Strawberries are definitely a hit. She really gnaws through them – it’s really amazing watching – like, she can really grip them and gnaw through them and they’re the perfect size. Her first time with strawberries.. she ate five of them!

Avocado is harder to keep a hold of (similar to bananas) but she seems to like them enough.

I picked up the book Baby-Led Weaning: The Essential Guide to Introducing Solid Foods-and Helping Your Baby to Grow Up a Happy and Confident Eater. I’m enjoying it. Even though I understand the concept easily enough and probably don’t need the book (I mean, really, this isn’t anything new, parents have been doing this before the concept of smooshing up food ever existed), I enjoy reading the fully formulated idea all together in one place.

(Don’t forget to check out the other baby led weaning posts.)

For her second “official day”, Kaylee tried waffles, plums and cantaloupe!

Kaylee has no problems tearing through the waffles (in fact, she ate two!), she ate half of a plum (minus the skin), but cantaloupe is still a bit hard for her – she can gnaw on it in the center, mushier part. Next time I’d like to try it with the rind still on to give her something to grip and push against.

(Don’t forget to check out the other baby led weaning posts.)

We’re doing baby led weaning, instead of traditional weaning with Kaylee. In traditional weaning, the baby goes from breast milk/formula to cereals/purees that are spoonfed to them, then gradually thicken the purees, and slowly add solid foods.

In baby led weaning, cereals and/or purees are skipped, and the baby feeds himself from the start of weaning (after six months). An interesting difference is that in traditional weaning, the baby learns to swallow before he/she learns chewing. In baby led weaning, it’s the other way around.

A few general principles (also check out wikipedia article on BLW):

– Self-feeding from the start, no spoonfeeding. Put the food right on the tray/table.

– Baby eats what you’re eating (assuming, of course, you’re eating real, whole foods.)

– Chip-sized items that are easy to grab, baby eats as much/little as she wants.

– Some good first foods are steamed vegetables, strawberries, toast strips, bananas, sweet potato fries – softer things that can be easily gummed.

Food before the age of one is mainly for fun and learning, so there isn’t pressure to make sure your baby is getting enough (you continue to breast or formula feed), it’s mainly for exploring textures, tastes, smells, and learning to manipulate objects.

I’ve heard some mothers refer to this as “lazy feeding”, lol, but so far my opinion is that it’s very instinctual – it’s hard for me to personally think of purees as instinctual (but that could just be me).

And it’s a lot of fun so far! Messy, awesome fun.

I can’t help but watch in amazement – she isn’t just a baby but a little human.

Our first “official day” (which was just a few days ago) Kaylee had toast strips with mashed banana on them. She ended up eating the whole piece of toast (with half of banana) and then finishing the other half of the banana!