Oh the first blog. I'm quite excited!
Well, I better introduce myself and my reasons for starting this blog. I'm a married, stay at home mum to two gorgeous girls. Mia is two years' old and Anya is four months' old.
When Mia was weaned I followed the traditional method of pureeing loads of foods, introducing a new food every three days and spoon feeding her. I love my food so I was quite excited to begin Mia on solids however I did find it quite time consuming. Plus, I'm not the most organised person and would often find myself out and I'd forgotten her food.
I chose to breastfeed both my daughters for a few reasons. Obviously for all the health benefits for both baby and mum, but mainly for two other reasons. Firstly it's free - which in my book is a huge advantage, and secondly it's convenient. No messing with sterilsing bottles, they can have it immediately when they want it, and I don't have to carry excess baggage around with me. Perfect.
So weaning Mia was a bit of a challenge. At the time of weaning Mia, she was diagnosed as having severe reflux and she had to have a gluten free diet, which meant that a lot of the baby cereals were off limits as well as normal things like bread and pasta (unless they were gluten free of course). Mia also hated to lie down, the stomach acid had more chance of coming back up so I found it difficult to prepare her food and deal with a screaming baby.
The whole weaning process was a bit of a nightmare.
After Anya was born I visited my local sure start centre (Oxford Grove) and went to their breast feeding support group. A friend of mine, Sally, was talking about baby led weaning and I asked her what it was as I'd never heard of it. She told me that once the baby reaches six months rather than pureeing all of their food and introducing new foods after a few days, you just give the baby what you eat (obviously within reason. I don't think salted peanuts are suitable!). I had to ask twice "So you mean, you just give them what you eat? No new foods every three days?" "Yes" was her reply.
Well that had me sold. How easy is that?
Another reason why baby led weaning seems to make perfect sense to me is the naturalness of it all. What would mothers do if blenders didn't exist? If we were stuck on a desert island how would we wean our babies?
I've reserved a copy of Baby Led Weaning by Gill Rapley at my local library and I've got just over a month to wait until Anya is ready. She is already reaching for everything I put into my mouth and I'm sure she'll love her food. She's a little chubba and is already in 6-9 month clothes.
Wish us luck!
