adventures in eating

Feeding a baby isn't always easy.  There are lots of decisions that need to be made.  Should I breastfeed?  Should I use formula?  Should he start eating solids at 4 months or wait until closer to 6 months?  Should I make his baby food or buy it from a store?

When I started doing research on introducing solid foods, I came across something called Baby Led Weaning (BLW).  With this approach to solid foods, baby eats what you eat, in baby-sized pieces, and he feeds himself.  I wasn't completely comfortable with taking this approach 100%, but I do like the basic idea behind it.  Isaac eats typical pureed baby food, but occasionally I will offer him "real" food, whatever we have around the kitchen.

A few weeks ago I offered him pieces of banana, but that didn't go over too well.  I need to try again soon because I think he could physically handle the pieces better now since his motor skills have improved.  He has also tried toast, but that didn't really make it into his mouth.

I steamed some broccoli for him once, and he looked at it (and me) like I was crazy.

Our first real success came yesterday when I offered him some leftover chicken that we had in the fridge.  He loved it!  At first he sucked on it, then gummed it to death.  It makes me super nervous to watch him do that, but of course I watch him very carefully.

What I like most about my adapted version of baby led weaning is that it teaches Isaac a little bit of independence.  Sometimes I say that he is "lazy", because he doesn't like to do things for himself.  He loves drinking water from the sippy cup but he won't do it himself.  He LOVES eating puffs but he's not very good at getting them in his mouth by himself, so he knows it's much easier for me to do it.  I know a lot of that is not really him being lazy, it's just that he needs to keep practicing.  But I think giving him large pieces of food, like the toast, broccoli, and chicken, gives him confidence to keep trying with the smaller pieces.