baby led solids (BLW)

I've been pretty intrigued with the idea of baby led solids since I first heard about it several years ago. To me it makes a lot of sense for Eliad to feed himself and decide how much he needs; he's been doing that for 6+ months when he nurses. So instead of starting him with runny or mushy purees that we would spoon feed to him, we give him slices or chunks of soft food to feed himself.

Eliad has been interested in putting everything in his mouth for a couple months. So now that he's 6 months old, he's sitting up well on his own, and he seems to be swallowing some water when we help him practice using a cup, it seemed pretty safe to let him start trying solid food.

A couple weeks ago, on his 6 month birthday, I made some roasted sweet potato fries. He was certainly interested in trying them. But he was not impressed! 

We've since let him try avocado, a plum, cooked apple, cooked carrot sticks, and sweet potato fries again. He was happy with all of those. The problem he was having with everything except the sweet potato fries is that they're all slippery, and it all has a tendency to shoot out of his little hand. The plum was the easiest for him to hold since he could grab it with both hands. So now I'm trying to give him some larger pieces of food that he can hold with two hands, rather than the fry-like slices of fruit we tried serving.

first solid food. 6 months old. 21 Sept 2012.