Baby-Led Weaning

The idea behind baby-led weaning is that if you wait until a baby is around six months before introducing solids (as is now recommended) then the baby is capable of feeding himself. He can sit in a high chair and pick up food either with his fingers or in his fist. He can put the food in his mouth, chew it and swallow it. If he is not able to do these things then his digestive system will not be ready for anything except milk. With baby-led weaning the baby is in control of how much he eats. Just as a breastfed baby will take the right amount of milk and will neither under-eat nor over-eat, so a BLW baby will eat the right amount of food, and will leave what he doesn't need (or squish it up and throw it on the floor.)

We started off with baby B on my lap at mealtimes and we let him play with my food. Yesterday we sat him in his highchair for the first time at dinner time. We offered him baguette, cheese and cucumber and he chewed enthusiastically on all three before throwing them on the floor. We are all very much looking forward to tonight's dinner.

Proud Mummy

My baby boy is six months old today. He has two teeth and is almost crawling. He gets himself into the crawling position, moves his knees forward but then he can't figure out how to move his hands without flopping down onto his tummy again. So he wriggles along the floor like a caterpillar, moving his tummy up and down.

One thing that makes me very proud is the fact that, apart from the odd piece of carrot and broccoli in the last few days, I have provided all his nourishment with my own body. For nine months I nourished him inside my womb, and for the past six months I have fed him exclusively on my own milk. And he is so obviously thriving on it.

For me, the logical extension of breastfeeding on demand, is baby-led weaning. Up to now my son has decided how much milk he needs, and now that he is six months old and can sit up unaided, he is able to reach out and pick up a carrot stick or a broccoli floret from my plate, put it in his mouth, chew it and swallow it. (I know he has swallowed some because I have found the evidence in his nappy). So instead of spoon-feeding him with unapetising mush he can now eat most of what the whole family eats. He will decide how much to eat, and if he just wants to squash it between his fingers and throw it on the floor that's OK because most of his nutrients will still come from my milk for a good few months to come.

Parenting with Trust

I was having a conversation recently with some mums at my local breastfeeding support group about our parenting styles. We decided it was difficult to define our styles of parenting. We love the idea of attachment parenting but don't really follow it - we love slings but also love pushing our babies about in a pram, and we sometimes find it easier to do the housework without having a baby attached to us. Should we call it instinctive parenting? But sometimes it's hard to follow our instincts when we've read all the manuals and listened to our friends and family, and everyone seems to have conflicting ideas about feeding, sleeping, weaning etc.

Later it struck me that my parenting style is all about trust, but it is my baby and his instincts I need to trust, not my own. I trust my baby to know when and how much he wants to feed and sleep. If he cries I go to him because I know that he is crying for a reason - he needs something and I have to provide it for him. He isn't crying to be manipulative. I do not want to train him not to cry. I don't try to enforce a routine on him so that he will fit in with my life more easily. I don't want to "get my life back to normal again." My life will never be the same as it was before I became a mum, and that's the way it should be.