It's been some time since I've written a BLW post and you may wonder why I am doing so now as, at 29 months, we are a couple of years past the weaning stage. However, the route we take continues on through their years and, probably, right into adulthood. I still remind myself of the key principles of following BLW and I still see evidence of the benefits of the path we took.
Things I notice 2 years on are the peaks and troughs of appetite along with fads in what she eats. It is these things that many mistake for fussiness and the parents start pushing their child to eat to which all they achieve is a lot of stress and the risk of giving the child a reason not to eat said food.
Believe me, I'm no saint and, even though we took a BLW route with Callum, we often forgot what we didn't want to do and got worried when he stopped eating vegetables. There were dinners full of snot and tears.
I've trusted Millie's instinct more than I did for Callum and, as a result, can see patterns in her 'fussiness' and/or causes for it.
For example, she'll favour fruit and vegetables when she is teething or tired, cheese and yogurt when under the weather (no idea why as this feels wrong to me) and meat, pasta and eggs when on a growth spurt.
She'll typically feast for breakfast, have an average lunch then pick at dinner.
One week she'll eat a type of food, then she will shun it for a couple of weeks, then she will scoff it again. Her favourite foods at home will not be touched at nursery and then they will tell me how well she ate something like a roast dinner at nursery which she rarely eats at home.Cucumber is one of her hit or miss foods and it was fascinating to watch her, recently, nibble at the inside first and then coming back for the skin after. Sometimes she leaves the green.
Rather than get stressed and worried about whether she will eat, I'm more relaxed knowing she will eat what and when she needs. I trust that she instinctively knows what she is doing.
The only pain is eating out and knowing what to order her. Where possible we will try to get her what Callum has or, if really not sure, we will just get her an empty plate then share what the rest of us are eating.
She does have a sweet tooth unfortunately so we do have to stop her snacking on chocolate. But, in a house of chocoholics, it's no real surprise and all of us could try harder there.
Along with her eating habits and tastes, I have noticed her recently try harder to use cutlery in both hands. She isn't so good at cutting though likes to practice cutting bananas, but what she is trying hard to do is use a second piece of cutlery to push food onto the first piece. In fact, even Callum struggles with that now so good on her for giving it a go, I'm sure she will master it soon enough.
