About Me

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I live in Kent with my husband, toddler Tilly (henceforth known as Monkey) and another baby due in November. We have two cats, Duncan and Lady Macbeth, and four chickens who kindly lay us eggs daily. We live in the picturesque seaside town of Broadstairs. I enjoy reading, knitting and cooking. I'm trying to be a bit 'greener' (not sure how successfully), and to be a gentle parent. Extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping don't freak me out, we use cloth nappies and try to follow some of the ideals of Attachment Parenting. If that sounds as if I know what I'm doing, I don't! I am also a psychotherapist with an interest in Focusing-oriented therapy, and I have a small private practice in the area.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

And suddenly, overnight, she gets it!

'It' being 'Eating'. She is nine months and three weeks old, and today is the first time I can say that she has taken and eaten solid food by herself. At lunchtime she nibbled on a cheese sandwich, and this afternoon she (we, actually!) demolished a chocolate chip muffin (see evidence!). So this evening I thought, let's go for it, and cooked her a fish finger and some roasted sweet potato. She picked the potato up straight away and put it in her mouth, before moving on to the fish finger. She didn't eat very much of that, deciding instead to feed it to Duncan (puss) who was waiting patiently underneath the table. It was such a joy to watch her.

I was finding it hard to keep faith that eventually she would start to eat by herself. And I know that lots of lovely mamas on the forums and here in Blogland have reassured me that it would happen, but it was just so hard to trust, particularly as her weight kept dropping.
How I wish I hadn't bothered spooning all of that mush in (okay, regrets are fine but I'm not going to beat myself up over what is already done). It did nothing to her weight, in fact, she has dropped from the 2nd centile to under the 0.4th since "weaning". I think her new high chair might have something to do with this sudden development. We sold the hideous giant plastic contraption on eBay and bought a Stokke Tripp Trapp. They are pretty pricey but I would have sold my Granny for one now! It is much easier to clean, but more importantly it sits right at the table and there is no tray in the way. Fantastic. Plastic tablecloth, dustpan and brush, et voila. Tomorrow we are off to Portugal to spend a weekend with DH, and I'm not going to pack any jars. I can't wait for us all to eat together as a family.

My next baby will be entirely baby-led weaned!

7 comments:

Daisie said...

Hurrah for you and Tilly, big hugs and high-fives all round!!!

All three of my children have eaten differently, Elizabeth was still almost exclusively breastfed at a year and took forever to eat (and like Tilly fell off the bottom of the chart), while Francesca was always huge and always hungry and was eating three meals a day and as many snacks as she could fit in by six months! Nathaniel was eating three meals(ish) by nine months and now eats everything we do at 21 months.

I don't think that the baby they wrote all the books about actually exists!!!!

Have a lovely break with hubby!

XXX

Joxy34 said...

:) wooohoooooo. excellent news

Although don't expect her weight to shoot up honey - not unless she suddenly starts eating giant meals lol. Just enjoy the joy of watching her sampling new foods (cos that's what she's doing - sampling)

And yah! chuck the jars :) (well recycle, you know what I mean) hehehe.

and have fun in Portugal.

Joxy.

arwen_tiw said...

Celebrating with you! :) Way to go, Tilly!

Laura said...

Yay! Great news.
Enjoy. Its so much fun watching them eat!

Laura/Mamoo x

Emma said...

Fantastic - and yay for baby-led weaning. The next few months are going to be lots of fund - and extremely MESSY!

laura (warmthandlight) said...

How lovely to find your beautiful blog! Your pics of Monkey are divine. Congrats for the eating developments, and I hope you had a good time in Portugal. Very jealous. Cheers, sol y luna.

Antoinette said...

How adorable! Your wee one looks as though she's relishing her food and enjoying the experience of solids thoroughly.

I got so much pressure to get my baby on solids from the age of four months, and she just wasn't ready. My girl ended up being about 9 months like yours before she really embraced it all. They're all different aren't they?