Two days ago, we gave Emma her first solids. This time around, I figured I would attempt Baby Led Weaning. It’s a relatively new concept and the more I’m learning about it, the more it’s making a whole lot of sense.
Basically with Baby Led Weaning, the baby is given “real food”, as in food that is as close as possible to what we as adults would eat (minus the salts and sugars, of course). With Baby Led Weaning, there will be no food purees and mushy food that is always linked to weaning a baby. A baby is encouraged to feed herself by holding on to food and chomping or munching as much or as little as she wants. At the same time, breastfeeding is fully encouraged and baby can drink as much as she wants.
I’ve read that babies who adopt Baby Led Weaning tend to have healthier appetites, are not fussy eaters and become more independent with feeding themselves. This in turn (hopefully) will result in happier meal times, because the entire family eats together. Another obvious PLUS is of course that I don’t need to spend time making ground rice, pureeing fruits and vegetables and frozen food cubes! 😀
I’m still learning about Baby Led Weaning as I go along, so if there are any of you out there who has advice or suggestions, please feel free to let me know! 🙂
So I didn’t buy any rice cereal this time. Instead, for Emma’s first solids, I boiled some soft Bario red rice grains and shaped them into little rice balls. The boiled Bario red rice looked a little like porridge, soft and palatable.
She grabbed the little rice balls immediately. But I suppose her hand-to-mouth coordination is not that advanced yet, so she didn’t really know what to do with the rice balls!
She ended up chomping away on the side of the bowl!
When she threatened to fling the bowl over the side of the food tray, I decided to place the food on the tray itself, so she could have easier access to it.
Well, she didn’t eat much of the rice that first time. I did allow her to hold the bowl again, and she happily licked the bowl a little! 😛
I didn’t expect her to eat much this first time anyway.
Today, I tried again, and she did put a little into her mouth, but she became quite frustrated when she could not eat a lot (we think). So I used a spoon and fed her small tiny spoons of the red rice porridge.
Guess what? She grabbed onto the spoon and nibbled at the porridge! Looks like she likes it!
And she drank some water too after that, with a sippy cup!
Great job, Emma! Mommy is so proud of you! Here’s to more healthy eating days ahead!
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Mummoyce! Long time no talk. We did BLW with our first and it worked so well we’re doing it again with Baby J. The rice balls are a great idea — going to try them myself! Otherwise, if you want to offer something that can’t be turned into finger foods (e.g. yoghurt), you can load up the spoon and hand it to the baby. They figure it out surprisingly quickly, especially watching you (or older siblings) eat with a spoon. One thing to be prepared for is that with BLW they are not going to consume large quantities. My older girl was essentially getting 95% of her nutrition from breastmilk until she was 18 months or so, when her appetite suddenly picked up and she started eating more.
Here are some foods that are/have been BLW favourites in our house:
*steamed carrot sticks
*long pieces of banana
*long slices of apple or pear
*avocado wedges (my older girl loved these but second one does not)
*grape or cherry tomatoes
*steamed broccoli or cauliflower spears (organic if possible as conventional tends to have more pesticide than other veggies)
*raw slices of red or yellow capsicum (they love the bright colours!)
*steamed French beans
*raw snow peas
*green peas — I squish them slightly so the risk of choking is almost nil. Both babies have enjoyed the fine motor challenge of picking these up :-).
*once she has had egg yolks and then egg whites and you’re sure she’s fine with them, strips of omelette, or pieces of scrambled egg, work great too!Also, this is an Indian trick, but a drop of ghee often makes plain veggies more appetising 🙂 . We don’t use salt or sugar either, but I will put a tiny bit of homemade ghee in some things.
Joyce says: Preets! How wonderful to get these gems of wisdom from you! Better you than from any website I have read, I’d reckon! Thank you so much for the encouragement and advice. I will be sure to put them to good use!
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Actually, the Malay nurses at the government clinic told me about this with #2 but I didn’t take it up. Does porridge count? Both my kids grew up on them – I never did make fruit and vege cubes – too lazy haha!
Emma is looking so cuddly and so very much like Ethan 🙂
Joyce says: I think most parents, from second kid onwards, do tend to practise a little bit of BLW without realizing it. Porridge does count, I guess…but I think BLW stresses on baby self-feeding more than anything. 🙂
Yes, Emma is really cuddly!! 🙂
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No la where got gems of wisdom?!? You’ve got more parenting experience than I do! I just happened to have tried this with my 2, that’s all 😉 . Forgot to mention one (probably obvious) point: I just use whatever veg. I am cooking for the rest of the family on that day. E.g. if I am making a curry or stir-fry with capsicum and peas, then I’ll just take out 4-5 pieces to cook separately for baby. Alternatively, I cook the whole dish without salt/strong spices, then add those for the rest of us at the table. Last night I made a simple mee goreng: made the whole dish with shredded cabbage and egg and no salt/seasonings. I took out some for baby, then put soy sauce and sesame oil in the rest. Hubby and I also had an additional garnish of red chilis and shallots in soy sauce and black vinegar.
After reading about your rice balls I also thought of onigiri — Japanese rice balls with fillings. Definitely going to try that this weekend, with a salmon-and-avocado filling.
Joyce says: Your onigiri idea sounds amazing! I will try that soon, when little Emma is ready for salmon 🙂
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