When to 'Up' meals?

[MrsMagooo]

Hello ladies,

I should know what I'm doing as I have a DD who's 2.6 but my brain has turned to mush lol!!

I started weaning my DS just under 2 weeks ago at just over 21 weeks, I realise this is under the 'guideline' age of 6 months but IMO he honestly did seem ready & he is loving his food.

At the moment he has breakfast (pear or apple mixed in with baby breakfast) & then lunch (so far have tried him on carrot, sweet potato, brocolli carrot & potato, apple & pear. (I make all the purees myself)

Anyway I digress - my question is when would it be ok to 'up' to 3 meals a day??

DS is enjoying his food, he eats very well & still has bottles (he also still wakes in the night to be fed hence we wondering when I can increase to 3 meals) but as I have started weaning before the guidelines I'm unsure as to when it would be ok to increase his meals.

Sorry for the waffle - any advice welcome

nappyaddict - I work in publishing and really enjoy my job - and have worked hard to get to where I am. I dont have to go back for money reasons - its more for the job itself and to keep it up for when the dcs are older.

Its not the job I dislike but the drop offs and pick ups and all the rest of it - thats whats so exhausting about it - especially now my ds is at school so we're adding after school clubs etc to the mix...I used to feel that by the time everyone was up and dressed and fed and to school/nursery and I had done my hour long commute that I had already done a days work...

BTW for anyone who is interested the theory behind BLW and it is just a theory is that the baby will instinctively eat the right mix of food. Also it doesn't matter if one day a baby eats just carbs and the next day just vegetables as long as they eat the right balance of foods over say a week.

GKS - would a nanny be an option until DD is a bit older and then perhaps an au pair if you have the room? Would save all that dropping off/picking up/breakfast/after school club palaver.

As a BLWer, just wanted to add my opinion.
Firstly, Neenztwinz, 'pure' BLW is certainly possible -I've spoonfed my 14 month old a meal maybe 4-5 times in total, all the rest he's eaten himself and somehow he's managed to jump from the 9th to the 50th centile.

And it's easy to give things like spinach as finger food -one of his favourite meals is tomato,cream cheeses and spinach pasta (fusilli), all eaten by hand. Or what about spinach and ricotta pancakes? Or spinach daal with rice (yes, he eats daal and rice with his hands). In fact, the only thing I've come across so far that can't be eaten with hands is yoghurt.

I've nothing against spoonfeeding, just didn't choose to do it ourselves, but some of the 'problems' you have with BLW are not, to my mind, problems at all.

wencelas - as far as DS is concerned all food is finger food!! Even yogurt!

god no - not on my money - a childminder would be easier as she could do both kids and i wouldnt have to do after school but have never done it before and think I would be too picky - ridiculous really as am quite happy for 17 year olds to look after the dd at nursery

the theory is interesting but how do they eat the right balance of foods instinctively if they can only eat whats being put in front of them?or do you offer veg, protein carbs etc every meal and they will eat some of it and not just their fave things?

Oh yes, wenceslasmyeducation, shepherd's pie goes down very well here.

And nappyaddict, I have seen a study somewhere showing that children will select a balanced diet if given a wide variety of healthy food to choose from. Which is what BLW is all about, IMO.

am not convinced though that mine wouldnt just fill up on whatever I gave her first and ignore what came after so it would still be up to me to remember what she ate first the day before or whatever - sorry if am being particularly dim...

Yes,giantkatestacks, that's exactly what we do.Some meals he'll only eat the carbs, sometimes just peas. But it all balances out. Quite often we have the sort of meal where it's all mixed up anyway eg shepherd's pie, daal and rice, frittata. So he gets a bit of everything that way.

and (sorry for all the qs) if you offer them shepherds pie/dhal/spinach pancakes etc then those are already whole balanced meals arent they - so how are they choosing the individual elements to make up a balanced diet?

It is the same as spoon feeding in the sense that you offer a bit of everything over the course of a week to make sure they get the right balance. For instance yesterday he had cereal for breakfast, tuna with pasta for lunch and cheese on toast for dinner so a very carby day but today he had muesli with banana for breakfast, he's got salad and cheese for lunch and stuffed aubergines for dinner so not many carbs at all today.

i never spoon fed dd, not once, i simply couldn't be bothered and it wasn't necessary. she really could eat everything by herself, but i can see how if you are in a major rush then it would be preferable, especially now that i have dd2. nothing is written in stone wrt parenthood.

however, here is a link to her eating spinach, and she'd have demolished your mash in an instant, neenz.

we discussed this once on my blog, what foods are out of reach when blwing. we decided that properly cooked couscous was probably off the menu. overcooked (the way i inevitably do it ) was fine...

DS doesn't often only eat one element of a meal but sometimes he will pick all the veggies out of shepherds pie, then eat the meat and then eat the potato he'll do a similar thing with curry and rice - eat the rice and sauce, then eat the veggies and then eat the meat. he takes sandwiches apart too before he eats them so now i give him the bread and butter and the filling seperately.

and here is a really interesting pointer wrt eating nutritiously (the research was unfinished and unethical, but still interesting).

just as an aside, my DS eats spinach (that chopped frozen stuff) in bolognaise, with his hands.

As a BLW type, I hesitate to post sometimes because of the likelihood that someone will come along and make BLW mafia comments. However, if I think my experience might possibly be relevant, why shouldn't I post it, even if the OP is puree feeding? I have done BLW, so my experience is with finger foods, and with my DS handling his own cutlery. Because I've done it differently is my experience not relevant?

And I though sharing experiences was what mumsnet was all about!

and here's the front page of the WHO thing. note the word 'complementary', that's absolutely key.

i've been asking my young dd's paeds about formula versus food, as i have some sympathy with the idea that formula may be nutritionally less preferable to nice veggies etc, and he just laughed me out of the room, saying it's nutritionally less preferable to BM, but not mashed carrot.

"The World Health Organization's infant feeding recommendation

As stated in the Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding (A55/15, paragraph 10):

Breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants; it is also an integral part of the reproductive process with important implications for the health of mothers. As a global public health recommendation, infants should be exclusively breastfed(1) for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health(2). Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues for up to two years of age or beyond. Exclusive breastfeeding from birth is possible except for a few medical conditions, and unrestricted exclusive breastfeeding results in ample milk production."

I think my only problem with it - and its not a problem is that my 5 year old ds eats everything and has never been a fussy eater and has a fast metabolism so eats lots as well (look at the smugness on me ) and so am reluctant to change the way I do things - does that make sense?

of course it does. like i say, whatever works. and if this baby doesn't like the mash etc, then you'll try something else. it's no biggie.

Well, with 'mixed' type meals I've made an executive decision that that's what we're all eating! I suppose if I wanted to be truly 'baby-led' then he'd get separate components at every meal, but often I don't want to eat like that.
For me that was the main attraction of BLW - everyone eats the same meal, together. Allowing DS to control his appetite and recognise satiety was also important. The balanced diet selection, although interesting and reassuring, is not why we went for BLW. I'm quite happy to be in control of that

yes you're right - I just instinctively dont like any method of any parenting that says - and now you will be doing this - be it feeding or sleeping or whatever - am much happy muddling through doing my own thing. and of course I can cos am on my second but it worries me how much first time mums ask questions about these things like they are set in stone and tbh since my ds was born how styles of parenting seem to have diverged into camps...all not very helpful.

i think it's partly that women are so target orientated in their jobs and also that a lot of people really don't know any small babies until they have their own. i'm the eldest of four, my main piece of baby lore is that they are incredibly robust little creatures and will mostly survive whatever crap parenting they are given.

faintly, i don't know what you mean by the separate elements, by the way. seems to me that the whole point of BLW is to get them eating exactly what the family is eating asap. in the experience of the people who use my blog, we reckon the chopped up specific finger food bit only lasts for a few weeks. after that, pile in.

oh, and faintly, you're completely right about the diet selection, even the woman who did that research acknowledged that she was offering a pretty nutritious palette of food in the first place. (even if it did include sheep brains ).
my dd is 3, i think if i offered her sugary shite every day she would take quite a while to hit the spinach again. so yes, we do need to make sure that we're eating okay to begin with i think.

By separate elements, I meant that DS would be given some mince, some veggies, some mash (to be extra 'pure' I suppose the butter in the mash would have to be separate as well) while DH and I tucked in to shepherd's pie. Which would be ridiculous. But I suppose if you wanted to totally let the baby lead and select his own diet with the minimum of interference this is how you would have to do it. It's certainly not what we do!

In fact, I might just sit my son in front of a pile of raw ingredients and see what happens. Don't want want to interfere with his instincts!

gosh, no, you've totally got the wrong end of the stick there i'm afraid. shepherd's pie with the family is completely the way to go according to anything i've read on BLW. it's got nothing to do with giving them a tapas meal every night to pick and choose from.