Starting Solids!

       We started Brooks on solids on January 31st, when he was 26 weeks old. I mention the 26 weeks, because I wanted to be sure we waited 6 months before introducing him to anything other than my breastmilk. At 26 weeks, he was 2 days short of "officially hitting" 6 months based on his birthday, and past the 24 week/6 month mark. Health and breastfeeding experts all over the world agree that babies should be 6 months old before being introduced to anything but breastmilk. Loads of research has been done on this, but as always-not every provider is necessarily up to date with the latest information. WHO, AAP, AAFP, and UNICEF are just a few of the several organizations who recommend that babies should have nothing but breastmilk (or formula) for the first 6 months. That means no cereal, juice or solids. Babies will be developmentally ready, inside and out, for solids by 6-8 months of age. KellyMom has some great information about this, and why 6 months is that magic number. To me, the simple fact alone that their digestive systems aren't ready sooner, is a key reason as to why we waited 6 months and didn't choose to introduce any rice cereal, or anything like that. If you research "Virgin Gut," your eyes will definitely be opened up to a lot, and you too will most likely decide to hold off until at least 6 months!

       When you decide to start your baby on solid foods, there's a lot of information out there. There are different ways to go about feeding, whether it be deciding to do purees or baby-led-weaning style... Or simply deciding what their first food should be. At first I started to whip up some purees in our Baby Bullet (which we do love!), and then I decided to research BLW (baby led weaning) some more. It piqued my interest, and we decided to go with it for his first days of solids. There's a great page here, explaining more about BLW, how to do it, etc., at Mama Natural. I am SO glad we did this. You always imagine yourself spoon feeding your baby their first foods, but the reason that purees for baby were even a thing, is because people were starting to feed their babies at 4 months. Their digestive systems simply aren't ready for foods at that point, so the purees are given because they're more easily digested.

       Watching Brooks explore on day 1 with sweet potato was pretty impressive. Of course, babies learn with their hands and their mouths, but watching him pick up chunks of sweet potato and munch away on them wasn't what I was expecting. It felt natural, and it felt right. He was having fun exploring with his food, and I was having fun watching him. Sure, not a massive amount of food actually gets eaten at first, but that's just how it goes. It's easier for him to tell me he's done, versus me sitting there spoon feeding him, and waiting for a jar to empty. He knows when he's over it, and wants to be done.

       Food preparation for BLW definitely matters, because you have to make sure the foods are cooked soft enough and the chunks are cut to an appropriate size. When you do your research on BLW, you'll figure it all out!

       For the sweet potato, I just cut it in half long ways, put it in a glass baking dish, skin side down, and put a little bit of coconut oil on top of it. I baked it at 350 for probably around 45 minutes until it was soft enough for him. I peeled the skin off once it cooled, and sliced it into french fry-like chunks. He seemed to love it!

       The next food we tried was banana, and he REALLY loved it. It's so amazing and fun to me to watch him feed himself! With the banana, I cut it in half across the middle, so it basically made two mini bananas. Then, a couple of inches down, I cut through just the skin, all the way around, and peeled it off so some of the banana was exposed. Cutting it like this allowed him to munch away, but not get his hands all messy. Win, win!

       He's also had some butternut squash, and broccoli. He loves holding broccoli and chomping away at it. The squash.... Not a huge fan. All in all, we love baby-led weaning so far. We give him food once or twice a day, depending. He eats however much he wants, and I can usually tell he's done when he starts playing around and throwing stuff. :) I'm glad I discovered it through friends before we dove straight in and did strictly purees. This is more fun for all of us! Plus-I can watch him eat, which allows me to have some time to eat too. That's a big win for me!