Strawberries -

8 months

Hmm, they're getting a bit slippery, might be easier to eat them without picking them up? Figured it out! Bath time!

Continental lunch!

Decisions, decisions, where to start!



Ooh, chorizo!





Pitta bread:

All sorts!

Brioche:

(7 months)



Hot cross bun:



Pasta:






Ham:

Sausages!

Curry!

Chicken korma and rice, made by Matthew was a hit:)

All I did differently was to grill Olivia a piece of chicken separately, rather than small pieces cooked in the sauce like the boys had. She really enjoyed the sauce and kept dipping the chicken in it and sucking it. The rice was more challenging - she ate a few pieces from my fingers but couldn't really figure out how to eat it other than by getting bits stuck to the chicken - she kept getting fistfuls but not being able to get it out and into her mouth!

Crumpet and jam -

More fromage frais -

I didn't have any fruit handy to give Olivia to go with the fromage frais as I had planned but she discovered a new way to eat it -



... she was licking it straight from the pot! I did then give her the spoon with some on as she seemed like she was hungry rather than just playing.

You can see from these photos just how much she enjoyed it! Messy, but lots of fun :)

Bread (and toast) and cheese, crumpets and jam -

Nice and quick breakfast/lunch/snacks! Olivia is having about 5 'meals' a day at the moment. Every time one of us sits down to eat, I sit her with us to join in so these are perfect when I want to give her something easy.

Pear!

I love this set of photos as they show really well how Olivia approaches a new food. This was the first time she has had pear and she spent a long time just playing with it, you can see how it was laid skin side down in the first photo - she was just gently pushing it to make it rock, totally fascinated. Next, she picked it up and looked at it for a bit (not long, admittedly!) before finally trying it.

I left the skin on to make it a bit easier for her to hold - you can see in the last photo that she ate quite a bit from the top end of it, and looked very pleased with herself.

BLW website -

I would recommend that anybody who is interested in BLW reads Gill Rapley's website, http://www.baby-led.com particularly the booklet which you can download from the front page but the whole site is really interesting. The booklet gives great advice on how to make BLW a fun and safe experience and explains how and why it works so well :)

I also found the guidelines which Gill has published on her other site http://www.rapleyweaning.com/assets/blw_guidelines.pdf very helpful. They explain in more detail the principles behind BLW and give dos and don'ts of putting it into practice.

Fromage frais -

... was a bit of a compromise - Olivia-led-with-a-bit-of-help-from-Mummy weaning! I put the fromage frais on the spoon then passed it to Olivia. I think next time I'll give her some apple pieces with it to see if she can dip them.

Cheese on toast -

Was a hit! More the cheese, which was peeled off first, than the toast, but Olivia still ate a bit of that too.

Playing with pasta:

This pasta is perfect for Olivia - it's big enough she can hold it and get it into her mouth (too small pieces are difficult as they get stuck in their fists and are a choking hazard) and it's fun to play with!

Out for lunch:

An impromptu lunch out is much more fun when you're using baby led weaning rather than conventional mush!

Olivia really enjoyed her first Chinese meal of prawn toast, spring rolls and onion rings: (No idea why onion rings were at a Chinese buffet but they looked fun so I gave her one!)








(Should also add that I seem to remember reading something somewhere about not introducing prawns until after a year or something - but this could have all changed a million times since then - so check the guidelines if you're worried about things like that!)