Fun With Food - 7.5 Months
Its been about 5 weeks since we started Baby Led Weaning with Chloe and in that time her progress in feeding herself has been pretty impressive. We started out giving her strips of vegetables like peppers, carrots, green beans and sweet potato fries, and some fruits (bananas, cantaloupes, and avocado on rye toast are her favourites!). In the beginning, she would have trouble manipulating the food and holding onto it. Most of it ended up on the floor. For the pieces that she did get in her mouth, she'd lick or suck on them but not really get a bite.
The fear of choking though was our biggest obstacle. That fear is something every parent has, whether you are doing BLW or not. But as was explained in the BLW book, there is a difference between choking and gagging, and so far (fingers crossed), Chloe has only ever gagged. I think the first time was with a piece of pear. She managed to bite off a piece about half the size of your thumbnail and was gumming it, but it seemed to have fallen back into her throat. She started gagging and scary as it was, HandyMan and I had to sit back and let her work it out. She leaned forward in her highchair and did what we adults do when we gag -- coughed, tried to move things with her tongue, and eventually spit out the offending piece of food! She has only gagged maybe once or twice more since that time.
Nowadays, Chloe is really good at judging how much food she can eat. I cut her food into 3" pieces and she'll usually put only about 3/4 of an inch into her mouth and take a bite. She's gotten so confident though that sometimes I have to tell her to slow down with her eating! And she's become so independent that she won't let me spoon feed her at all. We do swim class once a week and I give Chloe rice cereal on those days so she won't be hungry - but that crazy little girl won't let me feed her. I have to put the cereal on the spoon, put the spoon down on the table, and then Chloe will pick up the spoon and feed herself. I have a feeling that this little baby will grow up to be quite headstrong - yikes! :)
So enough yabbering. Here's a little video of Chloe eating dinner of spinach ravioli and roast chicken. Oh, and splashing herself with her sippy cup. I think this is all pretty incredible... not just because Chloe is my child, but because in 7 short months she's gone from a tiny, helpless baby to one who sits up and feeds herself. Time is going by way too fast. 'Sniff.
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