bananamania

bananamania
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed

i know i know, we're wayyyy too early to be giving Val FOOD. but the idea of BABY-LED WEaning really captured my imagination after Rani emailed two links to me. (btw: i think the term weaning is a misnomer for this concept, maybe more like Baby-led food experimentation)

I read on it, and really like the idea of allowing the baby the lead in choosing when to eat. It's very 'unicef-y' kind of child-centred approach. Something i was very immersed in while in Timor. It's great and very logical that we wait and observe for baby's own physical developments to signal us when they're ready to munch instead of pureeing foods and sliding them down their little throats that may not be ready for foreign objects. So the gist of BLW is to allow babies to hold their own food or spoon instead of passively feeding them with spoons. This allows them to continue having control over how much they want to eat, what they want to try --- following on the same kind of active feeding philosophy behind baby-led breastfeeding.

It will mean a mess but there are lots of advantages which include a) not having to slog it out in the kitchen pureeing food; b) allowing baby to see whole foods instead of mush all pureed together -- this has 2 advantages - baby get to touch and interact with the food and realise there is such a concept as WHOLE foods, and also it's easier to tell which food is turning baby off or causing an allergy so mom and dad can either avoid this food or reintroduce this particular food again sometime later..... c) when baby is able to sit up, and is able to hold things more firmly, it usually coincides with stomach maturity, and baby losing his/her tongue thrust reflex so we're not pre-empting anything.

so why is val holding a banana? it's just that he's been showing a lot of interest in our food, and whenever i eat in front of me, he gives me this really sad, envious look and occasionally tries to grab my utensils or my food. So since his hands are stronger now, i decided to test if he may be keen on starting solids.

Turns out he LOVES holding onto the banana (which we wash first so the skin is clean) and licking the banana. But we have to be careful when he shoves the banana into his mouth and chomps off a huge chunk with his powerful gums! so far, he's spitting it out so it indicates that he just wants a taste which is good enough for me. I was just really amused when he began licking the banana SKIN enthusiastically. Yikes. i hope he's not honing his tastebuds for strange stuff.