{We’ve already started giving Evelyn food as of this weekend, and I had wanted to post this last week, but then last week happened, so here we are.}
Baby led weaning (or really, what will be more like baby led solids because I have a feeling that weaning will be something I’ll have to do a bit more intentionally) is never something I had really considered until sometime in the past year when I just kept stumbling upon it on the internet and it suddenly seemed like it was going to be the right thing for us to try. The idea is that we’re skipping the purees and going straight to the real thing: tender strips of fruit and cooked vegetables that Evelyn can eat. There are a lot of reasons for doing this, and for me personally they include Evelyn being able to eat what we eat (once we get to a certain point that is…we’ll still have to start out making some vegetables and other foods separately for her) and Evelyn being able to entertain herself and participate in meal times without one of us having to be occupied with feeding her.
So here’s our plan (which we can revisit later to see how it has worked out).
Starting point: We’re going to start out when Evelyn is 6 months old. We don’t expect her to eat a lot at first, but hopefully within time she’ll get the hang of getting food to her mouth.
Starting foods: We’re going to start with tender steamed green beans and long strips of sweet potato and go from there, hopefully incorporating as many different fruits and vegetables into her diet as possible. After a while (I’m not sure how long…maybe within the month?) we’ll start working meats into her diet as well. (This post, by the way, has a great list of foods to start out with.)
Starting meal times: This has been one of the biggest dilemmas to me because of our sometimes crazy schedule and her complete unwillingness to get on any kind of nap schedule. I think right now I’m going to try to get her to sit to eat while we (or I, as on weekday mornings when Gerrit is already at work) eat breakfast and dinner…which will hopefully be about 45 minutes to an hour after she nurses (because I’ve read that if babies are hungry or tired when you sit them down to eat it will not go well…they don’t understand at this point that food will make them not hungry). Eventually we’re start incorporating lunches as well, but since lunch often happens while we’re at the office together, I’m not going to add that bit of craziness right away.
I’m hoping she enjoys it and it makes for good eating experiences for us all and helps her to become a good eater (although I know I’m working against some strong karma here). So we’ll see!