6 Months

Well, we're halfway to a year. Baby is 6 months old...YAY! This age group of 6-9months is an exciting time including crawling, giggling endlessly and intro to solids. She had her first bites of butternut today. She was so extremely cute in her high chair. We are doing the BLW way which in a nut shell is baby leads the way. No real hard and fast rules other than don't put food in the baby's mouth and ensure the food is soft and conveniently shaped so baby can grip with her palm. Here is a link that explains baby-led-weaning nicely.

She was reaching for the butternut straight away. I helped place it in her palm and she put it straight into her mouth. She was chewing it and having fun. Then she dropped that piece in her hand and quickly reached for another one. Unfortunately, I had steamed it to be a bit too soft so it mushed and broke up before it got to her mouth. We tried a couple sliced chunks at noon and then a couple more chunks at 5pm. As barely any made it into her mouth (due to the mushyness), I took a spoon and put teeny bits on it and she brought the spoon to her mouth and took it off herself.

The first round, she did gag a bit as she bit off more than she could chew but she quickly learned not to put too much in her mouth. I'd say about 99% of the butternut ended up on her bib, high chair or floor. But that's ok. She's just learning about food and how eating works. The mantra of BLW is food under one is for fun as babies nutrition comes from milk.

A friend of mine who has 7 kids discovered BLW with her last baby and she said she had wished she'd known about it way before. She says her last baby is the best eater (not picky, doesn't overeat) which is what many who do BLW say about their babies.

The beauty of BLW is baby learns to chew before swallowing, is a less picky eater, and less likely to overeat as they control how much they want. The downfall is BLW is messy, very messy. Also, much patience is required. I was tempted to just take the butternut and mush it and feed it to her but I'm trying to keep my patience as I think it will pay off well in the long run.

Bottom line, baby really enjoyed her first experience with food. She was so relaxed and very in to it. Words cannot describe how cute the experience was. Another baby first!

Ps, this has nothing to do with BLW but since last Sunday baby has really gotten into babbling words like blebleble, mamamama, lalalala, dadadada, nananana. So adorable.

Pps, she has become so anti nap I go a little crazy during the day. She is tired when I take her for her nap but yhoo, she has no desire to sleep and throws a fit. It's a big exhausting job to get her to nap.