I thought it was time to update you guys on how Baby Led Weaning worked out for our family. If your curious why we skipped purees and started with real food from the start, read the original post here.
Firstly, the weaning part. I've always breastfed S, we were lucky enough not to need forumla at any point. I'm kind of an on demand parent, but more that I try to figure out what she wants and then make a schedule around it. So at six months when we started solids she was at about six good feedings a day (I think...the memory is slipping). They steadily tapered off over the next six months as her solid intake increased, until she was down to two, one first thing in the morning and one in the afternoon. She's stayed with that schedule for four or five months and this week seems to be dropping the afternoon feeding. She takes a couple sucks, gets distracted by something shiny and wanders off. I always said that I wanted to nurse for at least a year but no more than two. S seems to be weaning herself off in that timeline so...good deal?
As for the solids, it's worked out awesome! She sometimes got some yogurt or applesauce on a spoon, but that was it. I waited until she was a year to start on wheat and uncultured dairy, and avoided things you really need molars for until she was big enough. She's always liked a good mix of things, although like most of us she loves carbs and sugar (she hardly gets any sugar, but I'm guilty on the carbs).
It's not that she's a perfect eater. She won't even try some foods (lettuce, sandwich meat, potstickers), but we just keep offering her everything in small amounts and she's pretty adventurous. Her very favourite foods are berries (and cherries as you see by the photos), bread, and peanut butter.
We have always made some changes to what she eats, it's not exactly the same as us. She gets an egg for breakfast every morning (in fact, she usually eats more than I do for breakfast) and we cook her carrot sticks and apple slices. She gets applesauce instead of syrup on waffles and plain yogurt instead of vanilla (at some point she'll notice, but for now I figure the less sugar the better). I really don't mind, it's not like I cook her whole extra meals. It's still a lot easier than making baby food!
Um, so yeah, baby led weaning for the win? Any questions?
