Baby Led Cleaning

One thing to be prepared for when starting baby led weaning is the mess! There is definitely nothing tidy about a baby self feeding, and Indigo is most certainly not the exception.  But although she is far from a tidy eater yet, we have seen some improvement already. Indigo is coming up to 8 months and we have been doing baby led weaning with her for just short of two months; as her ability to grasp, particularly slippery things, has improved, more food ends up on in her mouth and less on the floor.

Things to keep in mind and how we do it, comments welcome if anybody has any better ideas:

You can get place mats and plastic baby plates to place the food on, but we have opted to offer her the food straight on the table. We figured the plate/place mat would only go flying across the room anyway, and we have discovered that if there are any non-food related items within her reach, at the dinner table, they seem to distract her from her food... so straight from the table works great, and it wipes clean easily too.

When picking a high chair, it's definitely worth keeping in mind how easy it will be to clean. We have the Stokke Tripp Trapp highchair, and I would recommend it to everyone. Indigo sits very comfortably in it and it wipes clean very easy too. You can buy cushions to go with the highchair, and although they look very nice I am glad we decided not to buy them as they would need washing after every meal! Besides, Indigo's bum is plenty cushioned in her cloth nappies anyway!

Keeping the floor clean is another thing to think about, as that is where a lot of the food ends up in the early days with baby led weaning. In the book it suggests that you can put down old news papers or a sheet, that way you can easily gather it up with all the food on it and dispose of/wash out. We have laminate flooring and have found it just as easy to gather up any mess with a dustpan and brush or a wet cloth. On the plus side, our floor has never been this clean!

When at home, we have chosen to undress Indigo down to her nappy and then put a bib on her to keep the harness from the highchair clean. Even with long sleeved bibs she was managing to get her cloths filthy, she particularly likes to reach down and rub her leg a bit with whatever is mushed up on her hands... don't ask me why. So getting rid of the clothes completely makes washing sooo much easier! Of course we don't do this when we are out. If I sit next to Indigo I tend to drape a muslin or tea towel over my lap as well, as food sometimes fly my way too!

Most of all, I think it is important to relax and remember that the mess is all part of the learning process. If you can't play with your food and make a mess when you are a 7 month old baby, when can you? And seeing how much she enjoys herself at the dinner table makes the clean up afterwards worth it all the more!

Here is Indigo after a particularly messy dinner of spaghetti bolognaise last week (left), and the mess she made around her (right). That is probably the worst clean up we have had so far.

Baby food

Today I bought my first item of real baby food made especially for babies. When we visited Emma and Oscar earlier for a quick coffee (for the mommies of course) Indigo tried one of Oscar's Organix baby rice cakes. I have hardly cast a glance at the baby food isle in the supermarket since starting Baby Led Weaning as I was expecting to find mostly purees, baby rice and rusks, which of course are irrelevant to us; but since Indigo enjoyed these rice cakes I ventured into the baby food isle to get her some.

I hadn't really thought to offer Indigo rice cakes as I am not particularly keen myself, but they make a good alternative to bread sticks I suppose. You can get normal size rice cakes without added salt, but the Organix baby rice cakes are baby size (surprise surprise) and come in different flavours with a 'no junk' promise. I bought the tomato and carrot flavoured rice cakes, as they had no plain ones left, and I was happy to see that the ingredients listed were simply: Organic wholegrain rice, organic carrot juice concentrate, organic tomato juice concentrate and Thiamin (vitamin B1). So the Organix brand keep their promise about 'no junk' and I thought they tasted okay too, Simon wasn't so keen though (not that we go around eating Indigo's food...).

Anyway, before this turns into an Organix sales pitch... I don't think I will be buying lots more specific baby food products, although there were a few non-pureed products on the shelves (biscuits and such) in aforementioned baby food isle, but I might get the rice cakes again. The best thing about these rice cakes is that they stopped the awful teeth grinding Indigo has started since her first top tooth poked through a few days ago... it is nails-across-blackboard type sounds she produces when she grinds her teeth, so she might be eating alot of rice cakes till that phase is over and done with.

On the subject of teeth, it won't be long until all four front teeth at the top will be through, so I will report back on how or if that changes her eating habits.

Make way for Oscar

Here is Indigo's friend Oscar, who is also doing BLW, enjoying a kidney bean mousakka. Looks delicious, or whats left of it anyway. Just imagine the clean up when the two of them get together for lunch...

Dips and dippers

Since starting with Baby Led Weaning bread sticks has become a staple in our house. They are great for exploring more runny foods such as humus, soups, spreads and the like, and they are super easy to hold. They are also always good to have on hand if Indigo's food hasn't quite cooled down enough or when we are out waiting on our food order to arrive; because once placed in the highchair there is no messing about, she just wants, sorry, needs her food now! It's bad enough having to wait whilst a bib is being put in place and the harness secured.

So, finally I got around to baking some of my own bread sticks. I have been wanting to do this for a while since the bought ones have added salt, and she does have them quite often; I was pleasantly surprised at how quick and easy it was to bake them. They came out nice and crispy, (now I just have to figure out how to store them so they stay crispy, but that is an issue with the bought ones too) and both Indigo and her friend Oscar enjoyed them. Success.

For dips I have been getting a bit more adventurous, I think she has been trying to tell me that the world of dips extend beyond humus... So far she has tried:

Mashed avocado
Baba Ganoush (aubergine dip, homemade)
Mushroom pate (homemade)
Cottage cheese
Humus (keep meaning to make my own, but not quite got there yet)
Hazelnut butter (Indigo likes this, but mummy loves it, yummy!)
Butter bean and horseradish pate (tried this in a cafe, might try and make my own)
Tomato soup

Out of those the Baba Ganoush has been the biggest hit. I was surprised how much she liked it as I put quite a bit of raw garlic in it... she has had garlic breath all afternoon. Both the mushroom pate and Baba Ganoush were really quick and easy to make and lasts quite a few days in the fridge too, so I will definitely be making more veggie pate's. It has also been quite nice for me to have something different on my sandwich to cheese. How does she find all this time for cooking you ask yourself, we recently booted the television is the answer, I highly recommend it by the way, all the things you can do when baby is alseep and the telly is gone... the list is endless.

Anyway, to get back to the subejct of BLW, we are still dipping for her and handing her the food. Although she tries her best to get her hands on the pots with the dips in, she can't manage to dip her own food yet.

Indigo with a humus beard...

Mexican.

I came across a recipe for the Mexican dish quesadilla and thought I would give them a shot, and to stay true to the theme I made some re fried beans to go with them.

The quesadilla's were well received, but the re fried beans stole the lime-light and were a huge hit with Indigo (and the rest of us). As you can imagine the beans were very messy, we tried giving her a pre-loaded spoon to begin with but she seemed to prefer using her hands.

The quesadilla's were super easy to make and you can use lots of different fillings, so we will definitely be trying them again. Here is how we made them:

Quesadilla.

2 flour tortilla
1 big handful of chard or spinach (steamed)
some grated cheese (we used cheddar)
125g ricotta cheese

Mix the steamed chard/spinach with the ricotta and grated cheese and spread the mixture evenly on one of the tortillas, then place the other tortilla on top to make a sandwich. Place the Quesadilla on a dry fryingpan (medium heat), cook till golden and then turn over. You can also spread the filling onto half of the tortilla and then fold it over, this way it is easier to turn over in the fryingpan.

I made some patties with the leftover re fried beans and a courgette the next day for lunch, they were really nice too but Indigo preferred eating the beans the messy way and didn't have much of her patty... typical.

Quesadilla and re fried beans (left), one baby sized portion and one adult sized portion, and messy Indigo using the spoon to eat re fried beans; Simon commented that it looked like she'd had her face in her nappy... nice one..

Dexterity

Since we started Baby Led Weaning, I have notice how much Indigo's fine motor skills have improved. She is definitely getting the food in her mouth more easily now, and she's discovered that using both hands to guide the food in the right direction leads to less pokes and prods in the eye. Once the food gets to the right destination (mouth, obviously) there is then the problem of it dropping out again... Indigo's solution to this is holding the food in place with her index finger whilst chewing it. I am surprised she hasn't bit her finger yet with those sharp teeth.

We gave Indigo alot of pear to begin with, as it is nice and soft, but had stopped offering it when the skin was causing some problems. It would get stuck on the back of her tounge and cause alot of gagging, but most problematic: when I checked her mouth, for hidden leftovers after eating, there would almost always be a bit of skin stuck to the roof of her mouth. Imagine me trying to get this peice of skin out of Indigo's mouth before she goes for her nap.... my poor finger nearly got bitten off on a few occasions, so pear was off the menu. When we offered some nice ripe pear again the other day, it was a surprise to see that after chewing a good mouthful and swallowing most of the flesh, she then went on the retrieve the skin from her mouth with index finger and thumb... I was very impressed to say the least, who taught her to do that? She has since done it with tomato skin as well.

Another thing I have noticed her do alot recently as well, and she gets this from her greedy father, is wanting to hold a piece of food in each hand. She will eat off one piece of food whilst the other gets a good squeeze. Once she has got a bite off the first piece of food, she then moves on to the second piece and tries to fit in another mouthful; trouble is there is generally no more room left in her mouth at this point. Must teach both children, sorry... husband and child, not to stuff their mouth quite as much!

BLW and breastfeeding.

When I started thinking about weaning I was interested to know how quickly Indigo's milk intake would change. With Baby Led Weaning Indigo should naturally start taking less milk when she is eating more 'real' food, so no need to try and control how much milk she gets and when.

So, we are about a month into our weaning experience and so far I don't think Indigo is taking any less milk. I am still feeding on demand, and although the amount of feeds she takes hasn't changed much, the spacing of them seem to have. She has generally slept long nights and fed frequently during the days, she was feeding every 2 hours during the day untill we started weaning. Now she seems to cluster feed in the morning and evenings and then have one long stretch between feeds in the middle of the day. She goes up to 4 hours, sometimes even 5, between feeds in the middle of the day.

I should mention that she normally joins us for meals 3 times a day (unless she happens to be sleeping), and although alot of food ends up on the floor, some does get through - the proof is in the nappy (need I say more...?). So I assume that this new feeding pattern is a result of her taking in more solids.

I will try and update on breastfeeding every month or so to see how things change. At the moment I am definitely her main source of nutrition.

Eating out

We have eaten out a handful of times since we started baby led weaning with Indigo, and it has gone really well. The first time we took her out we ordered tapas, Indigo chose falafel, lettuce and the tomato dipping sauce that came with the falafel - what a mess, but she had a wonderful time with it and we got to eat our dinner whilst it was warm.

The practicalities of eating out:

For the seating there are three options: highchair, buggy or lap. When we have tried the provided highchairs we have encountered the same beast of a chair every time (pictured below), which is obviously not made for a 6 month old as it is quite big and hasn't got much back support in particular. We have handled this by putting a rolled up blanket or jacket behind her, and this has worked really well. The buggy is comfortable to sit in and can most of the time be pulled up to the table, but it does get smeared with food, and If all else fails, there is always mum or dad's lap - but since daddy doesn't share his food it's typically mum's lap;-)

Out of the 3 options we prefer the highchair, if suitable, this way we don't get the buggy or my trousers smeared with whatever's on offer at the dinner table.

The infamous highchair (left) with rolled up jacket and a blanket for back support. Oscar and Indigo (right) having lunch in their buggy's, on this particular occasion they had some fish pate... nice and smelly.

At home we use the long sleeved bibs, which work great, but I have only got around to buying two so I haven't got a spare one for the changing bag yet, so when we have eaten out I have used a muslin square as a bib. I just tie it around her neck and because it's so long it covers her legs as well; It has actually worked surprisingly well, so much so that I am not going to buy any more long sleeved bibs for the changing bag.

Indigo featuring her muslin bib.

Then of course there is the gagging, but I will cover that properly in another post. It has pretty much been a joy all around taking Indigo out to eat; no need to pack spoons and jars of mush or waiting for baby to eat whilst my plate of food goes cold, we just enjoy our food together.

Roast dinner.

So Indigo had her first roast dinner last night, and like a true Yorkshire lass, she absolutely loved it. And what made the dinner extra special was that the potatoes and green beans were home grown by dad himself down the allotment.

The dinner: Roast chicken, homemade yorkshire puddings, green beans and carrots, and minted new potatoes (the mint was from the allotment too).

This was Indigo's first try with chicken and what a winner, easy to hold, nice and soft to chew on and probably quite easy to swallow as well! The yorkshire pudding was a hit too, we cut it in half as the whole one would have been almost the size of her head; she loved playing with/eating the yorkshire pudding the most, but it did cause some gagging, as once chewed on a bit it went quite doughy in her mouth. I should imagine that a doughy mouthful of yorkshire pudding, however perfectly made (by mommy), would be hard to swallow for a 6 month old, so maybe not that surprising that it caused some gagging.

We steamed the veg to make it easer to chew, although some of the french bean were hard to get in the mouth in the first place; they had been left to grow a bit too big, so they were like long wiggely worms that she managed to poke herself in the cheek, eye and nose with, but couldn't quite get it where it was suppose to go... she had a lot of fun trying though. Maybe we will cut our super long beans in half next time so they are not so bendy.

The roast dinner was a hit, she is half English after all so no big surprise there, and she will no doubt be enjoying many of those in the years to come.

Indigo enjoying a yorkshire pudding.

Teeth and BLW

Don't they need teeth to chew?

Indigo got her first two teeth early; first one popped through at 18 weeks and the second one came exactly a week after at 19 weeks... 'Yikes!!' was my first thought, as I am still breastfeeding and plan to continue for a while longer. I have got nipped a few times, but that is another post in a different blog... As for the chewing; at first she was pretty much just sucking on everything we gave her and maybe gumming it a bit if she got some in her mouth, but recently she has started putting those two teeth to better use.

She doesn't so much use her teeth for chewing, but she has discovered that she can use them to take bites with. She manages some rather large bites out of pears, cucumber and whatever else she's given and then just keeps it in her mouth to suck on, she will use the gums at the back of her mouth to chew with (her teeth are front bottom). I keep telling Simon to stop stuffing his face, as it seems she is picking up this habit from him :-)

She has also started scraping the flesh of soft fruits from the skin with her teeth.

So, although she is putting her little (and might I say adorable) teeth to some use, she still uses her gums to chew with, and therefore the answer to my first question is 'No, no teeth nescessary'.

Here is a picture of those little teeth, it isn't that super easy to see them, but try and get a baby to smile so their teeth are showing... and the just hold the pose for long enough to snap a shot of it too... enough said.

Favourites so far.

Although Indigo has happily tried anything we've put in front of her up till now, I have identified two foods she seems to particularly enjoy: Tomato and natural yoghurt. Not sure she could have quite picked anything more messy. Tomatoes can have any shape, so far we have tried quatered cherry tomatoes, sliced beef tomatoes, tomatoes roasted  in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, tomato soup and homemade tomato pasta sauce - she loves them all. She can suck the seeds out of raw tomatoes and slurp the more runny tomato dishes of a pre-loaded spoon. I often have natural yoghurt for breakfast with muesli and some fruit, so I just dipped her spoon (one of them soft tipped weaning spoons) in my yoghurt and passed it to her. Granted, most of the yoghurt gets used as face paint, but some is getting in and as she is getting better at handling the spoon I have been able to put a bit more yoghurt on it. Beware though, yoghurt burps smell really bad!

Indigo after eating pasta with tomato sauce (left, obviously), and enjoying some yoghurt.

 

Note about pre-loaded spoons: I have found that it is best to make sure she doesn't hold the spoon too far down the handle, or she ends up accidently shoving it quite far down her throat. Although it doesn't seem to hurt her when this happens, it's a sure trigger for some 'quality' gagging. I also always make sure to have two spoons at the ready when offering foods on the spoon, as it saves me constantly having to pick it up off the floor... call me lazy if you want!

Risotto and noodles???

It's been a little while since I had a chance to post, things are busy in our household as we are planning a move back to my home-country Denmark. A lot has happened on the weaning front - for one, we have been a bit more experimental with which foods we have offered, as the title suggests. To stay true to the BLW approach, Indigo eats what we eat; I was a little apprehensive with both the noodles and the risotto (two separate meals might I add), but I thought 'oh well, we can only try....' and true to her nature, she surprised us again with very inventive eating skills.

She took handfuls of the risotto, and although I didn't see how she was actually going to get it in her mouth, she managed somehow because I could see rice grains in there when she was chewing with her mouth open (we will work on table manners later). She also, at one point, put her face to the table and seemingly scraped the rice in; this seems to be the approach she has when picking things up apparently gets a bit tedious.

The noodles; we were making ourselves a stir fry, and I fished a few plain noodles and stir fried veggies out of the dish before adding the sauces. Oyster and soya sauce are way too salty for little babies bellies. And boy did she have fun with those noodles. They were actually surprisingly easy for her to hold as they were a bit sticky, and the long bits that were hanging out of her fists were easy to get in her mouth.


Here is Indigo eating fist fulls of risotto (left) and having fun with her noodles (right). I have to say that we are very impressed with how quickly her skills are developing.

Salt and pepper

So, rule number one: salt is out. No food with added salt for Indigo. So I have been concentrating hard not to accidentally / out of habit throw a bit of salt in my cooking. Of course I didn't spare a second thought to pepper... I cooked us some nice roasted potato wedges (which by the way are good for chewing and not too slippy) and put on some pepper. The wedges were well received at first but once the hotness of the pepper hit she got a bit upset. I realised straight away what I had done, lesson learnt. Indigo spent the rest of the meal sitting on my lap tucking into my salad instead and has had a few meals since, so thankfully it hasn't put her off her food.

Fruit with handles

We are now a few more days in to our weaning experience with Indigo and things are going quite well. We have offered a variety of different things, all of which has been well received. The challenge at the moment is trying to figure out what shapes to make the food so it's easier to hold for her. Fruit seems to be particularly slippy and difficult to handle; we have offered her banana, mango and melon and each fruit seems easier to hold when we leave some skin on the end to create a handle. Though once the fruit has been dropped a few times and her hands are all wet and sticky it really doesn't make much difference anymore... I guess she will figure it out on her own eventually, in the meantime I really must resist helping her out too much! 

Yesterday Simon cooked up an omelette with some veggies for lunch. We made sure that the eggs were well cooked and then cut it into finger shapes, these were really easy to hold and nice and soft to chew on. She absolutely loved eating the omelette and what a mess she made of it too! Despite the mess though, we are really enjoying having her at the table with us.


Here she is eating a very large piece of melon (left) and munching away on daddy's omelette (right).

Poo update:

We have had a few poopy nappy changes since we started (don't worry, no pictures to follow), and I think that I found some lettuce (well, it was green...) and a few seeds from the bread Simon made for her. How exciting, something is getting through. I wonder how accidental the swallowing is at this stage?

First try with food

Indigo has been joining us at the table, in her highchair, at meal times for a few weeks now. She has increasingly got more bored with her toys and interested in the food on our plates; following fork from plate to mouth slightly beyond herself with excitement and a slight bit of frustration that we are not sharing this very interesting food with her.

So, the other day Simon handed her a piece of lettuce from his plate (not the most exciting item of food some might say, but homegrown from the allotment nevertheless)... It went straight in the mouth and got a good chew - success! The lettuce leaf went limp quite soon, from being covered in saliva and scrunched up in little hands, and she probably didn't swallow much, but she seemed to have fun with it!  

The following day we had a go with sliced cucumber, a stick of raw green pepper and some avocado from our salad. The cucumber was good to hold but too hard to chew, so she sucked it a bit and I think managed to eat the soft center part with the seeds in. The avocado I thought would be the perfect consistency to chew, but turned out to be tricky to hold as it was rather slippy. She did manage to get some in her mouth though, and when it proved too difficult  to hold she worked out that she could pick it off the table with her mouth, what a clever baby (must get that from me). The green pepper was perfect to hold, and she seemed to enjoy chewing on that the most (that could have to do with it being cold and having a good effect on her teething gums??) but it was obviously a bit too hard to take a bite off and eat, so maybe we should steam that next time.

All in all, our first few tries with BLW has been a success. We have enjoyed watching her exploring her food and she has definitely had a great time with the few diffierent things we have tried so far. I shall be inspecting her nappies closely in the next few days and report back on my findings - I have never been quite this excited for her to have her next poop... oh dear!