Before I learned about BLW, my husband and I were so ready to start making healthy puree baby food, we got a set of Magic Bullet; and while also trying to avoid plastic I bought silicon bowls and spoons. Soon after I learned about BLW, went ahead and got the one and only book by Gill Rapley, and I decided this is the best thing to do for my baby, and also the laziest way for me the parent. I quickly returned the Magic Bullet and was ready for my adventure. My husband was super excited about BLW, he has always had the image of a cute baby eating real food and making a mess. When my daughter hit 6 months we started her first foods with boiled broccoli, carrot, and chicken, and also supplemented her with chlorella. She ate a little bit, but played with it more. I was not worried since I have no plans to wean at certain time, nurse on demand, and solids under one is just for fun anyway. In the beginning, she tries to eat and play with the food a lot, it was a messy deal.
But after few months, she grew tired of this game. It has never connected to her that food is for eating and can fill her up, if she is hungry she will cry for the breast, but if she just nursed, then she will not eat at all. But then there will be those days, though not enough of them, that she will pick up food and eat again. She has gotten neater though, food no longer is all over her face and floor, and she probably ingested maybe a teaspoon at most the whole day. It is very discouraging when you have a baby that doesn’t respond to food well when you see all other people’s babies just can’t get enough of it. When you read about BLW, they always tell you about the success stories of how their babies learned to eat quicker, developed better fine motor skills, and how other parents envy them. None of that happened with my daughter, as a matter of fact, I looked like a horrible parent most of the time with BLW. “How is that enough? She needs more nutrient than breast milk? You need to feed her.” Which by the way though, she has never shown any sign of lacking nutrient at the doctors, growing well physically and reaching developmental milestones. “She is going to choke!” My daughter also happens to be a strong gagger, so she often gagged and vomited when BLWing, which doesn’t help in trying to convince others either. Soon, she started to refuse sitting in the high chair, I resorted to putting a snack tray out for her and not force her to sit during meal time, this does mean messy food everywhere, but at this point, I am willing to do anything that will make her eat something. The food most of the time just goes to waste. At her age now, I start to worry what if she has some kind of oral aversion, what if she has some kind of digestive issues that I don’t know about.
But now for some good news, one day at 16 months, I was eating some lasagna leftover from Olive Garden, my daughter climbed up the couch next to me and grabbed my fork, she shoved a tiny bite into her mouth. Afterwards, she kept on signing for more, and wanted me to feed her more. I didn’t have a lot of leftover left at that point, but she finished it all for me, I was shocked. Then the next few days she would come to me whenever I am eating dinner and want me to feed her, she would not grab the whole pieces of food I leave her, but wants what is on my spoon. I thought, maybe she wants to use utensil, but even after I give her a set, she still goes after mine and wants me to do the work for her. Happy that she is finally starting to eat, but also frustrated how she wants to be fed instead. Her food intake is roughly one tablespoon for the whole day at that point. Fast forward to today, she will grab onto some fruits and self feed while roaming around, she still wants me to do the feeding work for her, but is not blindly letting me feed her, she will actually let me know which food that she wants from my plate and ask to be fed that particular food. I am estimating her intake has increased to about 3 tablespoon for the whole day now, with most of the food eaten during the evening. But there are still days that she will eat nothing. She still nurses like a newborn, but at least now I know nothing is physically wrong with her, and I just need to continue offering until she slowly eats more. But one thing I am proud of myself for, is that I have always offered her healthy food and no processed sugar. My daughter has a pretty healthy taste bud so far, the couple times that she got her hands on sugary junk from friends, she either didn’t eat it at all, or tasted it and spat it out. So far I have convinced no one that BLW is a good approach, but I believe that even though some babies take longer to start eating, overall it is a good approach that leads to healthy eating. I will just have to wait even longer to see if it is true.
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