Day 35 – Breakfast

It’s good to know that even when I’m tired, have a headache, and still haven’t had my morning cup of tea I can still be quick on the draw.

We did sleep training a couple weekends ago, and if you don’t know about that it’s when you help your baby learn to sleep or go to sleep by themselves. It’s good for them to develop a healthy relationship with sleep and learn to self soothe. It’s a horrible time when your sleep, as the parent, goes back to that of the newborn stage. We got through it and Malina now, usually, wakes up once or sometimes twice but she only needs a little comforting, usually, and will go back to bed.

Last night was not the usual night. She woke up and started playing in her crib. I woke up maybe ten minutes later and she was full on awake by then. I tried to calm her and help her sooth back to sleep but no such luck. She was awake for the next hour and then she would wake up if I tried to go back to bed. So I was up for two hours.

This wouldn’t have been a problem before but I’ve gotten used to more sleep recently and it hurt just a bit. It’s probably also why I had a headache this morning.

The good news is I prepared for breakfast last night by putting some of our leftover beef stew pieces in a container for Malina to eat for breakfast.

The stew was awesome by the way and it’s actually an adapted recipe using four of my BLW recipe books to come up with. There is no added salt and it still tastes so good. I’ll make a separate post with my recipe soon. Also, it reheated well and I froze a batch to find out if it freezes well later.

So this morning all I had to do was bake pear slices and toast bread. Easy.

It took me 30 minutes and I was ready to serve baby. What she was getting were stewed beef, carrots, red potato, and zucchini. Then she got peanut butter toast and baked Bartlet pear.

I’m playing around with the size of her foods right now because she’s had issues with them not being long enough and or big enough pieces. Plus she’s growing and I have to adapt. Always adapting.

Malina was excited for her food today and it made me happy to see her so eager.

I did not know that she had something besides eating in mind though.

As soon as I say the plate down she grabbed the carrots and as I got ready to take a picture of her eating she swung wide and tossed them at me.

I got the plate from her as she went in for a second grab and we decided to do breakfast differently. If I can’t trust her with a plate of food anymore then she’s getting one piece at a time.

So I decided we would start with peanut butter toast.

“I’m fed up with the crunchy foods, mama.”

Malina touched it to her mouth and felt it but she did not try to take a bite at all. I am starting to think she might not like the crunchy texture right now and will have to take that into account the next few days. Luckily she did not throw it, I think she understood that throwing was bad, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.

The next thing I offered her was the red potato. I know it’s a huge chunk but it was falling apart and I’m tying new sizes for her food. It’s too large for her mouth so it’s not a choking hazard, still it’s always up to your best judgement and what you’re comfortable with as the parent.

She really liked her potato. She managed to bite off several small pieces and was smiling as she ate it.

When she’d broken the potato down to pieces too small for her to pick up and eat we moved on to our next item. Baked pears.

This was her first time eating pears and she loved them. She ate bites off of all three of the slices I offered and then she had trouble eating anymore because the pieces were now too short for her.

Before she could get too irritated we moved on to the next food, a piece of the stewed beef.

“Oh, so this is what you wouldn’t let me eat last night. I’m glad you changed your mind.”

Yay! She likes the beef! Honestly I was worried since this is only her second time being offered beef and she didn’t really try to eat the steak the other day. Today she munched on the stewed beef piece and pulled off smaller chunks that she gummed and swallowed. I’m so proud of her when she eats well and even more so when she actually swallows the foods. The pieces of stewed beef are super tender too and easy for her to eat so I’ll be pulling a couple pieces aside to offer tomorrow too.

I’m so happy, despite the mess I’m going to be cleaning up.

So remember, even when baby thinks it’s cute to throw their food and honestly it kinda is and you just have to embrace the mess, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Note: carrots did not survive being tossed and she was not interested in the zucchini and tossed those when offered.

Day 10 – Breakfast

So yesterday afternoon Malina was sick. She remained sick for six hours as she did nothing but wake up, vomit, and sleep. Then, just as suddenly, in the late evening she woke up as of from a nap and acted normal. Honestly, I was freaking out and stressed the whole time. Then completely caught off guard when she bounced back.

This morning she woke up and continued to act normal. We went through our routine and then I made breakfast. Today I decided to do something as plain as possible while keeping it interesting to her and hopefully help out with any lingering stomach issues. Toast three ways.

Banana toast, plain toast, and avocado toast.

So you want your toast to be crispy but not hard and thinner than I originally cut it for easy handling. Next, I made mashed banana and mashed avocado and then spread them on the toast. Then we were ready to go and Malina was eager to start.

The first thing she did was fumble with the toasts size. This was when I realized that they were just a bit too thick. So I took them aside and re cut them (though I let her keep the plain ones so she didn’t fuss too much as I took the others).

Thick toast sticks too big for little hands.

Now that they were more manageable she went at them in earnest. She grabbed the avocado toast stick and chomped on it until she got some avocado off in her mouth. She seemed to like it, though she ate only a bite and a half at most.

She ended up loosing both avocado toast pieces as she messed with them. One went to the floor and to our dog, then the next found it’s way to the sides of the high chair. (I’m already used to cleaning this thing daily). With only banana toast left she grabbed a stick and started her inspection.

The banana toast went over about just as well. She sucked on it and gummed it, getting bits of banana off and that was about it. She soon got agitated and wanted nothing more to do with the toast so we cut breakfast short.

I am just happy she is feeling better this morning and that she had an appetite for both her breastfeeding and breakfast (even if it was a few bites).

So remember, even when baby isn’t feeling well and you are frazzled, you are doing great and you’ve got this!

-Erica

Quick Summary of What I’ve Learned About BLW

So in my reading, research, and anecdotes from other Mamas/Papas/Caregivers I learned a lot about what BLW is.

Basically, baby eats what you eat.

More complex is, baby needs limited salt and it is suggested that you also limit sugar and spicy foods but neither is mandatory.

Aside from that you avoid honey (even if it’s been baked or cooked, because botulism poisoning is really bad and not worth the possible risk) for the first year and avoid whole nuts, popcorn, unpasteurized milk products, and raw/undercooked meats (including eggs unless in UK where they have Red Lion stamp) until age 5. Reasoning behind 5 years old seems to be related to further development of esophagus reflexes as well as immune system improvements. But I’m not a doctor and so if the general consensus is to not do a thing I’m going to try and follow it.

This is the info-graph I reference when in doubt or when I need a refresher:

From The Beginner’s Guide to Baby Led Weaning Facebook Group

The other important thing is how you cut and serve foods. You want pinky finger length and halved width size pieces in the beginning when baby does not have pincer grasp and then later you upgrade to small baby bite sized pieces (think small cubes) when baby can use pincer grasp, somewhere after 8 months old.

Again I have nice references I use for this from Jenna Helwig’s book “Baby-Led Feeding” –

After that things get more varied opinion wise. What I’ve taken away though is as follows: experiment with seasonings (minus salt, sugar, and spicy spices), experiment with textures (for example, baked is different from steamed) and that does also include smoother and chunkier purée type foods, and just let baby try things over and over again because sometimes they don’t want the carrot unless it’s smooshed, cold, and covered in rosemary.

Also, relax buddy. No one has the right to tell you how to do this or judge you for your choices, it’s hard enough doing that to ourselves as parents.

You are doing great and you’ve got this!

– Erica