Baby spoon eating and the end of this journey

After a couple of posts we did not have time to continue this blog, which is a shame as we got a lot of fun and messy experience. I just want to let you know how it all ended if you are interested in baby led weaning.

Tisa has now 16 months and she is the best eater in the kinder garden. She eats everything and a lot. We have never had any problems. The only time she eats a small portion or nothing at all is when she is coming with a flew or something similar. We have really learned to trust her appetite. If she does not want to eat her yogurt in the morning there is a reason...so we offer her something else. If she does not want to eat at all we let her be. Otherwise, she is always eager to try to eat everything we are eating. The other day she tried some mustard, at the first try she made some faces but then she took the mustard and continued to eat it with her spoon. So today she eat by her self with her spoon and drinks with he own little hand. She has become a Self eater.

If you have any questions or need some advice, let us know we will be happy to help.

Good luck.

A, H and T

Sharing plates

Tisa has got her appetite back!! Finally, she has started to eat, probably due to the fact that her stool is regular now. In the morning for breakfast I have started to give her yogurt every morning while I eat my cereals. Maybe soon I could introduce some cereals to her too. She has started to show very determinedly when she has had enough, and if I do not take her away from the table in that moment she startes to play with the food by putting some water on it and then stirs it around on the table. Or just the regular fun, throws everything on the floor.

Tisa has started to notice what I have on my plate. If it is not the same as hers she will not eat it. This happens now on every meal. She starts to reach for the food on my plate and if I give her a piece to she gladly eats it. She also refuses to eat by her self, even if I sit besides her every time. It has happend that she is sleeping when we have to eat lunch and when she wakes up I try to give her something to eat but she does not seem so interested. She will take a bite or two but not more. When we sit the whole family and eat all together she focuses on eating and now eats a nice amount of everything. My parents love to watch her eat. This does not either work for our Tisa, as she sees that she is in the center of attention she starts to make faces and play with her food. At the end, the only thing that works is the most natural one, the whole family eats together and shares the same food.

Now Tisa has had the opportunity to try some traditional bosnian cuisine from the grandmother: ocra with meat, pita with spinach (pie) and some lepina (bread). She really loves it all.

Travelling

It is time for us to take our first trip to Sweden and visit Tisas grandparents. It will be a big adjustment for Tisa, or better say a big change. We have packed all her eating gear, which is not a lot of things. I packed her siperak..., plastic cover... a spoon and a plastic tanjir.... and her sipping mug for water. It will be interesting to see how everybody will react on Tisas eating manners and the mess.

Tisas has become constipated as we have arrived. Only the forth day of the stay she has been pooing a little bit. I do not know is it because she previously has been sick, or is it because her stool is changing due to the consumption of food or is it just the change of diet for the mother. Her stool has become completely solid, as before it was half solid and half liquid from breastfeeding. Once again she has started to loose her appetite, and she breastfeeds very often, especially during the night as she frequently wakes up. I will try to it only vegetables, and some plum juice to in this way also help Tisa on the way with her stool.

For now I have given her some yogurt, I put it on the spoon for her and then give it to her. It is the only food she really loves. Other usual food she eats, but very small pieces, just two to three bites and then she has had enough.

Getting sick and taking a break of eating

Recently we got the stomach flew, both Tisa and my self. At the same time, Tisa previously had also a cold so for a few days she was really sick and has refused to eat. She just goes on breastfeeding, maybe a little bit more than usual but she seems not to be interested in the food we offer her. She will take some in her hands, maybe also taste it but will fast throw it on the floor. Anyways we continu to put her with us around the table when eating time, she does not mind, even if she has lost her appetite  She play with the food and we eat our dinner.

The only fruit she really still will eat for a while is orange. I just give her a piece by piece, and she suck out all the juice out of it and then continuos to the next one. That is great, as some vitamine C will not heart her.

Second week

Second week of self eating went on much as the first one. We are still in the playing with food stage and then some pieces end up being eaten. However, we see every day progress with handling of the food. Couple of days Tisa went through the chopping of the food into small pieces. She will take a piece of apple and then chop it into small pieces with the mouth and spit it out. When eating an apple she ends up with perfect sliced pieces of apple infront of her, all of the same size.

Some of the food she does not like as; potato, carrot and rice. I have tried to give it in varies methods, as putting rice on the bread, on the spoon or just putting it infront of her, but she ends up spitting it out very fast.

Her favorit vegetables are when made in the oven. We just slice into finger shape various vegetables as; potato, carrot, onion, and zuccine. She eat the whole zuccine piece and even some potato and carrot. This way of preparing the food is nicer for her then as we usually do it on the vapor because it ends up much more crispy on the outside and more soft in the inside, with more juice.

Tisas father tried also to feed her with mush potatoes, but she firmly refused. She does not want us to feed her at all, she took fast the spoon from his hands and putted it in the mouth her self. She has already got use to be in control of her food, and trying to take it from her does not seem possible.

Baby-led-weaning photo gallery

Here are some photos from the first week of baby led weaning. We tried to give her a taste of almost everything we eat and there was nothing she refused. Some things are difficult to handle, but the taste of every single food is interesting and worth trying.

Spinach and tomato.

Trying to use a spoon with yogurt.

This orange toy is fun.

Radicchio Trevigiano is best.

This ćevapčići thing is super.

After eating it is good to drink some water, blurp.

OK, grilled calamari is in competition with ćevapčići.

Uuuuh, I do not think I can finish this last slice of pizza ... 

Orange mmm 

Highchair

After few weeks of struggling with the table attached chair we started looking for an alternative. As Tisa is pretty messy while eating the cleaning of the chair was becoming time consuming as it has to be dettached from the table and handwashed.
As we wanted Tisa to be seated with us by the table, we didn't want some ugly plastic multicolored baby chair with the attached special table. We were left with usual scandinavian options: Ikea and Stokke. We already mentioned previously you that design is our weak point so at the end we opted for TripTrap. Because of the high price we are trying to look at it as an investment. It has 7 years warranty and even adults can use it as a chair, so we think that Tisa will write her master thesis sitting on it :)

It is so easy to clean, baby loves to seat in it because it gives her lots of movement freedom it and for us, well it's a good looking chair. So, welcome to the new chair.

First week experiences

The first week of Tisa's learning to eat has past. We have not started easy on her, we wanted to try many things, maybe too soon, but we did it that way. The result is that already after a couple of days we could find food traces in the morning nappy.

We have tried everything from cooked and raw vegetables, fruits and pasta (fusilli) with ragù alla bolognese (without salt). She took a fusilli in her mouth and sucked outt all the juicy part and then spitted out the fusilli. I tried in later occasions to give her the sauce on a piece of bread, and she eat on it for really long time. The sauce food ends up being very messy. Vegetables are for sure the easiest and less messy food. Tisa has already some favorits. Tomato is the winner, she sucks on it until it is just skin left. Overall she likes everything that has some juice in it. As for lettuce and similar vegetables she does not find it so rewarding and she fast gives it up. Zucchini, just grilled in the pan were a success. Like with tomato she sucked on it and took a lot of meat with her in the mouth.

Every time she gets a bigger piece of food in the mouth she quickly spits it out. Pear and strawberries are her favorite fruit. Bananas are too slippery and it is hard to grab them, as for this reason we do not give it to her often. We read that apples might be hard to digest for babies, so to be on the safe side we have slowed down with those. But we didn't stop. We gave her even a lemon to try, she made some funny faces but continued eating it. She loved also a raw onion, getting a bit frustrated at the beginning as she bite too hard and the rings broke. The lemon and onion caused some wider family concerns, people thought that we are crazy to give things like that to a six-month-old. But we believe that it is important to try everything to see by our self how she will react and to teach her and learn from her what is the best way to proceed.

After every meal or fruit we give her some water, and she gladly drinks it.

The mess is still kind of a problem as she always finds a way to get wet or dirty, so a change of clothes is always necessary. Cleaning and changing her after the meal makes her become fussy. We thought that it might be because she wants to eat more. From now on we will leave her to eat until she wants to. She is still kind of slow ;)

Six-month old eating raw onion

Well, actually she didn't eat it, she was giving bytes and chewing some before spitting it. But at the end she seems to have had fun and wants more! We love raw onions especially with ćevapčići.

Solid food or tasteful soft toys

Apple, broccoli, carrot, potato, banana  Ok, might be too much variety for the first meal but we just wanted to have fun watching her do different face expressions. We gave her fruit between meals, so she in total had four meals the first day, we only skipped breakfast.
It was bit of a mess but not too much. Azra is insisting on the plastic dress. Maybe she's right, we had to change Tisa completely after the meal and Azra had to put all her clothes to wash. I think that maybe a plastic bib, with food collector also, could get the job done. So eventualy we decided to try with a bib.
We did not put anything on the floor under the chair, we just washed it after the meal as we washed the table. Having a baby eating above a carpet actually might be a problem, but wooden, stone or ceramic floor is easy to clean.

As we read online, the food waste could be an issue, but if you do not have problem eating a pieace of an apple after your baby sucked on it for a while, or give a wash to a carrot picked from the floor, then there is almost no waste.

As for the food, we didn't bother much, we cut food in long handy stick-like pieces and gave it to her. We think that she already swallowed some of it as we heard some gulp sounds! For the rest, she liked the apple very much, we overcooked broccoli, carrot and potatoe so she mostly mashed them and played with it on the table. I believe she thinks that these are soft tasteful toys, nothing else.
We gave her also a raw carrot and it appeared much more interesting to her. Next time we will cook vegetables hard as we are cooking for us. Banana is fun from the beginning  but as more she licks, it gets more slippery and after a while she can not grip it anymore.



We tried to give her some water also, that she liked a lot. But we did not have a proper baby glass, instead we used small cups we found in the house (avoid glass). She could not manage it by her self, it was water everywhere. We ended up given it to her by holding the cup our selfs, it worked but we would like her drinking by using her own hands, so a baby cup would be necessary.