Florence's Adventures of Baby Led Weaning: Party of five

Florence led weaning...

I cant remember quite when or where I first heard about BLW but after reading up on the approach, I decided that BLW was for me, and truly plumpscious of course!
During my pregnancy with Florence I discovered MUCH had changed, sometimes a little radically and at times what seemed a little ridiculously, from when I had carried and reared my two other children. Suddenly there were hundreds of 'must have' little gadgets that it appeared I simply couldn't live without (nor could my as yet unborn child), even though I had done so before. Conversely, so many things were no longer available or deemed safe that my other two had adored or I had indeed found indispensible. Along with the new toys and gadgets I found many of the rules of baby rearing had changed too, most noticibly the guidelines surrounding weaning.
After the arrival of Florence, I found my ears ringing with the many, MANY different opinions on baby weaning and as such found myself searching out the rationale behind the 'guidelines'. It was here I must have stumbled across BLW.
So after devouring all the literature I could find (not a lot-see my links) I decided that BLW was the way to go.
Wish me luck...

Wednesday, 21 November 2007

Party of five

And so dinnertime came and the party of five, Florence with her new highchair, sat down for their first ever meal together...ahh bliss

Or rather mess, slobber, peels of laughter, regurgitated cheese and cucumber bogies.

On a whim (limb?) the usually neatly polished and indecently organised mummy had managed to conjure up a new highchair (bought before birth, previously hidden in the rafters of the garage), large bibs (gift from work colleagues) and organic, free range, dairy/gluten/peanut/wheat/flavour(?) free cucumber, grated cheese (grated to prove a point to Papa that shoving a huge lump in is not the best way) and cracker bread. However due to fact that commencment of FLW (Florence led weaning) was in fact scheduled for late December/early January, Mummy did not have - Floor mat, plate/bowl/table mat, booster cushion and very importantly a drink beaker/cup of some description.

Note to self- compile list of must haves for future reference/other BLW'ers.

So Florence happily munched through her meal (well if you can catagorise sticking food in ones ears, nose, eye and neck, sucking enthusiastically and regurgitating and then reswallowing cheese, as munching) whilst strapped securely (read straightjacket type harnessing) into her highchair, propped gently (read blankets rammed into any spare space) by a blanket and the occasional shove from daddy to keep her upright. She feasted for fifteen minutes or so and was saved from dehydration by Mummy moistening her lips with tiny droplets of perfectly chilled and filtered L'eau du table (read Mummy tipping glass of water all down front of bib and said baby). Finn and Isabella laughed at every attempt and Papa secretly wiped away a tear as he marvelled at the knowledge that his baby girl was all grown up and demanding solids...

Mummy is now spending her day searching the internet for- roll up table mat (tiny diner hippo mat), doidy cups (Babyzoop), non leak (Pah!) beakers (any suggestions my BLW commrades?)booster cushions, tumble dryable bibs (silly Billyz), floor mat (blooming marvellous/ELC); Oh Papa will be pleased...