Before starting

Friday, June 16, 2006
Lukas will be 6 months next Thursday. We're going for his monthly check on Tuesday, and we're looking forward to getting the new height and weight measures. So far he's been on the top end of the scale, but his height and weight have been increasing hand in hand, so the health visitor has been delighted with his development.

We have been exclusively breastfeeding for the last 6 months, with the following exceptions. Around the 2-month mark he was so hungry that we had to occasionally give him a bottle, when he would refuse the breast as "too empty", screaming for more in the dead of night. I think we got past that phase with a grand total of 10 4 oz bottles. One sunny day about 2 weeks ago he also had some baby-led watermelon, but after the incident we've made sure not to leave anything at grabbing-distance, as we would prefer to wait until the magical 6 months is up before introducing solids to his diet.

Lukas is sitting really well on his own - and he has done for the last couple of weeks. When grabbing and holding things, he usually manages the pincer-grip (where he uses the thumb and the index finger to hold objects), but it's easily forgotten when he gets excited! I think the tongue-thrust reflex is going too, he seemed to be munching the water melon and at least it didn't come "spitting" straight out. All these are tell-tale signs that he is now ready to start trying solid foods.

For the past few weeks I have been trying to gather as much information about baby-led weaning as possible. It seems to me that most of the information is still delivered from mother to mother in the Internet discussion forums, although there are a couple of articles that you see the ladies constantly referring to. I will link them up here when I have more time.

What can you expect in this blog in the future? Updates on Lukas' progress and general information about baby-led weaning. I'm constantly searching for information from discussion forums and web sites, and will post any findings here little by little.