Getting ready

Less than a month to go now and we're getting ready! The highchair is already assembled and in the kitchen. We've got the chair from Tchibo that mutates from a high chair into a junior chair, just the same as DS already has. Neither of them have the cushions on though ... it's so much easier to wipe down the wood than get squished food out of cushions! I've bought her a new doidy cup and a couple of free-flow first cups - pink of course! I've also bought a Tiny Diner placemat as the highchair sits right up at the table and doesn't have tray. We have a couple of sleeved bibs from weaning DS but these have seen better days so we have one new one and I'll buy another couple in the coming weeks. We have laminate flooring in the kitchen so no need for a splash mat. I'm getting quite excited about doing BLW now, though lots of people look at me like I have three heads or something when I say that DD won't be having any solds until 6 months and then will go straight to finger foods, no purees. DD sat in her highchair for a few minutes this evening while I had my dinner and she seemed happy in there, she watched DS like a hawk while he ate his dinner!

About us!

Our daughter, DD was born at the beginning of October 2008 so is just approaching 5 months old now. She is bottle-fed formula milk and this seems to satisfy her, but the time is fast aproaching where we need to think about starting to offer her solid foods as well.

We also have a son, DS, who will be 4 at the end of May. As a baby we begun weaning him between 16 and 17 weeks old as it seemed to be a hungrier baby. We started off giving him baby rice and then quickly moved to fruit and vegetable purees which we spoon-fed him. From there we gave him a variety of meals and used an Annabel Karmel book for a lot of recipies. Unfortunately at 16months old he contracted meningitis and went right off food - it took 6 weeks for his body to recover from the cocktail of drugs he was given, and since then he's gone off lots of foods which he previously used to devour. This could well be linked to textures, something which we have now mentioned to our health visitor and the speech therapy team as this can all be related.

Fast forward to October 2008 and our daughter arrived. Since weaning DS I've found out about Baby Led Weaning (thank you online parenting forums!), and have been reading up about it. The book by Gill Rapley is going to be my bible through all of this, I've already read it cover-to-cover and intend to do so at least once more before we embark on the journey at the beginning of April when she turns 6 months.

So, what am I hoping for? Well, I'm hoping that DD will enjoy food, and ultimately will eat a wide variety of things and share meals with us as a family. I'm also hoping that DS might get a bit more adventurous when it comes to food as well. I want to convey to my kids that food is healthy and yummy and fun, and that you can have a bit of everything in moderation so a treat every now and again is OK.