5 February 2007
Feeding Yannick
If I only would have known about baby led weaning before I started with this whole weaning lark…!
First of all I started to early, but I knew that. The recommendation is to nurse a baby until they are six months old. At about four months my little boy was still so hungry all the time that I couldn't take it any more. He was still eating/drinking (whatever you would like to call it) every 60 minutes. That's very frequent at that age. And of course not only during the day but also during the night. Combine that with a recent move into a new home and guess how stressed I felt. So I decided to ignore the guidelines and do what mothers always did, listen to my inner voice. Yannick took to purées instantly. At some point I thought he would get a food orgasm, so much mmmhing and hmmming was going on! It actually seemed like he didn't know at all the feeling of being full, he would just eat and eat until the food wouldn't go down any more and come back up. After a couple of experiences like that, both of us knew when he was full enough. He would still drink a lot from me, but the time in-between got longer, more like 90 minutes. Already a relief. And at night-time I got longer breaks too. Finally my baby started to look a bit chubbier and he was so happy!
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In early December I was thinking about introducing lumps into his food and also started reading about baby led weaning which sounded very interesting. That's when the teething got into our way. The two lower teeth which appeared in October were OK, but the two upper ones that finally came out in January really were a killer. My little man ran a temperature and didn't want to eat anything at all, not even the carrot, potato, and butternut squash purées that aunt Elke lovingly made for him. On the opposite he seemed to loathe them. The only thing he would accept was a stick of uncooked fridge cold carrot to suck on and, of course, my boobs - as often as possible. Whatever food I prepared, and I tried to give him variety, he simply refused it. Very disappointing. |
Eventually I decided to give up on the vegetable purées and only to offer parts of our food as fingerfood, as there was no point in preparing all this extra stuff if he wouldn't eat it. To be honest I didn't find the purées very appetizing in the first place so the idea of giving a baby the food we are eating is much more appealing. So far Yannick has taken to toast with butter and also German rye bread with butter and soft cream cheese. Basmati rice and peas in curry sauce are a savoury favourite. He had a nibble on bits of pork and chicken meat, ate prawns and trout, tried cooked carrot, mange tout, green beans, mushrooms, omelette, and some other stuff, but those are usually eaten only in minute portions. He also likes smoked salmon, fancy that. His favourite fruit seems to be apple and banana. If I would be a true baby led weaning follower I wouldn't give Yannick any puréed or mashed stuff at all, but as I know that he needs the calories I give him some baby porridge with cooked apple and pear compote in the morning (after the toast), some organic yoghurt with red fruit compote at lunch time (after bread or omelette), and baby rice with some other fruit compote in the evening (after the savoury food). His favourite fruit compote is blueberry with vanilla. Sometimes we have to use two to three spoons as he wants to get involved and at other times he lets me actually feed him without too much interruption - as long as the yummy fruit is coming in!
It's so nice to see Yannick try all kind of things. Sometimes his face shows clearly that something is disgusting at first, but he tries again and then it's usually not so bad or even surprisingly good as in the case of the smoked salmon. I just wish that I introduced the real food so much earlier!!!