Feed me quicker!

We now have a hungry 7 month old who loves food! My intention was to wait until he was 6 months old and to do baby-led weaning (why is it called that? Don’t all babies lead weaning by choosing to eat what you offer them?!) but at 5 and half months JJ was so hungry that we could wait no longer. I couldn’t bear the way he stared at the food on my plate or kicked his arms and legs thinking perhaps he might get some food! So, we started with pea puree (bland?!) and he loved it. Pretty quickly he was up to three meals a day and cutting down his milk and then within weeks onto finger food too! He went from being on the 9th percentile for his weight to the 50th after a week of food so it was definitely time.

He eats EVERYTHING! The more flavoursome the better, butternut squash curry being a very much loved dish. Don’t get me started on the hummus. He can scoff a 2 bread slice hummus sandwich down in record time and if you dip something in hummus, he’ll eat it. Not that we’re having to convince him to eat anything, broccoli and courgette are his favourite veggies. He can eat the head off a broccoli stalk in one mouthful and chew a stick of courgette and swallow the whole thing in seconds.

Watching a baby with no teeth chew food with such skill is amazing. (I’m pretty pleased that he is so adept at teethless chewing given that he seems to have been teething for months but he still has no teeth to show for it.) From one day to the next he develops new food eating skills, such as the pincer grip or being able to hold his cup to drink from it. It has been truly incredible seeing him able to eat with more skill each day.

Whilst we are not yet facing any food refusal we almost have the opposite problem. Over this last week I am realising what a strong willed baby we have, one who knows what he wants and is not afraid to let us (and everyone else nearby) know. This week he had his first meltdown (in an M&S cafe). The cause? No more fromage frais. He looked disappointed horrified at the thought of no more and I turned around the empty container to show him that it really was empty and he very quickly became very loud and inconsolable! Seeing as I really was out of fromage frais (and all other food, he’d eaten all the hummus sandwiches!), there was not much to do besides ‘sssshing’ and quickly getting him into his high chair and out of there!

Tonight, we ran out of scrambled egg. Then we ran out of rhubarb. For both you’d think the world was ending. Telling a 7 month old that “no, this is not how we get what we want” doesn’t seem to work?! Walking away and leaving him to calm down seems to be the best option (not possible in M&S!) until the next food item runs out. And, if  all else fails? I’ve got the world’s largest supply of fromage frais in the fridge!