We’ve been doing Infant Directed Weaning (IDW). I stumbled across the idea here (of all places?! An AP concept on a Babywise blog?! I’m not the only eclectic parent it seems). As I understand it, the concept is mainly that "food before 1 is just for fun." Feed the baby “real” food from about 6 months on up, but keep breastmilk/formula as the primary source of nutrition. We haven’t altogether skipped Gerber, as I give him cereal or pureed foods a few times a week.I love how stress-free and fun it makes feeding times. Here he is eating a slice of avocado, which has the peel attached to make it easier for him to hold. Downside of IDW is mainly that it is quite a bit messier than spoon-feeding. Also, I’ve been a little cavalier about handing Lo new foods, and as a result he got some light rash near his mouth from a food sensitivity and I don’t know which food caused it. But he’s off peaches and Gerber peach puffs for now. Current favorite food is watermelon.
Though he gets messy feeding himself, it just gives us another excuse for bath time—so the mess is not really a bad thing afterall. We only had one bath toy, a rubber ducky, which recently lost its squeak. But with a few random objects we found in the bathroom closet (peri bottle, plastic bowl, nasal aspirator, etc.) who needs toys? Observe:
3 comments:
Cuuuute! Can't wait to watch the video at G. and G.'s, library or the boy's Boxie, built by Sam.
This is kind of what we did with our kids by accident. Alaina particularly wasn't big into the pureed thing and I don't really like the Gerber baby food idea (I want FRESH!). And I was kinda lazy about pureeing things for her. I'm pretty strict about not offering anything other than breast milk before 6 months (my kids haven't really shown much interest before then anyway), and then, by the time I started giving her food regularly, she was able to eat steamed fruits and veggies and really liked them! Unfortunately, I don't really like breastfeeding even though I really want to and want to nurse past one. I think that kind of rubs off on my kids and they have all more or less weaned themselves right around one year of age. We've had no trouble with the weaning process at all!
I am the same way with Rachel! She eats whatever I eat whenever I want to give it to her (unless it's dairy). I'm all for no-stress baby fun. And I'm not up-tight about messy eating like some moms. I let her sick her fingers in and finger paint if she wants to. It's more fun for everyone that way. :)
Rachel got a rash, too, around her mouth from some cinnamon that I put in her baby oatmeal. Oops.
ps. Those Gerber puffs are the best!
Post a Comment