The value of a Community Part 2

Before Mia was born, I was convinced that I was going to be the ultimate mom. And of course, part of being the ultimate mom is making your own baby food. So I went ahead a registered for a bunch of baby food making supplies, such as the food grinder, baby food storage trays, and baby food cookbooks. And my friends and family did their part in buying me these wonderful supplies.I didn't need a food processor, as I already owned a Magic Bullet, full-size food processor, and mini food processor.

As Mia grew and neared the magical age of six months, I got excited about the prospect of making and feeding her this homemade baby food. Other moms on my board were already beginning to give their babies purees at as young as four months, and I read about their experiences on our birth board. And then I read a post from one mom who said she was waiting till six months or older, and that she was going to do Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) with her child. I had never heard of this BLW and decided to check it out myself. I started by finding the BLW board on BabyCenter. The sticky post on the board had a ton of information and links about BLW. I continued to do my research and found that this may be a better system than the usual spoon-fed often force-fed baby feeding that I knew of and even participated in with children I babysat.

The concept of BLW is relatively simple. You give your baby soft, finger sized sticks of food that they can pick up on their own and feed themselves. It is like the table food concept that the main-stream crowd begins around 9-10 months old, except with larger sized pieces of food. The biggest concern for most people is: "won't she choke?". The answer: "most likely not." Of course there is a small chance of the baby choking, but no more than in any other food situation that the baby might be in.

The most attractive parts of BLW for me were that my baby would feed herself, allowing us to eat our meals at the same time! What a concept! Also, she could eat what we were eating, no need to make special food for her or spend hours cooking and blending food that she will probably spit out anyway. BLW is a gradual thing of course; when a baby starts doing BLW, the chance of food actual being chewed and swallowed is minimal. But with time, the baby learns how to bite off the food, move it around with her tongue, chew it (no teeth required, those gums are quite up to the challenge), and finally swallow it. The the eventual evidence in her diaper is like finding gold for most parents! Gagging is par for the course, but it is completely different from choking and is a good thing. The gag reflex helps baby learn how much food she can safely put in her mouth. Finally, babies who are introduced to solids using the BLW method are often better eaters. They are introduced to many different tastes and textures early and are more willing to eat a variety of food.

There are rules for BLW. First of all, baby should be 6 months old before starting BLW and able to sit up on a lap or in a highchair. Six months is the age when baby's digestive system should be mature enough to handle new foods. Also, food should be soft enough to be easily mashed up, although give to baby in a two-inch stick shape. Harder foods can be steamed or roasted, softer foods, such as avocado or ripe pears, can be offered raw.

We've had a great experience with BLW. Now that Mia has mastered the pincer-grip, she prefers her food served in smaller pieces, and she eats so many different foods. Just this week alone she's eaten cooked celery, green peppers, pasta, kidney beans, acorn squash, tilapia, hummus, avocado (one of her favorites), pears, grapes (another fave), banana, chicken, pork chops, potatoes, pita bread, cucumbers, and probably some other things that I can't remember at the moment. It's fun to share meal times with her, having her at the table with us and letting her join in our dinner conversations. BLW has changed the way my husband and I eat dinner as well. We now sit at the table like a real family instead of in front of the TV and we are trying foods we haven't eaten before. And to think, I would have never heard of this concept had it not been for my mommy community!


Green beans at 6 months

Avocado at 9 months, Mia's Favorite!

The value of a Community Part 1

So a friend of mine from high school, who is basically now just a Facebook friend, is pregnant. Not that this is something out of the ordinary, a lot of my friends (especially FB friends) have had or are having babies. But suddenly, I felt this need to share my knowledge with her. There are all these cool things I know now having a 10 month old that I did not know when she was "brand new" or when I was pregnant. And I realized that most of these things were things I learned from my Babycenter Birthboard. Despite having friends and family with small children and despite reading books about babies, I learned this information from a collection of strangers all over the country. I cannot share all this information in just one post (or FB message to that friend) so I'll start with one very important topic: carseat safety.

I have to give credit where credit is due; the person I learned the most about this topic goes by the screenname of Dela-Where. Not all of the informaton I learned came from her, but much of it did. She taught me the ins and outs of keeping my baby warm in the winter while keeping her safe in her carseat. She pointed out to all of us the importance of not putting our babies in a big puffy jacket or snowsuit and then putting them in the carseat. This is very unsafe because it puffs out and makes the straps looser so that baby is not a snug in her seat as she should be. In one extreme case, during a car accident, a baby was ejected from a carseat with the winter coat still buckled in.

Similarly, those BundleMes and similar carseat blankets are not safe either. These things are considered "aftermarket" and not manufactured to fit in specific carseats (and will validate your carseat warrantee if you're ever in an accident). Since they don't usually line up with the seatbelt slots, they re-route the seatbelt straps, making them longer and therefore looser on the baby. Once again, looser seatbelts equal less safety in an accident. How should you keep your baby warm in the winter then? Put them in a thin, fleece jacket or snow suit, warm up your car before putting the baby in it, and cover the baby with a blanket when going outside. There are also some products that can be purchased that keep baby warm while staying safe, such as a carseat poncho and infant seat covers that stretch over the top like a showercap.

Finally, I learned about extended rear facing (ERF) for children on my Babycenter Birthboard. The law in most states is that babies should be rear facing until 20lbs AND 1 year of age. So the general thinking goes that once the baby is a year old and weighs 20 lbs, the child should be in a front-facing carseat. While this is compliant with the law, it is not safest for your baby. Leaving your baby rear facing for as long as possible is safest for your baby, since in the case of a front end collision (more common that rear-end collisions) the baby's head will snap forward when front-facing which can sever the spinal cord causing paralysis or even death. For this reason, we will be rear-facing Mia until she is at least 2 years old, if not longer.