Baby Led Weaning?

Weaning oh weaning! This has led to lots of unhappiness between the grandparents and me.

I fully breastfeed baby so there's very little they can do in terms of nutrition from the first to sixth months of baby's life.

Then I started giving baby puree fruits and that's when the grandparents get excited! Daddy isn't so. He loves feeding baby and watch him eat lots of stuff but if baby refuses to eat, I can see stress on his face. Haha. The grandparents started worrying when baby doesn't appear to eat a lot and make comments like "baby is losing weight", "baby's muscles are not firm enough", "baby is less chubby", "other babies eat a lot", "babies in my time (when they were parents) can finish a big bowl by his age", "why is baby not eating?", "Is the food you cook bland and tasteless", "giving him this bland food is torturing him", "you should start to feed him lots of porridge and not fruits and vegetable", "you should not breastfeed him so often", "you should not breastfeed him for hours before meal time so that he's hungry" etc etc. Needless to say, these comments are making me depressed.

My baby doesn't like eating. Even though I tried making all kinds of flavours of fruits and veggies and puree them for him, he'll take a few mouthfuls and then refused. At first he showed it by shutting his mouth tight and will protest by using his hands to block the spoon and turn his head away. Now that he's older and more expressive, when he's full, he'll start to throw the toys (we put some toys on his highchair tray to keep him occupied) off his highchair, shake his head when the spoon goes towards his face, and will bang the table and attempt to grab and throw the spoon away.

I am reading a book "Baby-Led Weaning" by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett. I regretted not trying this when baby was 6 months old. My baby is in every way showing that he wants to take charge of everything in his life. He's very much like me. He loves to be in control. He's not the guai guai and passive child. He's super active and he shows his pleasure and displeasure VERY LOUDLY. He is used to take charge of how much milk he should drink and when he don't want to drink since a newborn as he was breastfed and latched on directly 24 hour a day. It must have been puzzling to him that when it comes to eating food like mummy and daddy, he couldn't choose what food he wants and how much he wants.

I have decided to cut down on the puree and start to introduce baby led weaning. He's 10 months old and hope that's not too late to start. I couldn't take away the puree immediately as he's not a 6 month old starting on solids, he's already 10 month and need much more nutrition than a 6 month old. He also is a picky eater (in terms of spoon feeding) so I guess if we start baby led weaning, he may not be taking much food at first and he may be frustrated and hungry.

What made me decided to start baby led weaning?

• Today when I feed baby, he's very into the food that got onto his hands. He's not interested in the spoonfuls I'm giving him but he licks his hands to taste the food. (He also rub the puree all over the highchair tray and on his hair, face and clothes... this is not for the faint-hearted, cleanliness maniac mummy to try)
• We always have to give toys on his highchair tray to keep him occupied while we spoon feed him, and the toys are always put into his mouth. This makes me wonder... what if I don't put toys on the tray. What if they were food? No need to clean toys, no need to spoon feed, and baby can feed himself.
• Baby likes to be in control and baby led weaning lets him be in control at all times.
• We give baby small, melt in the mouth baby biscuits and sometimes round shaped biscuits that baby can hold and eat himself. He loves these much more than spoonfed purees.

What is baby led weaning?
You can read here to find out.

If my baby is like my friend's girl who take mouthfuls and mouthfuls of porridge until she finishes one big bowl, that's ok for me for things to remain this way. But he's not and its increasingly stressful to spoon feed him. On good days, he finish the bowl of puree or cereal, on bad days, more were all over him and the floor than in his mouth. So I guess, I shall just give this a try. I've tried twice this week and he gagged and vomited, probably because he hasn't learnt to control how much he should eat and how to deal with different types of food yet. I was promptly chided for making him vomit and the grandparents quickly made puree... Now that I'm diving in for baby led weaning, albeit a late one, I must expect more scoldings and opposition from the grandparents again. But one thing good, THEY will enjoy feeding baby food from their plates soon. I was adamant about keeping baby's food absolutely sugar and salt free, introduce new food one at a time, and refused to feed food we adults eat, but now I shall try to relax this rule a little bit but I'll make sure the food we eat are healthy as well. Its a bit difficult when we go out for zi char meals coz you know our Asian diets... hor fun, lor mee, fried noodles, etc... all so oily and unhealthy. But I guess its time for baby to learn to eat adult's meals now that he's coming to 1 year old.

All the best to my baby led weaning attempts and please pray my baby don't gag and vomit again for the next attempt.