After much reading, I decided that we were going to go with the approach known as Baby Led Weaning. (That link brings you to the website of a book about it, but the Wikipedia page is here, if you're interested.) The basic idea is, after breastfeeding for a full six months, rather than starting with spoon-fed purees and working up to finger foods, just let the kids have food, and feed themselves. The whole spoon-feeding thing was necessary back when babies were formula fed, and the formula wasn't sufficient for their nutritional needs, so they had to start on pablum at 3-4 months. By the time most babies are in their seventh month, they're able to sit up, and have sufficient fine motor skills to pick up reasonably large objects, and plough them into their mouths. No teeth? No problem. They gum everything, and as long as you're not feeding them raw carrots, they'll manage. They don't choke, because they're not shoving stuff way to the back of their mouths (as spoon feeding can do), though they do gag sometimes, when something big gets in there, but so far Béla hasn't had any trouble getting stuff out when necessary. I'm simplifying it a bit, but that's the basic idea. As for allergy concerns, new research suggests that if you wait at least 6 months, and breastfeed if possible, after that they can pretty well have what they want, and any allergies that are going to appear won't be prevented by waiting longer. (I'm really oversimplifying that part, and we're still not giving him any tree nuts, shellfish, or honey for now, and we've avoided egg whites for now, but I don't think that's going to last much longer.) Basically, as long as you eat good, nutritious food, you can just give your baby what you're eating. They shouldn't have too much salt or added sugar, so that means that we take his out before fully seasoning, or before adding sauce in a stir fry. He still gets the meat and veggies cooked with onions, garlic, ginger, and a bit of chili though, just no salty sauces. And at first it's easier for them if the food is somewhat spear-shaped, so they can grab it in their fist and chew on the other end, but they quickly learn how to deal with other shapes.
And so the plan was to wait until the beginning of March, when he'd be a full six months old. But then at the doctor's appointment when he was just shy of 5 months, when the pediatrician saw him sitting up unassisted, she said that he was developmentally ready to eat, and suggested that we start him on cereal. I was still going to wait, following the midwife's advice instead, when a friend with a baby two months older mentioned that her daughter was really disinterested in eating, and she wished she'd started introducing food a couple of weeks earlier, when she was showing lots of interest in what they were eating. She felt like she'd sort of missed a window of opportunity, during which she should have started introducing food.
And so I waited a little bit longer, but decided it was time to get a high chair at least. He was definitely showing interest in food, and we were at the point where we had to take turns eating, while the other person was holding the baby, well out of arm's reach of any food or cutlery or dishes. Here's our fancy wooden high chair, a gift from Paul and Betty Ann (thanks guys!).
What's more, he's happy to play in it for a while, which lets me get a bit of work done in the kitchen while he's awake during the day, which can be a lifesaver. Look how much he's loving that chair!
Of course, once he was in the chair and it was supper time, we realized that we couldn't just let him sit there and watch him eat. And so, entirely unprepared, at 5.5 months, we decided to let him have some of what we were eating, just to play with it. I don't even remember what we were eating - it was covered in a sauce he shouldn't have, so we just gave him a bit of sticky rice, naively putting it into a container first.
Yes, right on his chair is much better. We were not planning this at all, as you can see by his lack of bib.
I had stupidly thought that sticky rice would be easier, as it would stick together into clumps that he could get into his mouth, but of course it stuck to everything! And so the rice grains were uniformly distributed within a one arm radius of the baby. But still, he enjoyed himself, we enjoyed watching, and we were able to eat our supper at the same time. I'd call that a success.
He even made a few valiant efforts with the sippy cup - that's not all drool on his shirt!
Another thing that we used at first, and we still use a bit when out with him, are these little mesh bags that attach to a big handle that you can fill with bits of food that the baby can chomp on until it's broken down into small enough pieces to fit through the mesh. We actually got two, one from Jer's cousin Crystal, and one from my friend Pam (thanks guys!), and they've proven really useful for too-mushy-to-grab food (oatmeal, overcooked sweet potato), and when on the go. Here he's tucking in to some apple or pear while on my lap in the living room. (Ignore my greasy hair - I was really sick.)
He also got better at both eating and drinking really quickly. The first few times we fed him, there was food everywhere. Within a week, almost nothing fell on the ground. (He still loses chunks onto his seat, but they're cleaner when they get rescued at least.) And within two days he'd figured out the sippy cup. (For those who are interested, it's full of water. He gets water with his meals, and nothing else besides breastmilk.) Here I was trying to take a picture of him drinking so well, but he kept putting it down to look at the camera...
...like so.
This was also in the first week, and you can see what's left of his first quarter pear, with the second ready to be devoured. At the start I peeled his pears and apples, but now I leave the peel on, and he manages. In fact, he managed so well, that I gave him a whole pear to see what he'd do with it, and after obsessively chewing on the stick (which I cut off), he totally managed to eat it, starting at the top end. He made it through well over half, leaving a chunk around the bottom (fat) end of the pear. The next day when he pooped out the intact seed casing, I realized that I should probably be better about coring all his fruit in the future.
Here he's enjoying his first meal of mets belge, a favourite of Jeremi's. The green beans were mostly chewed on until only the skin was left, and then discarded, but a few made it all the way through.
Ah yes, the cat. The only thing that manages to distract him from, well, everything. He adores her. There's a whole post in their relationship, how he's learned to pet without grabbing (most of the time, except for those so-tempting ears), and how she's gone from being surprisingly tolerant to being downright indulgent, coming to sit next to him on purpose, and even purring through some of his mauling sessions. She even licked his fingers off after his first meal of high fat yogurt today. (I did wash them, but 10% fat yogurt leaves a lovely creamy coating that the cat just couldn't resist.)
Here he is with his current favourite food, broccoli, a vegetable that is conveniently club-shaped, allowing him to grasp the stump while sucking away at the florets, until his table is littered with stumps that look like the remains of a forest after locusts have been through.
In addition to being loved by Béla, broccoli is also quite easy to distinguish later in his poop, and somehow some florets manage to hang around long after it's been eaten. I swear he pooped florets for five solid days after a single eating, mixed with whatever else he ate in the meantime. Strange.
So we're completely loving this experiment in baby-feeding, and so is Béla. I love that the three of us get to enjoy our meals at the same time, without having to devote one person to spooning food into him. Instead, he eats what he wants, and we're entertained in watching. And so far he's enjoyed everything he's tried, which has included (among other things, and in no particular order): pears, apples, bananas, pineapple, avocado, broccoli, cauliflower, roasted eggplant, zucchini, peppers, roasted onions, mushrooms, pizza (Greek and Napoli), hummous, meat and rice-stuffed dried eggplants, beef, okra, pasta with pesto, cucumber, celery sticks, rice, rice cakes, and yogurt.While he can eat almost anything now if he puts his mind to it, some things really lend themselves to being spooned. (Although I thought the same thing of the hummous, which I spread on a rice cake for him to make it easier to eat, and he scooped it up with his fist and shoved it in his mouth without the rice cake.) Still, I thought it would be fun to add some yogurt to his standard breakfast of fruit, so I tried that this morning. Reading around on baby-led weaning sites, people suggested presenting the baby with a fully loaded spoon, and let them figure out what to do with it. And wow, did it ever work. He figured out which one was the business end of the spoon right away.
And after about 10 more loads, he was a happy and yogurty baby.
I took a little video of it too, because Jeremi was at work, and I felt badly that he was missing this. We have an awesome videocamera now, with much better sound, but it was in the other room, and I didn't want to leave him to go get it, so there's only a crappy video from our camera, with the annoying hiss on the audio. Still, it gives you the idea. It's a bit long, but it was mostly for Jeremi's sake. I'm sure there are a few grandparents out there who won't mind sitting through two minutes of this...
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