Carrot Face

I had to post this picture, as all the rest are pretty sweet and "picture-perfect".  This was one of her first solid foot experiences and we were letting her figure out how to use the spoon herself, as you have probably guessed.  I love the expression on her face, like "what the *#$@* is going on here?".  It's fun watching her facial expressions when she gets a new food to try.  We are following the every-4-days rule, and I feel so limited by what I can prepare for her at the moment but the list of options is growing.  So far avocado, sweet potato, carrot and green beans are her favourites, and I now have garlic and oregano available for flavouring!

We have started with mashed and pureed food, by are beginning to move toward the Baby-Led-Weaning (BLW) approach now, where we provide soft chunks of finger-food and let her feed herself what she wants, rather than accepting what we put on the spoon for her.  There's tonnes of information about this on the web but the link I provided is for the original paper written by Gill Rapley (Deputy Programme Director of Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative).

It feels a lot more natural and now that she's getting better at her pincer-grasp I think it's a good time to move in this direction.  The gagging reflex still has me watching like a hawk, but I know she's practicing an important skill and NOT choking when she does this.  Took me a few goes to realize that.  If you are interested check out this funny write-up The Gagging Thing v. The Choking Thing.

I've also been hesitant to start this process as she is a late tooth-bloomer, but all the articles and mums agree that the gums work just fine so long as everything is soft enough and small enough.  So, here we go!