Feel free to look at a few of our favourite products:

• Hotel Chocolat – a happy client bought us a giant box of slabs.  WE are happier!
• Hot Pepper Marmalade - one of vee’s favouritest foods; we have to mail order it because she tried it once at a food fair and we’ve never found it again since. Luckily, one jar lasts a whole year (!)
• Carmex Lip Balm – another of vee’s obsessions, though thankfully easier to find.
• Sa Be Dribble Bibs – BB’s bib of choice.

Eeek. I need to be in bed now.

*jingles*

Thank you and goodnight!

xx jay

BB doesn’t really watch much TV. In fact, he didn’t watch any until a few weeks ago, and now that he does, I am partly consumed with guilt, partly grateful and mostly fascinated that such random, nonsensical rubbish actually a) gets commissioned and b) is enjoyed by children.

Oh, well.  BB enjoys it. He likes In The Night Garden, and, for some reason, seems to love the Tombliboos – I think he might want one for Christmas – which is GREAT because they do my head in. I don’t know why, they just do. And just to annoy myself, here they are:

There’s a much better video here, and within 24 hours’ time, there’ll be an even better one here. I think BB was meant to be on TV rather than watch it, but then I would think that, wouldn’t I?

xx jay

I’ve been holding out for the ideal opportunity to sit down and compose a long and polished post on my Baby Led Weaning thoughts.  Seems that time might never come, so perhaps I should just get on with it.  I often think about the BLW approach in terms of pros and cons, so that seems like a good structure to try out. These are just my personal thoughts and observations about why I feel it’s working for us, mind.

PROS:

• It suits my “lazy” approach to parenting. (I’m not sure I should tar jay with the same brush!) No special effort to cook specially for BB; no pureeing; no freezing; no introducing things one by one.  For the first few weeks we gave him bits of fruit or vegetables and now he pretty much gets at least some of whatever we’re having. This means we have more time to do fun things with him.
• It’s cheap. No need to fork out on jars of expensive baby food because I’m too lazy/busy to cook/puree/freeze.
• It makes for pleasant mealtimes. BB sits at the table with us and eats with us.  We both have the chance to eat together, without one of us having to wield a spoon.  We get to chat and catch up on our day.
• It’s not competitive. I find myself completely removed from all those mummy-conversations about how many cubes of this or that BB is taking at each feed, or whether he’s managed to cut down his milk or sleeps through the night yet.  We may as well be on a different planet!
• It removes the stress. We don’t need to plan our day to ensure BB is getting a set number of meals and snacks – if he’s awake when we eat, he gets some. If not, he doesn’t.  If we’re out, we don’t need to dash home, or remember to bring food and paraphernalia with us.
• In milk we trust. Milk is his main nutrition, and will remain so until he’s around one. There is no food we can offer him that will be as nutritious or as well suited to his needs.
• We save on dog food. Seriously, that dog is getting a rich and varied diet!
• We eat more healthily ourselves. Sharing our food with BB makes us more conscious of what we’re putting into ourselves. We’re making better choices. Once he figures out what that brown stuff that we never offer him is, we’ll make even better ones (or just scoff the chocolate when he’s asleep!)
• It’s good for fine motor skill development. It’s been amazing to watch BB’s co-ordination and motor control develop.  There’s nothing he can’t get into his mouth now, using one tactic or another. He had a bowl of chilli tonight.
• It’s good for vocal development. The practise with chewing and moving food around the mouth helps develop some of the same muscles used to articulate sounds. He’s certainly a very chatty little boy.
• It *should* help us avoid common problems associated with conventional weaning. Having food presented in it’s usual form, rather than pureed, should help BB recognise and discriminate between foods, meaning he’ll reject only those foods he’s identified as things he doesn’t like, rather than rejecting all purees, because he can’t tell if there’s something in it he doesn’t like or not. He’s less likely to be picky or balk at trying new things if there’s no expectation for him to eat them if he doesn’t want to. In theory. We haven’t really got to the stage of testing that hypothesis yet.
• It *should*engender a healthy attitude to food and eating.  Meal times are social occasions. Food is to be enjoyed. No pressure to finish what’s in front of him or try anything if he doesn’t want to.  These were not messages I associated with food as I grew up and it’s taken some time for me to change attitudes.

CONS

• It’s messy. Holy hell, it’s messy. Even with a dog to clean up the worst of it.
• It’s wasteful. Well, it would be if we didn’t have a dog. A lot ends up being left, or dropped on the floor, especially in the beginning.
• It’s slow. It often seems to take BB forever to be done with whatever’s in front of him. I could certainly shovel it in faster with a spoon.
• It’s success relies on a freely available milk supply. We’re lucky – we have one (me). But I can imagine attempting BLW with a formula fed baby, or whilst trying to juggle a demanding full time job would be tricky to say the least.
• Your kid has to be developmentally ready. They have to be able to sit unassisted (plus there are a number of other indicators). For some people, waiting for this might not be practical.
• Your kid could choke to death at any minute!!!! Actually, incredibly unlikely, but it’s the one thing that looms large in people’s minds and they contemplate BLW. Ironically, babies weaned this way are less likely to choke, as they swiftly become adept at moving food round their mouths. They don’t face the problem that puree-fed babies face when moving on from smooth puree to lumpy puree, when they discover that the slurp from the spoon method they’ve employed thus far (think smooth soup) sends chunks of stuff flying to the back of their throats (you wouldn’t slurp minestrone, right?).  Also, the spoon places food much further back in the mouth than fingers do, so is certainly not without its choking risk. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but hey, kids can choke on anything. Every parent should be well versed in the basic first aid advice on knowing how to recognise choking and what to do about it.
• Your kid could gag to death then. Nah – gagging is not going to kill anyone. Well, unless it gives you a heart attack. Gagging is the body’s way of protecting the airway, as is puking, which can also happen. It sounds horrific and can look spectacularly awful when viewed through adult eyes, but it really doesn’t seem to bother the kids. The gag reflex is quite far forward in the mouths of young babies. Whereas an adult has to stick fingers a long way back in the mouth to trigger it, young babies will gag very easily. This protects their airway, should they accidentally get something in their mouths. As they get older and get more practise with moving food around their mouths and their muscles develop, the reflex moves further back. BB actually only gagged at all for the first couple of weeks, and then only occasionally.  I can’t remeber the last time he did it. Yes, it was scary, but he was fine and seemed totally unbothered.  We, on the other hand, sat their, hearts pounding, fake smiles plastered to our faces. It was fine. Honestly.

I’ve totally loved BLW so far. Watching our little boy expore the delights of food and become an independent feeder has been, and continues to be, amazing. The scary moments have been far outweighed by seeing his mucky, grinning little face.  As with any parenting choice, it’s not for everyone, for a variety of reasons and we’re certainly not judgemental puritans on the question. Whatever works for you.  But if you fancy giving it a go, or introducing some of the principles alongside spoon feeding, we’re more than happy to be grilled on the matter.

Perhaps next time, I’ll post a typical day’s menu. It’d certainly be a lot shorter than this epic!

vee xxx

Ah well. This NaBloPoMo thing is proving tricky to squeeze in some days. And yesterday was a busy one as I was out working all day, leaving jay to be housework hero. Next year, I’ll get a diary that clearly differentiates between weekdays and weekends, then I won’t make the mistake of accepting bookings on a weekend.

Today is a free day though, and I’m looking forward to making the most of it. Jay’s catching a lie-in this morning while I watch BB roll around the living room floor (who needs to crawl?). Once she’s up, I’ll cook us a magnificent breakfast then, if the weather stays fine, we’ll go out walking. Later, we’ve got plans to head to a local pub with friends for Sunday dinner. Yum!

What are you up to today?

vee xxx

The sleep thing? He’s figured it out (touch wood).  Just like the penny dropped, he’s suddenly become totally OK about ditching his swaddle and sleeping in a gro-bag.  OK about being put down, OK about dropping off to sleep, OK about sleeping, about going back down after a feed, the whole thing just shifted. They’re incredible, contrary little beings, aren’t they?

More food-related posting tomorrow.

vee xxx (off to touch more wood)

Firstly, thanks for the commenty reassurance on our last post. We’ve ordered a new grobag, and are sure they’re the way forward!  Existere, we tried your idea, but our little Houdini managed to bust out within about 2 seconds. Now, he is asleep in his grobag, snoring loudly.

NO, WE DON’T UNDERSTAND IT EITHER. BUT WE ARE HAPPY!

Moving onto food, the Baby Led Weaning way. I’m not sure where to start! Maybe with the fear? Choking. As Whozat said, “Gagging is how they learn NOT to choke. It’s scary at first (and second, and…) but they’re in no danger.”

I suppose when you get used to it, it gets a lot easier. The first couple of times BB gagged were a bit scary, but when we learned that he could sort himself out (and if we decided to interfere by sticking our fingers in his mouth, that would NOT HELP because we would push stuff to the back of his throat or something), we kind of decided to trust him. It got easier from then on. Along the way, someone said, “Trust your child. They know what they’re doing.”  At first, that seemed insane… then we realised it was true. If we look freaked out when BB’s gagging, he’ll think there’s something to worry about, and then HE will freak out too. So, we just grin inanely while saying silent prayers. And it works.

The difference between gagging and choking? When babies gag, it’s obvious – they cough and you can see they’re having trouble with something in their mouth.  When they choke, though, they go quiet, with a panicked expression. Kids of any age can gag or choke anyway so it’s important not to leave them alone when they’re eating. We’ve also got a kids’ first aid book and have looked up choking, just to be on the safe side.

As for allergies, part of the point of BLW is that you start at 6 months, when the risk of allergies has gone down. The whole allergy alert thing was designed for people who feed their babies at 4 months – by the time they’re 6 months old, their digestive tracts should be developed, so if there are no history of allergies in their families, you don’t need to worry.

Before I start to sound like some kind of goverrnmental health campaigner, I’ll move on to food..!

As we found out this week, polenta is a perfect BLW food. I made some polenta fritters and cut one into long sticks for BB, which he relished, and there were definitely no choking worries because it was just made of cornmeal. Woo! Cucumber is also another good one – easy to cut into sticks and good for  teething gums (I read that somewhere), as is cooked courgette (zucchini) – both of which BB loves. In fact, I don’t think there’s much we wouldn’t try giving BB. I’m convinced that his shocked reaction to stuff with chill in it has been down to the “Surprise! It’s Spicy!” factor- how do you explain to a baby that his food will make his tongue tingle?  You can’t, but when they get used to it, it’s fine.

It’s brilliant to see him enjoying his food, sitting at the table with us.  Sometimes he really goes for it, and tries everything indiscriminately. Yeah, it’s messy, but if you embrace the mess, you’re OK.

It’s also amazing how strong his gums are!  No teeth, no problem.  Seriously, if we take a bite out of an apple or a pear, he’ll get real excited and gum the rest down to pulp. It’s fascinating!

One of the other best things about BLW is that it EASY. We don’t have to rely on it because BB’s still having all of his milk feeds as usual, so if he’s grumpy and throws his food on the floor, no problem. Also, we just give him food when we’re eating (off our plates if we’re eating out, or out of our pans if we’re at home) and keep BB-friendly snacks in the fridge. We don’t need to puree, so if we cook a bit of extra roasted veg – cut into sticks – for example, we can throw them in the fridge and bring them out the next day.

We’re not the world’s healthiest eaters, but we do cook mostly from scratch and BB can eat most of what we have (admittedly, his diet is healtheir than ours!)… except chocolate. I’m sure he wonders why his mums keep eating that brown stuff and not offering him any. We’re enjoying it until he starts demanding SAME AS MUMMIES!

So, hooray for BLW!

xx jay

I feel kind of bad, blogging for help about our sleep issues when I know others are having some MAJOR sleep problems, but BB’s having a real hard time transitioning from swaddle to sleep sack and we could really use some IVP expertise.

His love affair with the swaddle is fading fast, but he’s far from falling head over heels for any replacement.

Previously, we’d swaddle him, he’d calm straight down, sometimes even dropping off whilst we were still wrapping him, most times lying peacefully with his head facing the wall until he drifted off minutes later. No crying, no problems, a good, solid 8-10 hours sleep (barring any dodie-replacements), a feed, then another couple of hours before getting up. Lucky us, hey? We kept that one quiet, for fear of hate mail!

These days, he’ll mostly still happily submit to being swaddled and will usually still drop off ok, but he’ll wake after an hour or two and bust right out of his swaddle and thrash around for a bit, crying until I soothe him or feed him, re-wrap him and off he drifts again. Rinse and repeat all night long. Apart from the whole awake half the night thing, it’s also been stressing us that he’s in the cot with blankets – the swaddles we have are muslin (thanks again, Michelle and Jen!); brilliant but not warm enough on their own for our chilly Autumn nights. When he’s immobilised, it’s not a concern, but once he  frees his arms and starts rolling over, it’s a worry, even if we should be past worrying about blankets now he’s bigger, I don’t know.

We’ve tried him in his gro-bag with limited success. If we put him down in it, he doesn’t settle well and will chatter and scoot around his cot for ages, eventually losing his dodie over the side and crying. If we go with the swaddle first off, then, when he busts his swaddle, switching him over to the gro-bag, we have the same unsettled cycle starting up.

On occasion now though, he’s starting to resist being swaddled at all, which leads us to think we’d better address this properly, before we’re well and truly screwed.  We’ve started using the gro-bag more consistently for day time naps, in the hope it’ll get him used to it, but all that seems to have done is cock up his napping, reducing it from two hours to 30-40 mins and resulting in a grumpy, tired boy.

So, what to do? Go cold-turkey with the gro-bag and ditch the swaddle, put up with crap sleep for I don’t know how long in the hope he gets it eventually? Look into more serious swaddling techniques to make sure he just can’t bust out? Invest in an alternative type of swaddle/sack? Just put him down in a fleece babygrow (footed sleeper/blanket sleeper)? What kind of temperature should we be aiming at keeping the room at for any of these options? (It’s currently around 16-18C but can dip lower if it’s a cold night).

Help? We feel oddly lost on this one.

vee xxx

PS: jay will blog more about BLW tomorrow –  in the meantime, she wants me to point out that the wholegrain mustard sarnie also had cheese in it. Just so you know!

I’m too grumpy to post. Tired, that’s why. So here’s something I made earlier and we forgot to post (i.e. it is now out of date, but who cares – I guess there are limits to food geekery?) – a pretty list of some of the foods that BB’s tried in their original, non pureed, forms thus far:

We’re loving baby led weaning! Who knows – we might even say something intelligent about it tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions about how it feels to smile fakely while you watch your baby gag, fire away.

xx jay

PS: Thank you, Wordle, for making this post possible(!)

Lesbians make better parents.

That’s all I have today.

vee xxx

Hey, Snotty Nose!

Today you are eight months old.  To celebrate that incredible milestone, you have a VERY SNOTTY NOSE, which I keep wiping, much to your utmost disgust. Like all other children on the face of this planet, you HATE having your nose wiped. Well, I’m sorry but we have to do wiping, and you know why… because it helps us to breathe, that’s why. You also seem to be teething, which isn’t fun at all. Poor you!

We were wrong that your first sight would be TOAST. It was FINISHED! [Of course I filmed it! I am Geek Mummy!] We were SO proud and excited to see you do that. How very practical, too..!

You’ve started to try and pull yourself up on things, but haven’t quite got there yet, and have just worked out how to stick your tongue out, which is providing you with a lot of entertainment; us too.

This month, however, your favourite thing seems to be noise. When you’re not doing shouting – plenty of it, loudly – you’re shaking things that rattle and bashing other things together to make them clack. As I type this, you’re shaking your rabbit with a rattle in its tummy AND shouting for good measure.

The cat is horrified by all of this and is currently squeezed on top of the Sky box, glaring at you – nothing new.  Your Mummy Vee and I don’t mind at all, though.  We think it’s so cute that when you shake things, you have to wave both your hands even if you’re only holding something in one hand, because you haven’t worked out how solo hand movements go yet. Bless.

I’m hard pressed to think of my favourite thing about you at the moment, but it’s probably how your hair is so long that it actually covers about an inch of your ears – or it would if it was darker and we didn’t push it behind them, but anyway, SO cute.

Love you the world over!

xxxx mummy jay