And just like that, Amelia is 1!

Yes, I am a crappy blogger.  I had a lot of high hopes with this blog, mostly education and entertainment were my focus.  I have failed.  BUT, it's ok with me, because I have had an AMAZING journey with Baby Led Weaning, and have decided that if there are any other Quick children in our house, this is the only way I would feed them.  It has been awesome!

Amelia is officially 1 now, which qualifies her as a BIG GIRL in her mind.  She eats.  She drinks.  She walks.  She talks.  She is officially a toddler.  We went to WIC yesterday in our new county, and while they were doing her new 1 year old package, they asked about her eating habits.  I explained to her, as I have many times before to others, about Baby-Led Weaning and how she eats, citing the fact that she had pork chops, rice, and cheese cubes for dinner the night before.  The nutritionist's response?  "That's awesome, good for her!  Sounds like you're doing a great job!  I will have to do some research on this, because it sounds amazing!"

...*basks in validation*

So our journey with Baby-Led Weaning is mostly over.  She eats all sorts of food, real food.  There has been very little we've given her that she doesn't like.  In fact, I can't think of anything she outright refuses to eat right now.  Cheese and yogurt are a current favorite.  The only thing we still have to work on is weaning from formula to whole milk, which we're starting this week.  She has had milk before, but really didn't drink it.  And she's not drinking a whole lot of formula now, to be honest.  She'd rather just eat.  Most of the time she has a morning bottle, maybe one at naptime, one in the afternoon if she didn't have a naptime one, and one before bed.  That's it.  And those are only 6 oz., not an 8 oz. bottle.  So I think we're going to try to give her half formula, half whole milk, just to get her used to the idea of it being cooler and different tasting, then progress to milk in her sippy cup.  If I have learned anything with this process, it's that slow and steady wins the race.  She started out throwing food on the floor.  Now she sits and eats a ton of stuff with the rest of the family, most of the time out-eating her pickier 4 year old brother!

Stay tuned, folks.  I will try to flash-back and update with pictures of the process thus far.  They were taken for blog purposes, I just never got around to getting the blog portion done.   In the meantime, here's few shots from Big Girl Birthday.

So dainty at first, I was really afraid she wouldn't get into the whole idea of 'smash cake'.

 But then, thanks to some visual aid help from her Uncle Adam (not pictured), she got the idea...

 On the actual birthday, rather than the earlier, family celebration.  She saw the cupcake and had a look on her face like, "Oh yeah, I remember this business!  Awesome!"

 Frosting fingers!

 Proper use of a spoon.  Progress!

 This shot always amazes me.  She learned that on her own, just from watching the rest of us.

 They really do love each other.  They're buddies.

 Sometimes though, you've just gotta lick the bowl clean!

Oh yeah, I have a blog...

Whoops!!  I've been seriously meaning to update this thing, but alas, life gets in the way sometimes, ya know??  So sorry for the long absence, and back to our regularly scheduled program!

Life has changed a LOT since the last blog.  First of all, I've become once again employed, hence the reason for the lack of blog time.  Yay!  Secondly, we've had 2 holidays and a good 2 week bout of bronchitis in the Q house, so that's taken up a majority of our time as well.

As far as baby-led weaning goes, there's not a whole lot to report on that front.  I know, seems strange, right?  Not really.  Due to all the changes in schedules, illness, and just flat out sleepiness at meal times for Amelia, we haven't really progressed too far yet.  She's still sitting at the table with us, still being offered steamed veggies, fruits, anything she can get ahold of, and still doing well with those.  She's even starting to 'chew' on things, though very little, if anything, is being swallowed yet.  Well, except Cheerio's.  She loves those.  She's also the proud owner of 2 shiny new bottom teeth!  This has progressed her desire to chew on things somewhat, as well.  However, she's also showing aversions to food.  For funsies, I bought some pureed, organic veggies, just to see if she'd eat them, since she's really not 'eating' much as far as table food is going.  HATES purees of any sort.  Makes a face, gags, and spits it all promptly out.  Offer her the real thing, and she's happy to pick it up, play with it, and maybe put it in her mouth.  So she's getting there.  She's a lot more dexterous with her hands as well, which has really helped. 

She was seen yesterday at the pediatricians for her 6 month well-child check (even though she's already 7 months).  She's officially 28 inches long, 20 lbs and 10 oz, a perfectly healthy little girl.  Her doctor asked about what she's eating and how she's doing with it.  It's great having a pediatrician who is cool with doing whatever works best for your family and your child.  She says that Amelia looks great, and that she's developing just fine (yeah, take that, WIC!)  and to keep doing what I'm doing, as she's gaining weight and clearly happy and healthy.  I can't help but feel a little smug about it all.  It just reaffirms that my judgement as a parent in how I'm weaning my child, and my instincts in general, aren't off-kilter, after all.  WIN!

No pics this blog, because I'm on the laptop.  Don't worry though; I now set the camera at the table side along with the dinnerware, so next blog may be entirely devoted to food pics.  Bon Apetit until then!

WIC and Nutrition: A Cautionary Tale

This weeks blog isn’t going to be all sunshine and rainbows. I’ve just come back from the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) office, and now that I’m over my initial shock, I’ve got a few things to say. Please note that these will not all be positive things.

 For those not in ‘the know’, WIC is a supplemental nutrition program for pregnant woman, infants, and children up to age 5. It was put in place to provide states with federal grants, in order to make sure that the children of low income families were getting help receiving the proper nutrition, and that not being able to afford things like formula, fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, milk, eggs, cheese, ect. is not the reason kids are malnourished. It’s a fantastic program for people like me who are poor and want to feed my kids healthy stuff, because let’s face it, the crap food is a lot cheaper most of the time, especially on a food stamp budget.

We're rule breakers!

Ok, so I'm going to let you in on a little secret...you're techically not supposed to start BLW until baby is 6 months old.  Why?  For a few reasons:

1.  Baby's stomachs need to develop more to digest adult food properly.  Their little tummys just aren't always ready at 4 months.

2.  By 6 months, most babies are able to sit up mostly unassisted, and have excellent head control.  They also begin to develop their pincer grasp around this age, thus making it more likely food will go into their mouthes when they're ready.

3.  They need to be interested!  They explore everything with their mouthes at this point, so the idea of letting them take food to their mouthes to explore isn't exactly rocket science.  Yay Science!

So, that being said, we're a bit ahead of schedule, and I'll tell you why.  She's already meeting all of those criteria.  She's grasping things with her hands, taking them carefully to her mouth.  She sits up mostly unassisted and has excellent head control.  And since she's not actually eating any of it yet, I'm not overly concerned with upsetting her digestive tract.  If for some reason something does disagree, it's easy enough to back her off and wait until she's again showing she's ready.

This week has been rather lazy on our parts.  We haven't given her many opportunities to practice, because she's been napping at meal times lately. *shrug*  AND the batteries in my camera are pretty near dead, so we didn't take as many pictures as I'd have liked to when she did have opportunities to play, including tonights applesauce mess all over the plastic mat.  (I'm thankful every day for that mat; I have cream colored carpet!)

 Taco Night!!  She really dug the tortilla strips, they were just the right size to hang on to.

 Ok, so you're supposed to let them handle the food themselves, but I wanted her to try this.  She LOVED it!
 Seriously, she sucked on the cucumber slice until it was almost bone dry!

Spaghetti night!.
Hmm, this is squishy..
and makes a fantasic mess...
Oh look! A spoon! :-)
We like spaghetti to play with!

 Steamed veggies and a piece of turkey burger.  She really wasn't very interested in anything but the table conversation.

 Meatballs, mashed potatoes, apples and cucumbers.  She really liked the texture of the mashed potatoes.  The last picture is one of my cats.  Yes, Orchetti is sitting under the high chair.  They love BLW!  ;-)

First Attempts!

The theory behind BLW is quite simple.  Infants are born, and when placed immediately on the mother's chest, are able to root themselves around, find the nipple, and latch on.  They're born knowing how to eat.  It's a survival instinct.  You can't make the baby drink from the breast; they'll do it if and when they want.  They lead the way.  It's the very same concept with BLW, which is really just a fancy way of saying, "offer food and they'll figure it out".    The timeline for a traditionally weaned child goes something like this:

• Birth to 4 months: breastmilk only, baby led
• 4-6 months: start purees, spoonfeeding.  Parent led.
• 6-12 months:  move baby onto 3 meals a day, eliminating milk feedings.  Parent led
• +12 months:  give baby 'real' food cut into manageable sizes and let them figure it out.  Baby led.

See where the problem comes in?  Instead of trusting your baby's instincts to feed themselves, you're putting yourself in the middle and over-riding those instincts.  Baby led weaning is really no different than what you would do at age 12 months or older; you're giving your baby food and letting him manage it.  With BLW, you're cutting out the middle man, the dude getting in the way of your baby learning to eat properly:  YOU!

I have a bigger challenge with BLW than a breastfed baby would have, simply because Amelia is formula fed. (I blame the hospital, firmly.)  So I've already over-ridden her self-feed instinct by providing her feedings for her.  Though, because I feed her on demand rather than a time table, and I don't dictate how much she eats at a feeding, we're in a great position to still attempt BLW.  Although the experts warn it can take a bit longer for formula fed babies to get the concept.

Here we go!

Hello!  Just a little intro to tell everyone who I am and why I'm here.  My name is Beth.  I'm the mother of 3 mostly-adorable children:  Nathan, age 13, Kaleb, age 3, and Amelia, almost 5 months.  We've just moved from the cold and lonesome North (read: Michigan) to Sunny Florida, where I've had the opportunity to meet some fantastic people.  Notably, some very 'crunchy' Mama's, who are all about organic stuff and attachment parenting.  These women are astoundingly smart, funny, warm, welcoming and make me want to be a better mother.  Which is how I got to this blog...

A couple of these ladies I have met here have babies just a smidge older than Amelia, and children who are also closer to Kaleb's age.  In conversation, we started chatting about Baby Led Weaning.  It seemed so pure, so natural...so EASY.  So on suggestion, I picked up this book.  And proceeded to read it in one day.  (I have it on my nook, should anyone want to borrow it. :-) )  I was complete convinced that this sounded like not only a good idea, but really, the best idea I'd ever heard!  So here we are, ready to start teaching Amelia all about food and skipping purees completely.  My hope in this process is to not only show people who are skeptical that this is an awesome way to teach babies how to eat, but that it inspires my family and my other particular, picky children to eat better on the whole.  So with no further ado, here we go!!