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

 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

So I agreed to the interview, and I think it went well. I’m a little nervous about the article, as there is often a lot of misunderstanding or misconceptions about baby-led weaning and I worry that I’ll be misquoted or something I said will be taken out of context. I don’t want to come across as this crazy mother who’s endangering her baby’s life to rebel against the baby food industry! When in reality I believe baby-led weaning is safer than spoon feeding and allows Meredith to control her own intake of food and decide for herself when she’s full or hungry. Overall though, the reporter was really friendly and nice, and seemed very open. I’m really looking forward to how it turns out.

Today a photographer came to take Meredith’s picture for the article. She was really nice and great with Meredith. Very understanding of the fact that she is fifteen months old and sometimes has her own agenda. Actually, Meredith has been eating a lot more solids all of a sudden the last couple of days, so it worked out well as she was more than willing to sit and eat while having her picture taken. (She’s been nursing a lot more too, as can be evidenced by that fact I’ve gained a cup size or two in the last week lol! She must be going through a growth spurt.)

At one point while watching Meredith eating yogurt with a spoon, the photographer said: “Parents don’t give their kids enough credit”, which I think is so true. We have video of Meredith feeding herself with a spoon at ten months old. It was a little messier than it is now, but no more messier than any spoon feeding I’ve witnessed. Especially when the kid is being tricked into opening his or her mouth so the parent can shovel more food in, while the kid tries to spit it out. I have video of her first time eating soup too, around 11 months, though that was messy haha. She seems to find it a lot easier now that the spoon fits in her mouth a little easier. We never “taught” her to use a spoon. We just gave her a spoon (or a fork depending on what we were eating) and let her experiment on her own. Below is the soup video.

The photographer also commented I was brave giving her glasses and ceramic dishes to eat out of, but she’s probably broken less dishes since she started using them than Kris or I have. We did use some plastic that had been given to us for a brief time when she was enjoying throwing it on the floor, but by the time she actually started eating she was well past that phase and is quite careful with any dishes we give her.

Anyway, I’ll definitely post the article here when it comes out. I’m looking forward to it! I don’t think I’ve ever been in the newspaper before.

Related posts:

1. Bye-bye mush. So long, strained carrots.
2. Baby-Led Weaning
3. Natural Age of Weaning

Meredith has two teeth. The first one cut through on Father’s Day and the second one last week some time. Teething was a pretty horrible experience for her, poor girl. I am glad we cosleep, as she woke up a few times screaming in the middle of the night and I was glad to be right there for her and able to comfort her. We bought a teething necklace online which arrived shortly after the first tooth came in, and it seems to definitely help. Or maybe it’s coincidence, but the second tooth was much less dramatic than the first. She still had a few tough days/nights, but nothing like the first time.

With the first tooth came a sudden interest in solids. I’ve written before that we allow her to taste off our plates and she likes to sample small bits. Now she actually eats. Her poop’s even starting to change, though it’s still mostly breastfed baby poop. She loves meat, fruit, veggies… pretty much anything we offer her. We’re trying to mostly avoid dairy, but I found a brand of yogurt that’s non-homogenized and organic and it’s very tasty. I’ve read yogurt is normally okay, and she loves it, so in the mornings I will often give her about a tablespoon in a bowl and hand her a spoon. She has figured out how to eat with a spoon already, just by watching us. We’ve never spoon-fed her or tried to teach her to use it. With this increase in solids, she actually started breastfeeding more, instead of less, so there is no danger of her weaning anytime soon. I’d like to make it to at least two years. My husband’s family is prone to ear infections and my family has allergies and asthma, so anything I can do to give her a boost I will do. The last couple of days her eating has slowed down again, so I think she was going through a growth spurt. She’s back to mostly nursing. I love that we just trust her to know what she needs and when she needs it.

Also exciting is that she started taking steps. She actually took her first step at the end of June, but still mostly crawls. I think crawling is faster and easier for her. The chiropractor told me that crawling has been shown to be really good for baby’s development and babies who crawl for longer periods before walking seem to have less spinal and back problems later in life. I’d love to see studies or read more about that, but it seems to make some sense. Plus it means she’ll be more balanced. We have laminate floors so the less she falls over the better!

I really can’t believe that she is almost one. I honestly get teary sometimes about it. That probably sounds so sentimental, but I think it’s something I never really understood until becoming a parent. She is such a joy and I am so glad to have her in my life. And while I sometimes wish time could freeze, like right now she’s snuggled into me in the mei tei sleeping while I write, I also can’t wait to watch her grow and learn and witness all life has to offer for the first time, and then many times over after that.

In my news, I’m wondering if my period might finally be returning. I’m really enjoying not having one, so I hope not, but I’ve been craving chocolate for the last week or so, and definitely showing other signs of ovulation. I charted before we got pregnant, so I think I’m pretty good about knowing my body’s signs. Though I know that all goes out of whack after having a baby so it’s hard to know for sure.

I’ve also been gardening and decluttering quite a bit. I’ll post some of my progress in those regards in future updates. I think this one has been long enough!

Related posts:

1. Update: Good-bye First Trimester
2. Life with a one year old
3. Update

It was so good, and all dairy-free. We gave Bebe tiny amounts of everything except the onion. She ate a little mashed potato (and seemed to really enjoy it), but just played with the asparagus and chicken. She tasted the chicken but didn’t actually put it in her mouth. She had a lot of fun but had to have a bath afterwards with Daddy. (No hardship, she loves baths.)

I saved the carcass, to try and make chicken broth with. We’re really trying to eat homemade and from scratch as much as possible, especially now that Bebe is eating/tasting it too.

Related posts:

1. Crunchy Orange Curried Chicken with Potatoes