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When you become a parent - especially when your baby starts weaning - your favourite topics of conversation becomes what they're eating and what comes out the other end.  Having dealt with big brother's extremely fast gastrointestinal tract (changing nappies up to 25 times a day right up to when he was 6 months old and even when he was weaning around 10 times a day) I've seen a lot of baby poo!  What I know is that there is no normal. Only what's normal for your child.  Normal varies quite a bit.  Some babies only poo once a week and some, like big brother, poo a lot more. When you start weaning LO may go more or less often and the colour and smell changes with his diet - becoming more like yours!

This was something I was not looking forward to. As exciting as it is to watch them learn to love food - changing to adult poo is something you just don't get used to. 

LO took 15 days for his poo to change.  I suppose he didn't actually eat anything for a week or so and then only small quantities up until now. He's now graduated to adult poo. Yay. 

I have to add from past experience if LO doesn't eat much on a particular day then their poo goes back to milk poo!

Menu

Day 14: Lunch - chicken with pumpkin, broccoli with fine beans

Day 15: Lunch - banana. Dinner - Beans and carrots and cucumber batons.

Day 16: Lunch - avocado. Dinner - Steamed turbot with ginger and courgettes

Useful links

What is normal baby poo?

Onco 2 in 1 silicone plate and placemat

LO has been progressing really well with his finger food. He's improving his hand eye co-ordination and he is able to target his mouth more often than not though he does get frustrated when he doesn't get what he wants.  

Almost two weeks in we visited Aunt Connie's with great-grandma. I thought how convenient it was not to worry about what LO was having for dinner. I know Aunt Connie cooks healthily and doesn't add salt to her cooking.  LO simply had what we were having for dinner - delicious stir fried chicken with beans and broccoli with steamed cod and ginger.  LO was sitting at the table when we were serving food and great-grandmother asked what LO would be having for dinner.  I replied the same as us.  To my surprise great-grandmother was very critical.  She asked whether we were going to mash it up for him and feed him, how would he get full from it - he would surely choke?!  She commented on how messy it was and then asked whether we'd feed him with anything else afterwards.  She was disapproving of babyled weaning.  She wondered what on earth we were doing. We explained the concept but still heard tuts from under her breath. Luckily Aunt Connie was around to back me up.  Funnily enough she commented on how 1 year old cousin was so clever as he was able to feed himself with a spoon.  Ha - how delighted was I when I mentioned he was baby led weaned too!

Menu

Day 10: Lunch - avocado. Dinner - broccoli stems

Day 11: Lunch - banana. Dinner - carrots

Day 12: Lunch - broccoli. Dinner - Carrots

Day 13: Lunch - steamed potato chips. Dinner - Stir fried chicken, beans and broccoli. Steamed cod with ginger.

Lessons Learned

Don't expect everyone to be impressed that your LO is being baby-led weaned

Useful Links

What to do if my baby is choking

Onco 2 in 1 silicone plate and placemat

Baby Led Weaning Diary

Day 9: Having read that baby led weaning may  mean LO simply plays with his food for quite a while, even up to a year because all his nutritional needs are met by either formula or breast milk,  LO is exclusively breastfed, I had resigned myself that he may not eat anything I give him.  He seemed to enjoy messing and squishing his food but was a long way off from putting food into his mouth.  The closest he'd gotten was up his nose!  I was not too bothered whether he was going to eat unlike his older brother. Big brother did not sleep - still doesn't sleep well and in my mind I associated fuller stomach with longer sleeps! (It doesn't). I'll probably jinx myself now but whether I'm just used to sleep deprivation or it may be that LO sleeps much better than big brother.

Lunch on day 9 were carrot batons.  I have now learnt that they were cut much too thin.  As I steamed them so they are soft when squeezed fingers LO has a strong grip and whenever he grabbed them the baton that was in his hand would break and the top part would fall off.  He would get frustrated and cry! But lo and behold on day 9 he managed to lick a tiny piece of carrot. Oh the joy on his face! And then with persistence he managed to bite a piece of and I think he swallowed it off. Dribble dribble. And a  another go - oooh he managed to bite a larger piece off to chew.  This is when I am sitting with bated breath.  Here comes the gagging or is it choking question.  Cough cough splatter splatter. Swallow. He's ok. It's gagging. And he gives up. I didn't panic but I did probably hold my breath.  Thankfully it didn't last long. It's a good idea to do learn what to do in the event of choking before you start your baby led weaning journey.  

Lessons learned:-Carrot batons need to be chunkier than those usually served up as I had done last week. See image for reference.

Menu:
Day 9:Lunch - banana, Dinner - carrot batons

Day 10:Lunch- broccoli, Dinner - carrot batons

Useful links:

What to do if my baby is choking

Onco 2 in 1 silicone plate and placemat

Big brother has swimming every week and we decided to have an impromptu make our own lunch out.  I forgot about food for the baby! I need to start planning food for LO when we're out.  I stopped taking food out for big brother when he was 2 years old and let him eat the healthiest option I could find. I've gotten out of the habit of it.  Oops.  So we bought ingredients to make a ham, cheese and avocado baguette.  The only thing I felt comfortable giving LO was the avocado. I love avocados. They're like a banana but even healthier - it's actually a superfood - high in fibre, low in carbohydrate and full of healthy fats, vitamins and minerals. I've read that you can leave the skin on so LO can grip the slippery avocado but I found the skin would come off when I peeled some of back anyway.  LO soon got to grips with it - even though he resembled a greens lime monster when he was finished.

Menu

Day 8: avocado slices for lunch, carrot batons, cucumber sticks and rice for dinner

Onco baby bamboo bowl