Smelly_pugsley wrote a post in the Yahoo B-LW group about mixed feeding (partly spoon-feeding, partly finger food), that got me thinking about out current arrangement. Basically, her daughter goes to daycare and to reach a compromise with the daycare staff, they allow her to have food spoon-fed to her while in daycare. She was just very interested in spoons, which resulted to her eating too much low-calorie food (as opposed to breastmilk), and she suffered from tummy aches and made lots of dirty nappies.

Lukas has been pooing incredible amounts for the last couple of months. He sleeps really well in our bed, but recently he had been waking up 2-3 times in the 2 hours between when he goes to bed and when we go to bed. He's been eating his porridge, mixed with 1/2 a banana and a little dollop of yogurt with a great appetite, but for some reason I was suspicious. His stools often smell of yogurty porridge, and after reading smelly's post I decided we'd leave the evening porridge out unless Lukas insisted on having it (which of course he wouldn't).

We've gone without the evening porridge, and with minimal morning porridge, for 4 days now. Every one of these nights he hasn't really woken up at all (except once last night, when someone banged a door), there's a been a lot less straining and he seems happy as ever. His stools seems to arrive in more reasonable intervals, and he has started to eat more during his dinners.

This just goes to show that every weaning experience (not just baby-led weaning) is a case of trial and error. There is no one way of doing it right. Rather than developing a comfortable routine and sticking to it, it's much more important to constantly observe your baby and his or her signals. The baby's development is constant, so what works for him this week, mightn't be welcome at all in two week's time.

I have done the rounds in the blogosphere this morning again, and I found a few new posts/blogs and threads about the subject of baby-led weaning:

Blogposts:

Blogging history day at What we did on our Holy days
Baby-led weaning at big saucer
Baby-led weaning now with added mess at miniTwig Land of Wonder
Tommy Tipped Out and Pears beware at Roryworld
8-14 October 2006 at Mummy and Daddy Clark

Threads:

Baby-led weaning - Rapley - anyone done it?
Baby-led introduction to solids?

I have been thinking about the subject of handling criticism for our parenting choices lately. Baby-led weaning included, we seem to have made a few decisions that aren't quite mainstream and since I have no peer support network to discuss them, I've been searching the internet for any sort of advice on the subject. Today I finally came across a useful-looking article on the website of Dr. Sears. I know it's written in relation to fussy (high maintenance) babies, but many of the suggested advise made sense in from our pov as well.

Handling criticism at askdrsears.com

Lukas is nearly 10 months and still in the stage where broccoli and cauliflower are the biggest hits. Other favourites include rye bread, avocado, parsnip (nice and sweet), salmon, slices of homemade pork patties, cottage cheese, plums, nectarines, pears and banana. His appetite seems to have gone down during the last month, but his food preferences still remain the same, with a few added things, such as the meats.

If he seems uninterested in something I offer him, I tend to give him a little bit of something he likes (only a little, to "get him going") and after that he will accept foods that he was just throwing about earlier. Sometimes I think his dislikes have more to do with texture rather than the taste. He clearly thinks raw bell peppers are ace, but after the first taste he soon loses interest in them, because they're a bit too much work for his 6 front teeth. I still boil all the vegetables, but I try to make them al dente rather than total mush.

I often offer new foods as snacks first, because he seems to be more adventurous in a less formal feeding situation. I make a plate of snacks for him and leave it within his reach, or offer more messy stuff on my hand. New tastes seem to be easier to handle when he's a bit distracted, and when he he's gotten used to them I can introduce them as a part of his meal. This has so far worked with all the meats and cheeses he's ever had (although he still doesn't like cheese very much but I don't even offer very often) and rye bread.

The best new thing this month were definitely raspberries, but unfortunately after a few portions he got a little bit of rash on his face where the raspberry juice went. I suspected he might've had some oral allergy from it as well, and we had to leave them for the time being. He loved them though, but as you know, without added sugar raspberries often give your mouth this sour sting before the nice taste arrives, and we had lots of fun watching his expressions when he was stuffing his face with them. After every raspberry he made this face as if he was screaming from the top of his lungs, but made no sound. Soon, the nice taste would kick in and a wide smile would spread across his face.

There is one thing I worry about the information about baby-led weaning spreading through "word of mouth" in the internet forums. Every now and again I come across a post where a mother, anxious to give their little ones a taste of something else than breast milk or formula, is happily talking about starting to give their child foods to hold from as early as 18 weeks.

It is actually dangerous to start baby-led weaning too early. It's amazing what small things babies manage to scoop in their mouth with the palmar grip, but a baby's eagerness to put food in her mouth does not automatically mean that she is ready for it. When babies are in the oral development stage, they will put everything in their mouth – regardless whether it is food or not.

Unfortunately the parents should wait until their child starts developing the pincer grip. This developmental stage usually coincides with the fading out of the tongue-thrust reflex, which means that the food is no longer automatically thrust at the back of the baby's throat like in suckling.

Like in many other start-of-weaning conversations in the forums, also many mothers considering BLW express their keenness to start solids prematurely. This can be backed up with a variety of excuses, most common ones being "the baby seems hungry/ready/eager" and "the relatives are asking why I haven't started her on solids already". The fact is, that breastmilk (and formula) have far more calories than any solid food you can possibly offer a child, and therefore they will be perfectly happy waiting until past 6, or even past 8 months. It's usually the mother who is in a hurry to start.

Mothers who are in a hurry to start weaning their baby are missing a very important point of baby-led weaning. The whole point of the method is to delay the start of the weaning until the baby is ready for it. This means the puree phase can be skipped, because pureeing the food for the baby is only necessary for the while they are not developed enough to handle pieces of food. Although the method is baby-led by definition, it is down to the parents to make sure that the baby is developmentally ready to start eating solid foods. Exclusively breastfed babies are "nutritionally sound until 8-9 months", so there is absolutely no reason to hurry the start until they show all the signs of readiness.

Read more about the signs of readiness at Kellymom.
An article about baby nutrition by Linda Folden Palmer.

I've spent today looking for baby-led weaning related posts around the blogosphere to find out if there's any other bloggin' BLW mamas around. Turns out there is quite a few of us!

The full list of blogs that mention baby-led weaning can be found in the Links-page, but here's a shortlist of new links I discovered:

• Baby-led introduction to solid foods at Mmmm, Brains
• Yum at Girlfiend
• News: Breastfeeding rate grows... at Organic Jac
• A Baby-Led Approach to Introducing Solids at Boob Nazis
• Not Ready Yet! (Now with Article!) at Peach & Pearl
• Makes sense to me at Julian Ridley Schrock
• Just A Taste at Addition Problems
  

I probably will do another round around the Blogistan some time in the future, but meanwhile I'll be keeping myself busy reading these ones! I might have missed some, so if you have a blog or a website and do baby-led weaning, I'd love to hear from you!

I finally managed to root through my Firefox bookmarks, and have organised my most useful BLW-links under a few loose categories for you at the Links-section!

I am constantly trying to find new BLW links, information about infant nutrition, recipes and the likes. I'm more than happy to include any links you have found useful that aren't already on the list, just drop me an email at blwbaby(at)gmail.com with your suggestions.

The information page is still in a total state, I'll start work on it as soon as I have time to write an article. At the moment I'm trying to finish research for an article that would map all the different recommendations for when to start offering which foodstuffs. If you've looked into it, you'll know what a huge task it is to take on, so assume it'll be a while before it's completed.

I'll have to share a little dark secret with you: I don't believe in recipes and I'm lousy in writing them. However, I try to add recipes onto the archive slowly but steadily, to the best of my ability. If you see an interesting recipe name on the sidebar but it's just a dead link, just email me and I'll add it in the first instance. I've also decided to remove the age recommendations and leave it up to the readers decide what ingredients are suitable for their babies at which age. I'll just put a link up to the promised foodstuffs chart article once it's ready.

I re-discovered my travel journal from the start of Lukas' weaning (late June-July when we were in Finland), I might be back-posting a few extracts from it later on to fill the massive gap between the 1st and the 2nd post.

I am totally amazed by the potential and the rapidly-growing size of the baby-led weaning online community. It wonderful that there are so many people in the parenting forums and especially in the Yahoo B-LW Group that dedicate their time to promote what they believe in. The more experienced posters often offer expert advice and reassurance for mothers who are just starting BLW, and give them many useful tips. There's no doubt, that without the online community baby-led weaning would not have spread so quickly and gained so much interest in such a short time.

There is a general air of friendliness in the forums, too. Everyone wants to be nice to each other and, obviously, no-one wants to be too strongly contradicted. This is a common phenomenon in female-led internet communities, another example of which is the Finnish blog community. No-one wants to be criticised after exposing their opinions (and consequently themselves) in a highly public forum, and if/when such thing happens the response is often somewhat defensive. Therefore, it's often difficult to point out where someone might be going wrong without publicly humiliating them.

This unfortunate "silent code" of not-disapproving sort of defeats the purpose of those forums. To be a reliable source of information, mothers should be free to express their opinions and advice, as well as criticism. Unfortunately, where there are peers, there's always pressure.

I when I said no-one likes to be publicly criticised, I meant everyone, including me. Having said all this, I have to save my own a**e and note that of course I'm not reading all the forums regularly and there might be individuals out there in the BLW community who actively challenge other BLW mothers' differing views. I would like to actively encourage this sort of behaviour, not just moan that there's no-one out there doing it. I feel that the community would benefit from a stint of fierce conversation, whatever the subject. If the conversation remains too amicable, there is a danger that it will grind to a halt very soon.

I know that the spoon issue causes a lot of talk from time to time on the Yahoo B-LW forum. I've never taken part in the conversation there because I don't feel that other people should share my views, but I thought I'd let you in an approach, that have worked for us.

For us, baby-led weaning does not equal finger foods only. At first I too was sceptical about using a spoon to give Lukas what we had, but this was before the Health Visitor interfered to our routine. 2 weeks of intermittent spoon feeding as prescribed by the HV) taught us one good lesson, and it was that the baby can be in charge of the amount he eats, even if we are using a spoon to give it to him.

At present, the only things we give to him with a spoon are porridges, soups and other stuff we would eat with spoons ourselves. I don't see any problem with that, and neither does my baby. Mind you, Gill Rapley says in the IWMM web chat that she has heard it said that people were not meant to have foods with watery consistency in the first place (or something to that effect). Since she didn't state her sources, I keep the pureed veggie soup in my recipe book. The alteration of finger food and the occasional spooned meal does not seem to confuse him the slightest: he is still fully in charge of how much spoon-fed food he has.

If he opens his mouth, he will get a spoonful of porridge, for example. When he doesn't want any more, he stops opening his mouth and shakes his head. If he's happy sitting in the chair for a while longer, we might offer him a couple of more times after a little break or a sip of water. Sometimes he changes his mind and goes for a little bit more, but if he's finished, he'll let us know.

This goes with my belief that baby-led weaning is not an exact science, nor should it be. I see no reason not to use a spoon every now and again when it's needed, but it's very important that the baby is still in control when the spoon comes out. It's not as easy when you give him food with a spoon, but I just try to think myself as his extended hand. Would his hand put food in his mouth if his tummy didn't want it? You have to be tuned in to your baby's messages to do this, but that's not so complicated. Just stop, look and listen and they will tell you – and spoon-feeding becomes baby-led weaning.

BLW is such a 'new' phenomenon that it hasn't gathered many opponents yet, if you don't count the initial resistance from the narrow-minded.

However, there is always the certain someone who's going to lose out if mothers start doing it the natural way - the baby food industry. I'm not expecting the gospel of BLW to take on so quickly that the jar-makers would go out of business, but they have a very valid reason to come up with several reasons why BLW might be dangerous for your baby. At the same time they conveniently ignore the WHO's recommendations of 'postponing' weaning till 6 months - the earlier you start spooning it in, the better.

It's unlikely that the jar-makes are going to start bribing the health visitors to speak against BLW, at least on the same scale it happened with formula makers and GP's in the past, but unless some academic research is done soon the baby food brands are probably going to fund research of their own that will concentrate on the disadvantages of BLW. Then again, I might just be too cynical. Maybe times have changed and the baby food industry are going to adapt the 'McDonald's approach': if you can't beat them, join them. Expect to see lots of ready-made baby finger foods in your nearest (and largest) supermarket this time next year.

lauranen: Laura is a 26-year-old Finnish mother living in Edinburgh, Scotland with her Irish partner and their son Lukas, who was born in December 2005. She is currently self-employed and working from home, looking after Lukas as well as managing several recreational online projects.

Lukas started having solids at 6 months, and his feeding has been baby-led from the start. He is also breastfed frequently, also during the night while sharing sleep with his parents. Apart from a 2-week stint of spoonfeeding around 7 months, he has successfully been feeding himself finger foods. He still occasionally has porridges and soups with a spoon, but is anxiously waiting to take over the spoon-handling in the following few weeks.

Laura is a member of the Yahoo B-LW group. Her other interests include literary fiction, poetry, theatre, languages, cooking, healthy eating, knitting, various genres of popular music, traveling, stand-up comedy, indie cinema, board games, modern & jazz dance, hip hop, street art, photography, rugby union, F1's, alternative medicine, recycling, freecycling, web design, Ireland, photography and current affairs.
She dislikes unfamiliar dogs, talking to strangers, daytime television and steep staircases.

This site is developed and maintained on voluntary basis. If you would like to help to contribute as a writer, please get in touch by email, lauranen at gmail dot com.