’ve been bad about making meal plans every week but it’s something I’d like to start again. It saves time and money, and means we’re not stuck at 5:30 at night wondering what we want to eat that night. (Especially since take out isn’t an option because of the elimination diet!)

Tomorrow I’ll post recipes and hopefully pictures of what we had for supper tonight: Butternut squash with apples and maple syrup, and Grilled lime salmon with avocado sauce. Both were delicious and definitely will be made again. I forgot to take pictures tonight, so will take pictures of the leftovers tomorrow if I remember and can make them look appetizing. That’s why I say hopefully there will be pictures.

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1. Meal Plan
2. Meal Plan
3. Pantry Challenge

 VANCOUVER — It’s time to pack up the pea purée and toss the baby rice. No more blending beans, mashing bananas or whipping sweet potatoes.

Fed up with rigid timetables for the introduction of first foods, a growing number of parents are giving up on spoon feeding and letting the kids set the pace.

The “baby-led weaning” movement, a term coined by a British former health visitor and midwife Gill Rapley, is mushrooming over the Internet. In the new book she has co-authored, Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food, Ms. Rapley argues that once a baby is six months old, parents should just cook up some vegetables, cut up some fruits and let the kid go crazy.

“Now that feeding guidelines are to start solids at six months, there is no reason to use purées or cereals,” Ms. Rapley explains by phone from Britain. “A developmental milestone at that age is for the baby to pick up an object and bring it to his mouth, so it’s a natural time for him to start feeding.”

There is no need to introduce foods in a particular order, or individually, she says. “Those guidelines were created because a four-month-old baby’s stomach is not ready to cope with food, and care needed to be taken.” Soft foods had previously been recommended for four- to six-month-olds to bridge the gap.

Her theory is that children will regulate their own intake, setting them up for future portion control and taking the pressure out of family mealtimes. In the process, children are less likely to use food as a control mechanism or become fussy eaters, Ms. Rapley says.

Common sense is advised: Don’t let your child eat unattended (though a baby’s natural gag reflex may be enough to prevent choking, you need to watch them) and be aware of family allergy issues.

“I don’t think this is revolutionary,” says Ms. Rapley, who adds that many hundreds of parents have been using baby-led weaning without realizing it. “It’s just never been written about before.”

Nevertheless, the movement is turning into an industry. Though part of its appeal has been the rejection of rules, the new feeding regimen is developing its own guidelines: In addition to Ms. Rapley’s book, a recipe database has sprung up on the Internet, and moms try to outdo each other in chat rooms with fancy recipes to tempt their little ones.

On Vancouver Island, Lindsay Wilson started looking into baby-led weaning when she saw her sister-in-law lose patience with baby food. “Her baby refused to eat it, so she just started with regular food.”

Ms. Wilson was preparing to introduce solids to her daughter, Meredith, when she turned six months. “I read all about baby-led weaning on the Internet and decided to try it.”

In the beginning, Meredith simply played with the food. “By 10 months, Meredith was fully feeding herself with finger foods and with a spoon.”

Now 15 months, Meredith eats a wide range of foods without fuss – while still nursing. “It makes it very easy to trust her and let her make her own decisions about what to eat and when, because any nutrients she’s not getting in solids are made up for in breast milk,” Ms. Wilson explains.

A Health Canada spokesman said that parents should refer to the guidelines for weaning and child nutrition posted on the department’s website.

Danielle Donders turned to baby-led weaning with her third son, Lucas, after having been through two different sets of guidelines with sons Tristan and Simon, now 6 and 4.

“With Tristan, it was cereals at four months, then vegetable purées introduced one at a time, wait a week, then try a new one,” she says. “With Simon, the guidelines had changed to starting solids at six months – and nothing but rice cereal for a while.”

By the time Lucas came along, Ms. Donders, an Ottawa-based communications officer, says she was just more relaxed about everything. “At 5½ months he was starving,” she says. “My mom was nagging me to feed him – so I put some Cheerios in front of him, not really thinking about what you’re supposed to do.”

Then someone posted about baby-led weaning on her blog, Postcards from the Mothership. “And I found out I was part of a whole movement.”

For Ms. Donders, though, letting Lucas, now 10 months old, feed himself was more about the demands of a large family and less about a new orthodoxy. “I realized that it just isn’t that easy to break him,” she laughs. “Although it is great to be able to feed him without feeling guilty that I’m not doing it the right way.”

Source: Globe & Mail

There’s an enormous picture of Meredith and I in the print version too. There are a couple really nitpicky things I could say, but I won’t bother. Overall I’m really happy with how it turned out. Hopefully it will get some awareness out there about how unnecessary jarred baby foods and spoon-feeding are!

Related posts:

1. Today
2. Natural Age of Weaning
3. Baby-Led Weaning