Food for thought

With the 6 month mark looming (tomorrow!!) solids have been on my mind of late. I fully intended on delayign any solids at all and EBF for the full 6 months, however just after 5 months L was really showing signs of being ready and so we offered cereal. The plan on was to offer it once a day and he could eat or not, whichever. For a while he ate and gobbled it up, and then he decided he hated it completely. He opens his mouth with excitement, and as soon as he realizes what I have given him he gags and cries and then will not open again. And so for the last week I haven't even really been offering it. I firmly believe that food assocations start in infacy, I do nto want him to be force fed, to be made to finish his plate or to associate meal time with displeasure. This led me to doing a lot of reading.....

The first site that I came across was wholesomebabyfood, it is a plethera of knowledge. I liked what it said, I felt good about it. I decided I would make all of L's purees, I am not a big fan of commerical babyfoods anyways. I want him to move to new tastes quickly, I am hoping to nourish him and encourage him to have a broad palate. So one Sunday evening I went to work in preperation of this week.....

I steamed many my veggies, and even some fruit. While other fruit I baked, still some things I roasted. All of the "recipes" I followed were from wholesomebabyfoods. I saved the extra fluid...

And into the food processor it went, adding liquid as required to reach the right consistency...

And then into ice cube trays it went, once frozen I transfered my little cubes into labelled freezer bags, after just a few hours of work we ended up with sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, green beans, apples, peaches, pears and mango. I felt so proud and like I was doing what was best....

And then L started gagging and hating the cereal. I felt like I was forcing something, I questioned myself, is he ready? Yet he continued to be so interested in MY food. So I mashed some banana into his cereal, he did a bit better with it, but still he was reaching for the spoon, he wanted to do it himself. I left the bowl on his tray and he dug in, with is hands, I think he ate more that way then when I tried to spoon feed him....so again I started reading.

I had heard about baby-led weaning and didn't really think much about it, I thought it was weaning, not solids...so I did some reading here.

I like this theory, it feels right. Tonight, on the eve of L's 1/2 year birthday I gave him an offering of broccoli and he picked it up and nawed and sucked and did super well with it. Dr. Jack Newman reccomends a similar approach to solids. I am still breast feeding 6-8 times a day, some days only 5 tho. I am trying not to worry about my supply, he is acting satisified and nourished, he is active, alert & meeting his milestones. I have ordered the BLW book, and feel really good about this. Now my only slight concern is if our DR is OK with this. I really hope he is. Its awful that I am considering not even talking to him about this, I am so afraid he will shoot it down and then Les won't be OK with it.....I guess we will see what happend Monday!

I am trying hard to be a momma and not a nurse to not worry about the 4 day wait......there are no allergies in our families. I am still sticking to veggies and fruits and the already introduced cereals. I am avoiding the common allergens. I never realized how much stress something so small can cause one momma!

Do any of you do BLW or have any other info on it? I would be really curious. I plan on continuing to breastfeed for at least a year, thats when I go back to work (I am next to tears at the thoguht of that...). And at that point I would like to continue breastfeeding in the evenings and night time. Hopefully this all works out for us.

EDIT** I wanted to add a few other links I have found very informative on this BLW process, firs this blog has a ton of info, its just momma's trying otu the same thing and this blog is one momma's experience with her babe.