I must admit I’ve been slightly worried about the day that Ruby will want to eat solids. I’m going to do BLW (baby led weaning) with Ruby. So I’m avoiding mush and slop and going straight to the finger foods!

I’ve learnt that babies are less likely to choke if they are left to choose when they start to eat and are just offered proper pieces of food (rather than purée) – Apparently if they can pick something up and put it in their own mouth then they are ready to eat. It’s also good to wait until they are sitting well and holding themselves upright unaided.

I’ve decided to document our BLW journey with Ruby.  Perhaps this will encourage me to keep going too (and not give in to mush!)

Recently Ruby has been intently staring at me eating and often reaches for my plate.  She’s also quite a chunky munchkin (in a lovely baby squishy way) and is bigger than some 8 month old babies! so I thought perhaps she’d like to start playing with food. After all food is just for play until babies are at least a year old. (I understand this is the case if babies are breast fed – not sure about formula fed babies.., give it a google maybe, I’m no expert in any of this! Just going by what I’ve heard, read etc)

So at lunchtime today I popped Ruby in the highchair and put some soggy carrot sticks in front of her. Her reaction is shown in the image above! She showed no interest in the carrots and looked a little baffled. I was actually relieved.

Then later today I tried placing some sweet potato chunks in front of her. She found this hilarious and gave it a little mush with her hand but that was it.

So I think I can safely assume that Ruby is not quite ready to eat yet. Or perhaps she just didn’t feel like attempting it today. She’s thriving on breast milk so I’m not going to worry.

I’ll keep you posted with our progress. Are you doing BLW? Could you share any hints, tips and experiences with us on here? Feel free to leave a comment in the box below.

Happy feeding!

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