Let's Talk Baby Weaning // Easy Ways to Prep Solids for Babies

On the day I'm writing this post Marcus has turned 8 months old.  He eats 3 meals a day and eats a lot during those meals.  We moved quickly (I think) from purees to solids and he's been having fun with all of it.  At about 5 months we started rice cereal, then we moved onto jarred purees at about 6 months.  At about 7 months we'd progressed to eating soft things like puffs and mashed fruit.  And now at 8 months we're fully on board with Chex, eggs, pancakes, chicken, fish, cut meat balls, cut strawberries, green beans, pasta...I mean he eats a lot of stuff.  Most of the time we just modify what we're eating for meals for him and he's loving it.

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I was super afraid to start solid foods because choking was awfully terrifying for me.  But I really did let Marcus lead the way and if he seemed interested we went for it.  If I could squish it between my tongue and the roof of my mouth I felt confident to give it to him.  Obviously you'll want to talk to your pediatrician about starting and continuing foods and food sizes, etc.  But there are a lot of resources online about traditional weaning, baby led weaning, and accelerated traditional weaning, books galore on the topic & other mommas out there that you trust can be a huge support system!  I think ultimately with Marcus's readiness, we went with accelerated traditional weaning.  Here are some definition breakdowns:

What are the Different Types of Weaning?

Traditional Weaning - this is when you start to offer purreed solids along side the baby's diet of breast milk or formula.  Most baby food manufacturers follow a system that involves different stages of foods based on age.  You'll start with stage 1 foods which are single ingredient, smooth pureed fruits or veggies for babies ages 4-6 months.  Then you'll move up to a stage 2 for babies 7-8 months which combine foods at a slightly thicker texture to introduce new tastes and textures.  Then to stage 3 for 9-12 month babies which are chunkier in texture and must be chewed.  Then you final out with table foods after 12 months old.

Baby Led Weaning - this is a method of introducing foods so that a baby starts to 'self-feed' as soon as they are introduced to solids.  You are also offering food to compliment their diet of breast milk or formula but instead of spooning food into the baby's mouth they are exploring food at their own pace.  While each method focuses on the idea of baby's readiness, BLW focuses on providing table foods in appropriate shapes so that a baby may reach, grab, pick up, and self feed.  This method also allows for spoon feeding of foods like oatmeal and yogurt so that a child can learn to self-feed with a spoon.

Accelerated Traditional Weaning - this method combines the two above when starting to complement a baby's diet of breast milk or formula.  Accelerated weaning takes into account babies readiness for foods and moves from purees to softer and then to solid foods more quickly.  This method offers purees and then softer solid foods to encourage the oral skills needed to eat more advanced foods.  The recommendations here are that a food should be squishable or dissolve so that the child can learn to move food around in their mouths and chew.  Offering purees and solids at the same meal, one at a time, can be helpful to develop these oral skills.

Like I mentioned above we totally followed Marcus's lead and when it seemed he was interested in food and interested in what mommy and daddy ate, we offered it to him.  Again, be sure to check with your pediatrician when it comes to offering solids.  I'm not offering any medical advice here, just sharing my experiences!

Three Ways to Prepare Solids Easier

I can hardly decide what I want to eat and now I've got to feed a baby an actual breakfast/lunch/dinner as well!?! This was overwhelming to me at first but as I slowly built the repertoire of foods Marcus would eat I found simple ways to offer them.  Here are 3 tips I have to prepare food for your little one.

Microwave Eggs

Something super simple to make for a baby is scrambled eggs.  But you may have to dirty a pan and a few utensils if you make them traditionally.  And sometimes in the morning I'm not eating a full on breakfast like I'm going to feed him!  Shallow salad bowls work best for this method of cooking eggs - simply crack and egg into the bowl, scramble, and microwave at 30 second intervals until cooked through.  You can an easier prepared egg and it's easier for them to grab with the second tip below.

Cut foods with a Pizza Cutter

Slicing up foods like the scrambled eggs above or pancakes or toast can be made much, much easier with a pizza cutter!  I spread some leftover puree on toast or a pancake and cut it into bite sized pieces with the pizza cutter.  No more knifing up the food and squishing it while dragging the knife through.  Less crumbs when it comes to cutting toast too!

Personal Blender for Meat

We've offered Marcus both chicken and shrimp after its been blended in our Nutribullet. Of course you can use a regular blender but a small blender like the Nutribullet (or any other personal blender) means you're not dirtying up extra parts and pieces.  You can store the leftover blended meat in the cup with a cap for a day or two and not have to empty it into another container and then clean your whole blender.  Plus I throw my blender blade thing into the dishwasher (not sure if you're supposed to) so it's way easier to clean.  (Honestly, if it can't survive the dishwasher, I don't want it in my house!)

Starting Marcus on solid foods has been and adventure.  I started off super scared he'd choke but gagging and what not is learning.  It is super important to listen to your baby as they start eating food.  I didn't think we'd go the accelerated route and BLW kinda freaked me out but as he developed skills I felt confident following him and also challenging him with textures.  We run into things that he has trouble with or doesn't like and we work through it.  Just the other day we tried something I can only liken to a thicker veggie soup and it was hard for him to navigate the smooth and chunky and chewy texture.  Which is fine, he'll develop skills like that as we progress.

I hope this post helped you navigate feeding your baby a little bit and inspired your to not dirty too many dishes when making up some food for them!  Hope you're feeding journey is fun & exciting!

Resources I consulted: Very Well Family, Wikipedia, Feeding Bytes

What was your feeding journey like?  What food are you most looking forward to sharing with your child?

xoxo, Moe

listen to this blog post below:

Diet Culture and my Postpartum Experience

Let's start this off with the punch line - at my 2 week postpartum check up I was down 10 pounds.  By my 4 week postpartum check up I was down 20 pounds total.  To a lot of people that sounds great, right?  Personally, I was at the lowest weight I'd been in a long, long, long while.  But being 20 pounds down wasn't cause for celebration.

I'd lost 20 pounds in a month because I flat out wasn't eating.

Hi, hello, how are you.....I've not regularly posted in quite a while because I've been very busy.  Very busy is a very big understatement.  I was growing a baby over the last year and nothing I used to do really gave me any excitement.  If you've followed this blog for a while you'll know that I don't force things if I'm not feeling it.  The blog, YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook, my planner.....none of that sounded like a fun idea so I didn't do it.  It wasn't the plan to leave all of these things high and dry...yet here we are.

So, I lost 20 pounds.

After I gave birth to Marcus I lost a lot of blood and my blood pressure dropped.  It wasn't scary in the moment to me because I do this thing now where I speak up because my doctor has made my comfortable enough to do so......so I said 'hey I feel dizzy, I think I may pass out' and then I heard my blood pressure reading being called out every few minutes as they monitored me and my doctor stitched me up.  In the days after giving birth my iron was also low.  I was also sent home with very little breastfeeding support (in my opinion), with a newborn, and a set of whacked out hormones.

Long story short when I got home I just stopped eating.

I'm not sure if I cut out eating subconsciously because there was so much going on or what but there just wasn't enough time for it.  I'm not sure if it was the ridiculous hormones, the pressure of breast feeding, the fact that my child was dehydrated, the lack of sleep, or like I said JUST PLAIN ALL OF IT.  But I literally just stopped eating.

When I start to tell my story I make a point to mention that in a month, in 4 weeks, in 28 days I lost 20 pounds.  That means I almost lost a pound a day.  When I tell this to people the first thing they say is 'OMG congrats! That's so great!'  To which I say 'No, its not.  I wasn't eating anything.'  And that doesn't seem to give them pause like it would me.  Not eating meant I wasn't getting the nutrients I needed to heal let alone the extra nutrients I needed to produce milk.  My lack of milk production lead to even more stress which compounded not eating.

If you're not familiar with the term, you're probably familiar with the definition.  NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) defines Diet Culture saying:

1. Diet culture conflates size and health, pathologizing some body types.  (This means that the view that fat = bad seeps into the medical field and instead of prescribing evidence based medical intervention patients are told to 'lose weight' as the cure to their ailment.  I am so thankful that my OB/GYN did not treat me this way...man I love that woman!)
2. Diet culture encourages following external rules about what, when, and how much to eat.
3. Diet culture suggests that people are more or less good/moral/worthy based on their body size.
4. Diet culture creates thin privilege, which makes thinness a gatekeepr for jobs/benefits/comfort/accommodation.
5. Diet culture suggests movement as a punishment for, or prevention of, being fat, rather than for other reasons like fun or personal goals.
6. Diet culture views fat people as less valuable and more risk-able.

More long story short - Diet Culture means that losing 20 pounds by any means, at any time, especially after pregnancy, is a good thing.

While diet culture can affect anyone, women truly feel it the most.  Being a woman means your body open for commentary and is meant for either the enjoyment of, or disapproval by, others.  Your body is not yours.  Your body is seen so your body is expected to conform.  It's ok to be 'fat' while pregnant but afterwards, if you drop the baby weight and more - that is to be celebrated!  But what about the mental and physical health of the mother during this weight loss?

My stress, my hormones, my inability to cope with what just happened to me exacerbated by the anxiety I felt when the sun went down and while breastfeeding led me to stop eating.  I stopped eating and thus I stopped producing milk and thus it was impossible to feed my child.  The life I'd just brought into the world was jaundiced, dehydrated, hungry......and in a few short weeks it would be 'great that I'd lost 20 pounds.'

When I was 10 pounds down at my 2 week appointment I thought I was lucky.  By my 4 week appointment the second 10 pounds concerned me.  It also concerned my doctor.

When I stopped breastfeeding my hormones balanced and I have to say currently, right now, I literally feel 200% better.  And I'm not using the word 'literally' in a figurative manner here.  The way I felt from week 1 to week 5 compared to how I feel now and how I felt even 2 days after stopping breastfeeding is literal night and day.  I was 100% not myself and I didn't realize how scary that was until I started to feel me again.  I also gained my appetite back.

Why am I sharing this with you all?  Because it is important to tune into our bodies.  It is important to listen to gut feelings, to listen to our bodies, and to have the courage to tell someone (like your doctor) that you're scared.  It is also important not to get discouraged and if someone doesn't give you the support you need you continue to search for it.  I am thankful that my friends & family were with me during the first few weeks postpartum.  I think I would have given up on seeking any answers if it weren't for them. 

I'm not sure if it was the hormones that balanced after stopping breastfeeding or the fact that stopping breastfeeding meant there wasn't one more thing on my plate.....but stopping breastfeeding made me sane and allowed me to eat.  I am able to show up better for my child and for myself.  And as for my body after pregnancy?  It just grew a life and delivered a child so I don't care if my belly is a little jiggly still and my boobs hang a little lower, I care that it is still carrying me and I'm able to carry my child.

I want to share this with you all because I want at least one person out there to realize they are seen.  Our postpartum bodies do not need to get back into shape, we do not need to bounce back to what we once were.  We are jiggly and saggy because we are clay.  We are being molded into the women we are meant to be.  And that journey is not the same for everyone. I want women to know that your body just did a thing that we still don't fully understand and we are on the other side of it.

Did you know that we as homo sapiens evolved to walk up right, accommodating our huge brains, but that the plates in our scull overlap each other as we exit the birth canal in order to fit?  Did you know that the cervix stretches an enormous amount and is under enormous strain during birth but then will shrink right back to pre pregnancy size with no problem?  Did you know the elasticity the cervix tissue when not pregnant is dramatically (and I mean dramatically) reduced?  Did you know we still don't understand a lot of this?  Woman literally have life erupt from them.  You try giving birth to the universe and being the person you were before that.  It is hard to become. 

I wrote the majority of this post in the beginning of October 2019.  It is currently January 2020.  Rereading this made me happy that I'd written this down because I've already forgotten a lot of the trauma that I'd experienced immediately after Marcus's birth.  I am in such a better place right now that I even was in October 2019.  I transformed into so many women since giving birth and I can't wait to see who else I can become.  The truth is though you will discover the you that you become is the you that you were all a long.

xoxo, Moe