Baby Led Weaning- choking and first foods-what you need to know

Baby Led Weaning~ choking and first foods ~ what you need to know~!

Baby Led Weaning has been around for a while and has many benefits to you and your baby. There are also things you should know before starting this process with your baby.

Benefits of Baby Led Weaning

·      This method of feeding allows you to follow your baby’s lead and let your baby control how much food they eat.

·      Gives them the freedom to explore new tastes, shapes, textures, without the pressure to eat a set amount of food or a specific food.

·      Its way easier on you, don’t have to prepare food, mix up baby food, etc. Its also a lot less costly instead of buying all those baby foods.

·      Improved dexterity for baby: supporting their fine motor movements

·      Rest assured you are feeding your baby more whole foods into their diet

·      They can join the family at mealtime and feel a part of the action

·      They are learning skills of self regulation by being in control of what they eat and at a pace and rhythm that works for them

When to safely start with feeding solids to baby?

 It’s important that baby’s digestive system is ready for solids. Readiness can begin anywhere from 5.5 months to 8 months of age. Treat each child individually and watch for signs of readiness, that may differ from child to child.

·      Baby can sit up well unsupported

·      Hold head steady

·      Pick food up and put in mouth

·      Swallow food.

·      Has started reaching for food, showing an interest in what you are eating.

·      Developed the fine motor skills to self feed, pincer grasp

·      Has lost the tongue thrust reflex (automatically push solids out of their mouth with their tongue)

Good first foods:

10 Good first finger foods for baby:

Make sure their food is soft enough that it can be mashed between your finger an thumb. Put a few pieces on their tray as to not overwhelm them. Cut food lengthwise big enough to pick up

1. ·      Carrots

2. ·      Broccoli

3. ·      Sweet potato, yam

4. ·      Avocado

5. ·      Cucumber

6. ·      Peas

7. ·      Blueberries (big ones cut up)

8. ·      Meat and poultry (organic, free range and local if possible)

9. ·      Salmon

10. ·      Egg yolk (give small amounts at first, gradually build up)

One food at a time, wait for 3-4 days, for possible allergic reaction. Look for these signs:

·      Rash around mouth/cheeks

·      Runny or stuffed nose, itchy eyes, swelling around mouth, eyes

·      Increase in spitting up

·      Diarrhea, vomiting

·      Diaper rash

·      Fussy baby, sleep patterns interrupted

Tips to prevent baby choking while eating solid foods:

don’t panic, this is normal~!

·      Babies have a natural gag reflex, gagging is different than choking; babies have this safety mechanism to prevent from choking. Gagging you can hear, choking you can’t. Your baby will gag, and that’s a good thing, it means they are moving the food that gets lodged at the back of their throat to the front. They will make a funny face, but wait and see and they will use this reflex to push the food forward. They are developmentally ready to handle solid foods at 6 months, so try to stay calm. And let your baby do their thing.

·      Your baby can’t eat exactly what you eat, their kidneys can’t handle the salt, and the spices are too much for them. So, hold the salt… as you are preparing dinner, you can just put your veggies or meat aside before you add in the salt, etc.

·      No hard crunchy foods until they can chew well. Raw carrots, raw apple, (apple is the number 1 for baby’s choking), whole grapes, nuts and seeds, stringy foods (celery), and nut butters thick, use very thin amount.

·      Interesting to not that the research shows that baby’s are no more likely to choke with baby led feeding as opposed to traditional feeding methods.

·      Don’t make the pieces so tiny. Babies don’t have the fine motor skills at 6 months to pick up things that are tiny tiny. Have the pieces be large enough that they can pick them up, but soft enough that they’re safe

·      Make sure they are sitting up in the highchair

·      Popcorn not recommended until 4 years old

·      Small portions, avoid coin shaped foods

·      Play close attention while they are eating

·      Good to know that baby’s windpipe is the width of one of their finger nails

Above all, have fun with it, mentally prepare for their being a mess, try not to sweat what goes on the floor, in their hair, on their lap and perhaps all over you~!

Feel confident that you are setting up healthy and fun associations to food, and mealtimes and give them the space and freedom to explore and experiment with their food. If you are breastfeeding, know that they are getting most of their nutrition from breast milk until one year old so don’t sweat it.

If you want to add extra nutrition to their food, you can add these to sprinkle on their banana, avocado or make cookies or biscuits! Baby Gourmet products

May the force be with you and your mop to clean up afterwards~!

The Importance of Play

Play is an essential part of our human experience. We are biologically hard wired for play. As are cats, dogs, rats, monkeys, elephants, lions, and even octopuses!

Babies/children of all races/genders invent and reinvent play over and over again without instruction.

Play teaches children about caring, creativity, helps them socially and supports thinking skills and brain development. Play is a child’s context for learning. Rough and tumble play has been shown to promote early brain development.

Play is extremely important for your baby. It goes beyond supporting their motor skills, but also helps baby learn how to make decisions and search for solutions. Play allows your baby to try new things, and feel the cause and effect of their actions. “If I drop this spoon off my tray it falls to the ground, weeee!”. “Hmm, this block is not fitting into the square hole, lets try this round hole”.

Play is an action system, and has a quality of exploration and spontaneity. Play is process oriented, does not have an end product, or a means to an end, it’s a being, not a doing.

Play encourages your baby to:

• Meet challenges

•  Search for solutions

•  Develop their attention

•  Supports decision making

•  Helps them learn to imitate

• Supports motor coordination

Play teaches your toddler/preschooler about:

• social rules

• practice for life; play house, play build, play make

• supports motor coordination

• social bonding

• manages stress: especially rough and tumble play supports those feel good hormones to get released in our bodies.

• sparks creativity~ big time!

• problem solving

• spatial reasoning and logic

• healthy brain development

• resolve conflicts

• sharing

• strengthens relationships

• improves intelligence

• promotes impulse control and emotional regulation

• better physical health and mental health

• great for life lessons!

 It’s also an opportunity to find real connection with your baby/child

 For some of us, play does not come naturally, it’s hard and painful and not very enjoyable.

Here’s some ideas on how to come into connection and play with your child.

·      Slow your pace down to your child’s pace. For a baby this is at least 10x slower than your adult pace.

·      Be curious about what they are learning, tune in

·      Let your baby/child lead the way with play, even when you think you have a better idea. Enter their world of magic and see if you can learn something from them.

·      Get out of the way and watch, wait and wonder.

Your best toy for your baby is your face, your best toy for your child is you!

And of course, toys are fun to play with. When purchasing a toy, try to buy toys that are open ended. Open ended toys are those that can be played with in a variety of ways.

This block can be a bridge, a wand, a sword, a gate, a bed, a door and many more things.

Open ended toys are 90% child and 10% toy. Let the child do the creating, not the toy!

This leaves space for a child’s input, imagination, problem solving and creativity.

Children need to be able to follow their own impulses, interests and instincts through play. They get to discover what interests them, what they are curious about, and what they want to learn about, and we get the opportunity to support them in their burgeoning desires and interests.

This creates children who are confident, passionate about life and have the self esteem to move forward and go for what they want in life with a sense of purpose.

5 reasons not to walk your baby!

5 Reasons not to walk your baby
Well lets just start by saying babies enjoy it right? They smile and coo when we help them get somewhere.
And plus, we should teach them and they need our help right?

1. The truth is when it comes to motor development, babies are self learners. They are hard wired to go from lifting their head, to rolling, to creeping, to hands and knees crawling and finally upright walking. That is, if they get enough floor time to build strength, coordination and organization in their body.
2. When we walk babies we make them less aware and give them a false sense of balance that they have not discovered on their own. They need to test those limits themselves when their bodies are ready.
3. Balance is not attained if we help them, they learn by falling and getting back up again. This builds strength, body awareness and the coordination necessary for them to walk on their own, in their own time and in their own way.
4. it creates an unnecessary dependence on you. Babies are learning to have their own agency with their bodies and learn independence.
5. Saves your back! try doing this 20 times a day, leaning over....ouch. Your back will thank you!

When should I teach my baby to sit?

Most babies learn to sit up independently between 6-8 months. There is a lot that needs to happen before this however. Your baby needs to be coming into good extension with their upper back in tummy time. Rolling should be well under way, back to front and front to back before you try sitting them. They need to develop upper body strength  coordination and overall body organization,  before sitting is attempted.

Ideally your baby learns how to sit on their own, without you "showing" them, this can happen after they learn to hands and knees crawl in some instances. What is important in babies learning to sit, is that we want them to know how they got into the sitting position, and we want them to know how to get out of it. Otherwise they are "stuck" there.

This is fun for them to be in an upright posture, interacting with us, however, if baby can't get out of the position, they are not learning about their own autonomy. What we are mapping in their body is actually stiffness! Yes, prolonged sitting can cause unnecessary stiffness in their shoulders and hips. Not only that, but when you take that baby who is used to sitting back down to tummy time it will be harder, they will protest!.
If you want them to learn about sitting, I like to practice with babies in what I call a "supported" sit. This is having them between your legs or on your legs if they are younger, and leaning against your body for support. See the picture above. That way they lean their back against you and don't have to stiffen in their joints (primarily their hips and shoulders) to keep themselves upright.

Come learn more about motor development, and have fun in my
Developmental Play With Babies class,

The Myth of Self Soothing

The Myth of Self Soothing

I'm sure you have heard these words, "you need to teach your baby how to self soothe, you can't go to them every time they cry, they need to learn this skill early..."
Lets start with what we mean by self soothing. I define it as ‘the ability to calm one's self when faced with a stressful situation, or when in a state of high arousal”.
The capacity to calm ourselves down when we get upset is a pretty sophisticated autonomic nervous system response that requires us to be developmentally ready for. We are designed to regulate through others (co-regulation), this is something we learn from the adults around us. Babies are literally incapable of calming themselves, and to expect them to is unfair and developmentally inappropriate. Can they suck on their hand or thumb and hold off on crying while we do our best to get to them? YES! This is rudimentary self soothing, but once they have started crying and have reached a place of distress, can we expect them to calm themselves down? NO.
Well okay, but can we teach them to self soothe? NO. Why not? because their brains are not ready, they are incapable of this in the early years. They need their neocortex (which develops very slowly over a period of many years), to be able to rationalize, think about something logically and calm ourselves down. Babies and toddlers are operating largely from the subcortical centers of their brain, the brainstem and the limbic system. When in a stressful situation, these lower centers of the baby's/toddlers brain go into a primal survival response commonly known as fight/flight/freeze. For a baby, this looks like crying, screaming, getting mad, then getting hysterical. In nervous system terms, they are in a sympathetic response of high arousal, and once they have gone there, they cannot calm themselves down. It is critical that we step in and support them in this place. Why? because if we don't, they will eventually go into parasympathetic freeze state, otherwise known as withdrawal sleep. For many parents who hire sleep trainers, that involve CIO methods, this is what happens to the babies and by all intents and purposes, the parent may feel the sleep training is a success! "My baby stopped crying on her own! I've taught her how to self soothe". This could not be further from the truth. Your baby's nervous system has gone into a shut down mode, which is a dissociative state for their very survival.
Can this be harmful to them? YES. Why? because the stress hormones that are released from distressed crying, destroy nerve connections in critical portions of an infant’s developing brain and if repeated, can alter their brain structure and responses to stress into adulthood.
What have you taught your baby if you leave them to cry?
That when they really need you, you will not be there for them. Given that building trust (reliability) and establishing communication, which are intertwined, are the hallmarks of healthy infant mental development, it seems unwise to use a method that compromises both.
Self soothing is a behavior that develops once the child’s brain is ready for this. It can’t be rushed.
What can you do to help? Nurture your baby, respond to their needs, let them know you are there. The irony is that when you do this, you are supporting them to be able to eventually develop this skill later in life.

If this article interested you, and you'd like to learn more, come to my sleep seminar and learn how to cultivate healthy sleep habits without damaging your child.

To Sit or Not to Sit

To sit or not to sit, that is the question.

Babies spines are C-curved when they are born. As they start to develop muscle control, strength and organization in their bodies (and spend lots of time on the floor), they develop a cervical curve and eventually when they creep and crawl a lumbar curve.

How can we support this? Floor time Floor time Floor time!

By giving babies lots of time on the floor to explore their bodies particularly on their bellies, they start to gain muscle control, learn how to right themselves, learn balance and coordination. and this is what facilitates normal motor development in the first year of life.

Why not sit your babies?

When we sit babies before they are ready, we put unnecessary strain on the spine, we cause stiffness in babies joints, and put babies in a position they can't get out of unless they fall over. It renders them helpless, and unable to actively engage in their environment, and does not support them to have physical confidence or a sense of security. We put them at risk also of delaying or skipping major developmental milestones such as crawling.

What can I do instead?

• Give baby lots of floor time
• Wear your baby
• Practice supported sitting with your baby in your lap leaning up against your belly, so they don't have to hold themselves upright.
• Do nothing! trust their innate desire to move.

“I believe in giving your baby a safe space in which to play and letting her move freely and develop on her own without assisting her. Refrain from propping her up to sit or helping her roll over. She has an innate desire to move through these developmental sequences and has inborn knowledge of how to do it in a way that is ‘right’ for her. She does this at her own pace and she gets pleasure from doing it.”

— Magda Gerber

Here is a video showing a baby's wonderful movement discoveries if left to figure it out on their own!

How Can I Be Aware of Overstimulating My Baby?

Humans babies are born premature compared to all other mammalian species. If we gestated for the same amount that most other primates do, we would be in the womb for 18 months, ouch!

What is important about this, is that babies are born with primitive nervous systems. They are born essentially still needing womb time. Which is why it's so important to have your baby skin to skin, and being held as much as possible for the first few months.

What does this have to do with babies being overstimulated? babies nervous systems are extremely primitive when they first come to the outside, and they need us to slow down to their pace, which is much slower than our adult pace. When things go too fast for a baby, and they can't integrate what is coming into their field, they get overwhelmed and often this follows with them falling asleep. Its one of their defenses to overstimulation.

How can we tell our baby is over stimulated? 

Generally baby will respond behaviourally in the ways, I call it the 3 S's. Spacing out, switching off and shutting down. A baby who is overstimulated might look away from you (spacing out). If you continue to engage they might turn away again and again and also turn their body away( switching off), and then eventually if the overstimulation persists they will start to yawn, look sleepy and often fall asleep (shutting down).

Signs of overstimulation in your baby:

• averting their gaze (looking away)
• general tired, cranky, fussiness
• spreading fingers and toes, or making fists
• bringing her hands in front of her face
• crying
• skin colour changes from normal to pale or blotchy or red
• changes in body movement from smooth movements to jerks and tremors
• breathing quickens
• yawning, sneezing
• start sucking their fingers or thumb
• fall asleep (late stage of overstimulation)

What to do about it?

• reduce the stimulation
• take them to a quiet dimly lit room
• stop talking
• put them in a carrier if you are out
• go outside
• swaddle, rock your baby
• encourage sucking of some kind as this is comforting to your baby (breastfeed, use your finger, pacifier)

Only you know your baby, as you watch the signs you will get to know the signatures of how your baby lets you know they have had enough.