Is Baby Led Weaning for us?

I had NEVER heard of giving your baby solid, whole foods before rice cereal and veggie, fruit and meat purees. And then I became a mom with great momma friends.  "Their stomachs aren't ready.... They'll choke!  But I am excited to make my own baby food in squeeze packets... "  were all the questions and thoughts that filled my mind when my friend Molly told me about this!

 I did some further reading and research of this Baby-Led Weaning (BLW.. aka, baby self feeding) and as you can see by the following pictures I am getting excited to do this with Declan.  His excitement is a little masked by the new tastes.  He pretty much has only enjoyed milk, plastic, clothes, and fingers until now.  But he has added cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, avocados, pasta, green beans, bananas and a fry from daddy against my will.  

A lot of the books say start around 6 months but if they are showing interest in grabbing at your plate/food, let them try a little earlier.  So I have.  True,  Declan grabs at everything and puts everything in his mouth so I just figured why not let him start putting what he is supposed to in his mouth?  But the premise of BLW appeals to me.  They learn to chew before they swallow and they monitor how much they need to eat instead of shoving "chart tablespoon" amounts of purees down their throats when they really are getting what they need from nursing until they are 8-12 months old. 

In some blogs I have read, people jokingly refer to the baby-self feeding as the Lazy-Mom Feeding method too.  This is right up my alley because one thing I love about nursing is how "lazy" I can be with less bottles, packing formula/bottles when out, etc.    All the "eating" (aka shoving food at his face and throwing on the floor for Croix)  done so far has taken no extra time or money as they were just from our meals.  

But I am also a little excited to feed him and in case this doesn't take off in the next few months and daycare has to start making sure he is eating proteins, etc... I wanted to get some purees made this weekend. Carrots and squash are ready and applesauce will be next!   I enjoyed doing it but I'm not going to be heartbroken if BLW takes off and Declan gives them to his friends.  The packets are in the freezer and easy to thaw and take and go! 

Not counting the squeeze machine, these packets are .34 cents a piece and I paid 3 dollars for the carrots and squash at the farmers market I used.  But it took an hour and half from prep to clean up for 15 packets so will my time be worth it??      It was enjoyable to me and I know I'll get faster and do much bigger batches so I think yes.. Plus, I'll do some canning and ice cube trays, etc too... but we'll see.

In the web world I have found there are some very hardcore Baby-Led Weaning mommas out there, but pretty much everything with me and parenting, I like a guide but I am flexible and need to have some wiggle room or it would stress me out.  So technically Declan will probably fall under the Traditional Weaning with the mix of purees and finger foods but the following link explains the difference.  

BLW vs. Traditional Weaning

Stay tuned... I'm sure I'll blog more about the solid food adventure!  Advice, thoughts and comments welcome!