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!  ;-)