Babies Born April 1st ~ 15th 2008 #2

[Fire]

Re food, I just did a big puree batch one morning, steam/boiled, put each one in the blender and whacked them into my breast milk ice trays and into their own bags, marked. Sounds very organised, but really, it was easy.

But mostly, he's on our food. I rarely do the puree thing so it was a waste. We do Baby Led Weaning so he just gets what we get, no need to mash or puree and he is fine. They have a gag reflex, so as long as they are totally upright, they will tongue thrust food out, or gag (looks scary but is a no biggie). He only gagged about three times at 6 months. He doesn't gag at all anymore, he learned very fast how to deal with food.

Nature never supplied mashers or blenders, and nature doesn't make mistakes. So if you are keen to give food, just give food. We are all eating overcooked veggies at the moment but that's ok, he's loving it, plays up a storm, throws food all over the place and I feed him topless now - way too much washing going on otherewise!

(ETA - uh, HE'S the topless one, not me Although DH might like it the other way around...)

We have two spoons, one for me and one for him. But we've worked out a little routine. I load a spoon and put it on his bowl, he shovels it in his gob, throws it over the side to the floor (sometimes I get lucky and he just bangs it down on the table), grabs the second spoon which I preload and rinse repeat. He's fast too, so it's like this big cycle of spoonfuls. Mostly, he thinks purees are an insult , and being fed also seems to insult him, hence our little feed routine when he's in the mood for a spoon. Little sod. So he self feeds. Quite good at it now. Gets it into his eye much less, still up his nose though, which cracks me up when he snorts it out.

For brekky we all have organic oats that have been soaked with water and lemon juice to remove the phytate (I just soak in a slightly warm oven that is off overnight). I mix in some maple syrup with DD's and mine and we all get berries or apple puree mixed through. He uses his hands for this for some reason. I occasionally shovel a spoonful in but he grabs fistfuls of gloop and prefers it that way.

For snacks in the car, he has these dried apple and pear crisps I found or rice crackers or these snacks that are made with corn with carrot powder - he totally digs them and they turn to mush in his mouth fairly fast. He loves fruit, I take the stone out of a peach or plum and he chows on that, spits the skin out (seriously getting good at separating the wheat from the chaff). He loves mango skins after I have eaten the cheek out, he gnaws on the leftover bits of that. Loves grapes, goes nuts over nana's bowl of grapes but he insists I hold the grape while he gnaws on that cos he can't grasp it well enough. So like a little squirrel he pushes my fist to his mouth. Cute.

He likes lettuce. I discovered this when I was sick to death of how much paper he eats! I was like, LETTUCE! That's kinda like paper, let's give it a go. And yeah, he digs it. I think he mostly sucks the juice out and rips it with his teeth like he does paper.

Lunch used to be a jar of organic baby food (too tired at lunch to be all mother earthy and *****) but now he is eating bread or rice crackers, plain or with baba ganoush, hummous or something like that on it.

Dinner is anything. He loves Thai food, curry, duck, lamb bones... zucchini seems to be his favorite veg. I mash nothing, it's all up to him. I knew he'd like spicy food because I ate a lot of it while pregnant, it was one of my cravings.

I really can't be arsed with that baby rice routine. I tasted it and you have GOT to be kidding. I bought organic brown baby rice from a HFS and he will occasionally eat that with something mixed in but he also thinks it is a bit bland.

So food has been lotsa fun. I totally recommend ditching the standard western take on baby feeding if you were interested, MGM, as you are similar to me in these ways. DS also rejects bananas, which surprised me. But the two times I managed to get some into him, it constipated him so we're off them for the time being.