Jenna and Baby Led Weaning

Right from the start I knew I wanted to be more adventurous with feeding Jenna. You may remember that I had a lot of problems with feeding Ryan. At his 1-year checkup his doctor referred us to a therapist because Ryan still could not eat finger foods....or any foods with texture for that matter. If he got the tiniest crumb in his mouth he would gag. (This is him gagging on a tiny bite of his birthday cake)

I had heard about the method of baby led weaning, but never really tried it with Ryan because of his issues. I was a bit more relaxed with Lucas, but still relied on store-bought baby purees for quite a while. The idea behind baby led weaning is that you feed your baby small pieces of food right from the start. They control how much they eat and basically feed themselves. The baby leads the process of gradually eating more table food.

This time around, I've been having a little fun in the kitchen, making homemade purees for Jenna. The other day we had some random leftovers in the fridge so I cooked up a couple different "meals" for Jenna, pureed, and froze in ice cubes.

And while she enjoys eating purees and being fed with a spoon, Jenna LOVES eating food off of her highchair tray. Last night we had pot roast and I pureed some of the meat and potatoes up for Jenna. She happily ate it, but the minute I put some buttered bread on her tray she lunged for it and went crazy feeding herself. She first started getting the hang of picking up tiny bits of food with her fingers just a couple weeks ago....and now she is practically a pro! This makes me really happy because not only is it easier for me, but it is really a lot of fun to just feed her normal table food.

Some of Jenna's favorite table foods right now include ground beef or turkey and buttered bread. Yum!

This morning I was trying to figure out what to feed Jenna for breakfast. Then I realized she could just share my breakfast!

 Cottage cheese, cranberry orange bread, and a peach.

So I guess Jenna is telling me that Baby Led Weaning is the way to go with her. Whatever you want to call it, I'm just happy she is a good eater so far. I'm hoping this leads to her being a more adventurous eater than her brothers!