Esme is now 6 months old so we decided to let her try some solids. We're doing things differently this time round and using baby-led solids rather feeding her pureed stuff like we did with Jacob. Baby-led solids is about letting the baby control what and how much they take in with the idea that they are able to moderate their intake, this is particularly relevant for breastfed babies. The principles of baby-led solids are basically that babies need to master certain skills before they have food shoved down their throats. This means they need to have lost the tongue thrust reflex, they must be able to sit without being propped, they need to show an interest in reaching and grabbing for food, they need to be able to use a pincer grip and so on. Babies are offered finger food and allowed to pick and choose what they eat. Even though people worry about choking with finger foods, babies have a very strong gag reflex and there is actually less risk of them choking on finger food than there is of choking on purees.
Anyway, so far Esme has been going great! She shows more interest in mashing up the food with her hands but she has actually taken a few little mouthfuls! I don't know that she was that impressed though, she much prefers her milk I think! So far she has had pumpkin, sweet potato, potato, zucchini, broccoli, watermelon and a grape. She doesn't mind potato too much (as you can see in the video) but is not a big fan of broccoli (like her mummy lol)
Here's a link to Gill Rapley's website on baby-led weaning.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Sisterly love!
I'm constantly amazed at how much Esme adores her big brother! I think he gets more smiles from her than us!!! He loves to make her laugh at the moment and has her in fits of giggles over the silliest things. Here is a video of Jacob 'jumping' to make Esme laugh!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
6 months old and crawling?!
Well, Esme turned 6 months old on Friday. I am still wondering where the time has disappeared to! She is such a gorgeous little girl, a real little socialite! She always has lots of smiles for everyone and is very chatty. She is happy to spend lots of time on the floor exploring everything. I can't believe she is kind of crawling already though! She has been getting up on her hands and knees for at least a month now and now can move forwards by getting up on hands and knees and 'lurching' forwards or by pulling herself along 'commando style'. She can move fairly quickly, but it usually takes something, such as Jacob's toys, to motivate her to get moving. Esme just adores Jacob and Jacob is so good with his little sister too although I don't know how much he is appreciating her 'playing' with his toys!! I'm constantly amazed watching Esme play and explore. She knows exactly what she wants and is so accurate with grabbing whatever it is that she wants. I'm sure Jacob was never like this! She usually prefers to play with everything that is NOT a toy though. She loves to pull herself up to the toy drawers and pull the labels off them, eat paper and play with shoes/chair legs and so on! She is trying to sit up from being on her tummy already. I keep trying to tell her that she needs to be able to keep her balance sitting up before doing this but she doesn't listen! She often ends up toppling over onto her back because she can't balance herself. I don't imagine it will be much longer till she is really on the move and into everything! I'm not so sure I'm ready for that!!!
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