Granola Crunchiness

While I've been feeding Emma homemade purees for the past 2 months, what I really love is to feed her real food.  You know, like bits of banana, rice, mango, bread.  It's taking her practice to get really good at eating!  It's true that most of it still ends up on the floor (or in the dog's mouth) but Emma is getting better at getting the food in her mouth.  She's chewing and swallowing really well too!  The art of eating food really is a skill that needs to be mastered!  Though Emma enjoys the purees, I feel like she is getting more out of eating real food.

There's a whole lot of people out there that skip purees entirely and give their babies real food starting at 6 months--it's called baby led weaning.  Now, that does not mean that you should wean your baby from the breast or bottle at 6 months;  up until a year old, a baby's primary source of nutrition should be breastmilk or formula.  The whole point of eating up until a year is really for the practice of it and to try different foods.  It really doesn't matter if half of the food (or more) ends up on the floor in the beginning!  We're not counting calories here!

Sunday night, we met friends for dinner at a local Thai restaurant and Emma feasted on brown rice, mango, lychees and sticky rice!  Yum!  Doesn't she look like she's enjoying her dinner?

I'm liking this blog for baby led weaning information! And it doesn't have to be all or nothing!  We'll still spoon-feed some foods to Emma but I'd like to feed her more and more in this way.