theswansons.ca

Sick baby :(

Megan's had a head cold for a couple of days now. This is her first "real" cold - her nose is running like a faucet and she's been sleeping very poorly. Today seemed a bit better, so we're hoping that tonight is better for everyone. We moved Julia's mattress to Nicole's room on Thursday night so that she won't be disturbed by all of Megan's wakeups. It's turned out to be a good move, as Megan was up for 2 hours straight last night. I think Nicole is almost done playing hostess though, so we may have to relocate Julia tomorrow.

Mark

Sitting time?

Megan seems to be in the process of mastering the art of sitting up from a lying-on-tummy position. She did it yesterday when Kelly was out of visual range in the kitchen, and this morning while the two of us watched her.

She's also very close to starting to crawl. She'll get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth for a minute or two. It usually ends in a faceplant.

Baby Led Weaning

Pasta

We started Megan on pureed foods when she was about 5 1/2 months old.  She seemed to like a couple of them, but disliked most of what we gave her.  It was getting frustrating trying to find pureed foods she liked that didn't constipate her (bananas, rice cereal, and squash were horrible) or give her gas (everything else lol).  I'd heard about Baby Led Weaning (referred to as BLW from here on in) and did some research on it.  I was very intrigued by the idea.

The basic concept is that you give them the same foods you're eating.  So if you're having toast for breakfast, so does she.  If you're having steak for dinner, she does too.  The reasoning is that this puts food in the baby's control and not the parents'.  The baby decides what to eat (from the options you give them) and how much to eat.  They stop eating when they're full and try everything they're given as they have no preconceived notions about food.  They have full control over their food.  This is supposed to teach them portion control, expose them to a wider variety of food, increase the likelihood they'll like a greater variety of food, and general build a good relationship with food.

The biggest concern I had (as does everyone I talk to about this) is that she would choke.  But my research shows that the risk of choking is no greater with table food than with purees.  In fact, babies are more likely to choke on purees (crazy right?)!  When a spoon is put into the baby's mouth, they suck the puree off the spoon into the back of their mouth.  A baby's gag reflex is much farther forward in their mouth than an adult's and therefore, the puree is sucked past the gag reflex.  So the baby has to swallow, they have no way of pushing it out.  With BLW, the food hits the gag reflex and is immediately spit back out.  Since the gag reflex is so far forward (mid mouth instead of back near the throat), the food makes it nowhere near the throat before it's gagged back out.  As the baby gets older (by about 10 months), the gag reflex has moved back in the mouth near the throat and the BLW baby knows how to use it properly so nothing makes it down the throat that shouldn't.  A baby who's been fed purees doesn't have the same experience with solids and once they start practicing with the gag reflex it's much farther back in the mouth, making it harder to manage the food.

So we started BLW with Megan a few weeks ago and she's loving it!  She's had toast (with butter or with avocado smeared on it), apples (sliced, with skin on), pears (sliced, with skin on), waffles, bacon, chicken, pasta, cheese, steak, carrots (steamed, cut in strips), cucumber (so far the only food she doesn't seem to love), broccoli, sausage, and others I can't think of.  She has gagged on food, but not choked.  She doesn't swallow much, most of it comes back out.  But she's still getting all the nutrients she needs from breastfeeding.  Table food at this point is for playing with and learning.  Usually around 9 months old they'll start swallowing more food.  The mantra for BLW is "food is for fun until they're 1!".

Here are a couple more pictures of Megan enjoying her food

Apple

Broccoli

Megan eating pasta

Megan really enjoyed tonight's dinner of "Almost Ravioli". She was eating at least as much as what fell to the floor.