You know one thing I really appreciate about BLW thus far. No battles. He eats what he wants and leaves what he doesn't. I really think that's the way to go. I know there's people that would disagree and go on about nutrition and this and that. I could see that if I was giving him veggies and ice cream all the time and he chooses to eat only the ice cream. But I'm making healthy choices for our family and he's being exposed to those healthy things. I'm not saying that I've never made a bad choice, because we ordered pizza over the weekend. So, I am human. BUT, overall he's presented with healthy items and he picks and chooses which of them to eat. I feel that it's extremely respectful of him as a person. I mean, I'd be pissed if someone told me I HAD to eat brussel sprouts. I HATE them and I know I'll make up that nutrition in other ways.
As Boo gets older I plan to continue the spirit of BLW. Granted he won't be a baby anymore. But I don't think that once he's two or three or whatever we'll all of a sudden decide now we have to change the way he's presented with food. I grew up under the "clean your plate" mentality. And look where that got me. I'm just in the past year learning how to make healthy choices and prepare healthy meals. I'm proud to say that I now shop the perimeter of the grocery store, which is the "healthy" thing to do. I also incorporate lots of vegetables and legumes into our diet. I'm getting better at it as I do this more and more. But anyways, my point is that if I'm just now learning how to eat healthy at 29 years old, then the "clean your plate" mentality did nothing for me as far as healthy eating goes. Just something to consider.
Some food for thought. Okay - I just HAD to throw in the bad pun!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Yesterday's Picnic
Yesterday we had a picnic. Boo ate really nicely. He sat on the blanket for part of the picnic and then he sat on my lap for a bit too. He had cold sesame noodles. I got the recipe off of one of the vegetarian blogs I've been reading:
Cold Sesame Noodle recipe
You'll have to do a search, but you'll find it. Anyways, it's a great recipe. I've made it twice in the past couple of weeks as we strive to be more vegetarian-like lately. Boo loves it even though it's got a bit of a kick to it with the red pepper flakes. It was perfect to take to a picnic.
I took some homemade salsa with my fresh garden tomatoes. YUMMM!!! This is the first time that I've gotten to make my salsa with tomatoes from my garden. It was so good. Anyways, Boo had a bit of that on top of some melba toast.
And then of course he had blueberries. It wouldn't be a summer picnic without some fresh fruit. He did so well sitting on the blanket and eating. I was pretty impressed with him!
Cold Sesame Noodle recipe
You'll have to do a search, but you'll find it. Anyways, it's a great recipe. I've made it twice in the past couple of weeks as we strive to be more vegetarian-like lately. Boo loves it even though it's got a bit of a kick to it with the red pepper flakes. It was perfect to take to a picnic.
I took some homemade salsa with my fresh garden tomatoes. YUMMM!!! This is the first time that I've gotten to make my salsa with tomatoes from my garden. It was so good. Anyways, Boo had a bit of that on top of some melba toast.
And then of course he had blueberries. It wouldn't be a summer picnic without some fresh fruit. He did so well sitting on the blanket and eating. I was pretty impressed with him!
Cleaning Boo
I decided to post this as there were some questions about cleaning children during the BLW process. I am by no means an expert. I've just found some things that work for us and if it can help someone else in their journey, then that's wonderful. Anyways, first thing that helps is a good highchair. Nothing with cloth. I've never had a highchair with cloth on it, but I can only imagine the horrible mess it would be. Crevices are bad too as they will get filled with gunk. We use the antilop highchair from IKEA and I couldn't be happier with the choice. There are some cuter options out there, but honestly, I don't feel a need to have something with animal or nursery print in the middle of my kitchen. Here's a link to the highchair in case you're looking for one:
IKEA Highchair
The tray comes separately so be sure to get the tray also!
Good full-coverage bibs. I've read on my BLW yahoo group that some people are using muslin tied around the baby. I think that would also do the job quite nicely. Here's what I use:
I-Play Bibs
One thing I've done is put some soap and water in a spray bottle. I use Dr. Bronner's, but you can use any mild soap that you like. Often I will spray Boo down before he even leaves the highchair. Then I may follow with a wet paper towel. If he's not that messy I may skip the initial spraying and just carry him to the sink to wash his hands in the faucet. One day after blackberries I just plopped his entire body into the sink for an impromptu bath. Most days though I just get what I can. If there's food dangling from his hair I'll scrub his head with the cloth and get the food out and send him on his way to play!
So hopefully this will be helpful to someone in the journey of BLW!
IKEA Highchair
The tray comes separately so be sure to get the tray also!
Good full-coverage bibs. I've read on my BLW yahoo group that some people are using muslin tied around the baby. I think that would also do the job quite nicely. Here's what I use:
I-Play Bibs
One thing I've done is put some soap and water in a spray bottle. I use Dr. Bronner's, but you can use any mild soap that you like. Often I will spray Boo down before he even leaves the highchair. Then I may follow with a wet paper towel. If he's not that messy I may skip the initial spraying and just carry him to the sink to wash his hands in the faucet. One day after blackberries I just plopped his entire body into the sink for an impromptu bath. Most days though I just get what I can. If there's food dangling from his hair I'll scrub his head with the cloth and get the food out and send him on his way to play!
So hopefully this will be helpful to someone in the journey of BLW!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Toddlerhood
Well, it's been a long time. I'm afraid that I've neglected this blog. Bad bad. And here I had this vision of helping to bring BLW to moms in the US. I guess I have to keep up the blog if I'm going to be of inspiration to everybody.
So here's where we're at. Boo loves to eat and I get excited about the variety of things that he loves. He's tried my homemade salsa - which does have a bit of a kick to it - and he loves it. Just this last week I discovered that he LOVES chickpeas and lentils. The chickpeas I shouldn't be suprised as he loves humus. The lentils he really chowed down on. We tried scrambled tofu today...a new one for both of us. Boo LOVED it and so did I. It was extremely tasty.
I can tell he's entering toddlerhood though in that he definitely has those picky days that are so typical of this stage. There are days that he'd eat nothing but fruit if he could. In the spirit of BLW I try to let him pick and choose for himself. However, I've found that if fruit is part of the meal I must hide it until the end. I found out the hard way that too much fruit makes for really awful diapers. And since we're doing cloth diapering it's even worse. I won't go into detail, but I'm sure you can imagine!
We're in "extended breastfeeding" now. In the US pretty much anything past a year is considered "extended breastfeeding." How sad since so many other countries don't think anything of breastfeeding beyond a year. So Boo is 13 months now. I haven't gotten any weird looks yet for continuing to nurse him, but I imagine as he gets older the looks will come. The World Health Organization recommends that children be breastfed until the age of two at least. So that's my goal. I really want as much as possible to allow Boo to take the lead on his weaning, rather than forcing my own agenda on him. I've been trying to do some reading on extended breastfeeding. Perhaps when I get some time I'll post some links to articles and such.
So here's where we're at. Boo loves to eat and I get excited about the variety of things that he loves. He's tried my homemade salsa - which does have a bit of a kick to it - and he loves it. Just this last week I discovered that he LOVES chickpeas and lentils. The chickpeas I shouldn't be suprised as he loves humus. The lentils he really chowed down on. We tried scrambled tofu today...a new one for both of us. Boo LOVED it and so did I. It was extremely tasty.
I can tell he's entering toddlerhood though in that he definitely has those picky days that are so typical of this stage. There are days that he'd eat nothing but fruit if he could. In the spirit of BLW I try to let him pick and choose for himself. However, I've found that if fruit is part of the meal I must hide it until the end. I found out the hard way that too much fruit makes for really awful diapers. And since we're doing cloth diapering it's even worse. I won't go into detail, but I'm sure you can imagine!
We're in "extended breastfeeding" now. In the US pretty much anything past a year is considered "extended breastfeeding." How sad since so many other countries don't think anything of breastfeeding beyond a year. So Boo is 13 months now. I haven't gotten any weird looks yet for continuing to nurse him, but I imagine as he gets older the looks will come. The World Health Organization recommends that children be breastfed until the age of two at least. So that's my goal. I really want as much as possible to allow Boo to take the lead on his weaning, rather than forcing my own agenda on him. I've been trying to do some reading on extended breastfeeding. Perhaps when I get some time I'll post some links to articles and such.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Eating Machine
Boo is an eating machine. He doesn't turn his nose up at too many things. According to grandma, he does not like honeydew melon or brussel sprouts. I'm not with him during the day so I haven't seen him try these foods yet, but I can't say I blame him on either accounts. I don't care for honeydew or brussel sprouts. He loves avocado which grosses grandma out to no end. She hates avocado.
Dinner can be hit or miss depending on how busy the night gets. I'm trying to be more consistent with it. But I do keep reminding myself "Food is for fun until one." That's my favorite BLW saying and I repeat it to myself when I'm feeling incompetent due to a less than wonderful spread for that night's dinner. It's very hard to be a working mother and accomplish all of the tasks that I want to do in a day. And BLW can be messy and time-consuming. I think it's time consuming in that you're not able to just spoon-feed something in quickly. However, it saves time because baby eats at the same time that you do! It's just the mess afterwards that gets a bit old. But it's all in the fun of being a parent I suppose.
Boo loves baked beans. He thinks they're wonderful. I'm not a fan of baked beans and it's not something we have often at all. But he's had them two or three times.
I let him try a bit of dairy now that he's a bit older. Just some cheese. He thinks cheese is pretty spectacular. Is there a kid out there that doesn't like cheese?
Well, anyways, this is just a little bit of this and that to kind of talk about our progress.
Dinner can be hit or miss depending on how busy the night gets. I'm trying to be more consistent with it. But I do keep reminding myself "Food is for fun until one." That's my favorite BLW saying and I repeat it to myself when I'm feeling incompetent due to a less than wonderful spread for that night's dinner. It's very hard to be a working mother and accomplish all of the tasks that I want to do in a day. And BLW can be messy and time-consuming. I think it's time consuming in that you're not able to just spoon-feed something in quickly. However, it saves time because baby eats at the same time that you do! It's just the mess afterwards that gets a bit old. But it's all in the fun of being a parent I suppose.
Boo loves baked beans. He thinks they're wonderful. I'm not a fan of baked beans and it's not something we have often at all. But he's had them two or three times.
I let him try a bit of dairy now that he's a bit older. Just some cheese. He thinks cheese is pretty spectacular. Is there a kid out there that doesn't like cheese?
Well, anyways, this is just a little bit of this and that to kind of talk about our progress.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Boo's First Highchair Meal
Well, our highchair came yesterday. We got the Antilop highchair from IKEA. The price is right and it's nice because there are no crevices. So it's spray and wipe. Very easy to clean. And we sure put it to the test. Last night was tacos. Silly mommy only bought hard shells, so Boo didn't get any taco shell. But he got taco meat (ground beef), black refried beans, and homemade guacamole. Boy did he love that! I got pics, but of course will have to wait to get them developed. He was quite a mess by the time that he was done. I didn't know where to start! One thing about BLW is it is very very messy. I think I've griped about that before. I wouldn't trade it for anything though because he LOVES his food. None of this spitting it out at us or trying to push it away. He can't get to it fast enough most days. He eats such a variety of things too. Grandma's been doing a great job giving him breakfast and lunch. While I'm not so naive to think she's not sneaking in some spoon feeding here and there, she really does follow the self-feeding quite well. So I'm pretty excited about that. He's definitely with great people while I work. But I guess that's off topic. Well, anyways, I have to run. I just wanted to update again!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
So Many Foods, So Little Time
Hello there! I am guilty of getting behind on my blogging. I admit that since returning to work this has dropped on my priority list a bit. I really do want to learn to keep up with these blogs though. So I'll keep trying.
As far as BLW goes, Boo has had many wonderful things. He eats all three meals a day now. He started breakfasts a couple of weeks ago when I started work. So far it's usually english muffin with fruit or oatmeal with fruit. Although, he doesn't seem to be a big fan of his oatmeal. And lunch was started this week. At this point I'm very unadventurous with lunch and it's usually dinner leftovers from the night before.
Here's some thinks Boo has had:
Steak and smashed potatoes with gravy. He loved sucking on the steak. He absolutely adored the smashed potatoes with gravy. He kept looking at me with this smile on his face. I think he would've been happy just to eat a big pile of gravy, but I won't cater to that!
He's had garlic bread and really thought that was wonderful.
He's had honey mustard chicken.
He's had asparagus and green beans.
BBQ Beef Brisket, baked beans, and cornbread. That was tonight's meal.
I have some film developed that has pics of him eating. As soon as I get the chance I'll post some of those on here.
Oh, and I must say that grandma is doing much better with the BLW. She's the one that feeds him most of the time since I work full time now and has been pretty cooperative. Now I'm not naive enough to think that she doesn't help him along with a spoon on occasion. But I'm going to pick my battles and let this one slide.
As far as BLW goes, Boo has had many wonderful things. He eats all three meals a day now. He started breakfasts a couple of weeks ago when I started work. So far it's usually english muffin with fruit or oatmeal with fruit. Although, he doesn't seem to be a big fan of his oatmeal. And lunch was started this week. At this point I'm very unadventurous with lunch and it's usually dinner leftovers from the night before.
Here's some thinks Boo has had:
Steak and smashed potatoes with gravy. He loved sucking on the steak. He absolutely adored the smashed potatoes with gravy. He kept looking at me with this smile on his face. I think he would've been happy just to eat a big pile of gravy, but I won't cater to that!
He's had garlic bread and really thought that was wonderful.
He's had honey mustard chicken.
He's had asparagus and green beans.
BBQ Beef Brisket, baked beans, and cornbread. That was tonight's meal.
I have some film developed that has pics of him eating. As soon as I get the chance I'll post some of those on here.
Oh, and I must say that grandma is doing much better with the BLW. She's the one that feeds him most of the time since I work full time now and has been pretty cooperative. Now I'm not naive enough to think that she doesn't help him along with a spoon on occasion. But I'm going to pick my battles and let this one slide.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
