They learn so fast!

It amazes me how much kids learn in their early years. I thought I'd share with you some of the cute/fun things Josiah has been learning.

He gives great hugs now and sometimes when you go to kiss him he puts his hands either side of your face. I like to think it's to pull me in for a good smooch but I know it's probably more to do with his love of touching people's faces. He loves to stroke his daddy's beard and pull my hair and grab noses. (We've been teaching him that noses make a honking sound - tee hee!)

He's developed massive curiosity about the world around him and is very alert. This makes feeding him a challenge as now he plays with my clothes, pulls away to chat or tries to hang upside down to look at/reach things behind him. It seems like only a few weeks ago that Josiah was reliant on us to hand him things to look at and he could barely hold them. Now he can reach out and grab whatever interests him, hold it with both hands and even pass items from one hand to another. He's still at the stage where his main method of examining things is to put them in his mouth. In the last 24 hours the following items have ended up in Josiah's mouth:  a windmill, a plastic flower, several empty food wrappers, the baby monitor, my phone, a cereal bowl, my nectar card and some junk mail from a credit card company. Josh made the mistake of trying to text with Josiah on his lap the other day. Without hesitation these two little hands firmly gripped either side of the phone and put it straight in his mouth.

All I can say is heaven help us when he learns to crawl - nothing will be safe from being eaten!

Josiah's Diary - February 10th

One of my favourite things to do is put stuff in my mouth. I love chewing, sucking, licking. I'll put anything in my mouth - toys, my teddy, my blanket and sometimes mummy even lets me put some of her food in my mouth.  My favourite thing is to suck my thumb but daddy keeps trying to stop me.

Now I have come up with a way to fool him. I put my sleeve or a muslin over my hand and then suck my thumb. That way daddy doesn't know which finger I'm sucking. I may only be five months old but already I can out smart my parents!

Josiah's Diary - February 9th

Yesterday was the best day ever!

I went to bed as usual and then a while later mummy came into my room, turned the light on and got me out of bed. She never turns the light on at night time - not even when I have my nappy changed. I was so confused as she took me downstairs and put me in the car seat. Just then daddy came through the front door (I didn't even know he'd left the house) and picked me up and we all got in someone's car. It was super dark outside and lights flashed past as we drove. I sat and stared at mummy and daddy most of the journey waiting for them to give me any clues where we were going.

Finally we arrived and walked into a nice warm house full of plenty of grown ups to give me attention. It was Lizzie's birthday party but when I arrived I was the centre of attention. The best thing was that some of my new friends from our holiday with the student group were there. It was good to see them again and play together. Tom pulls the funniest faces and made me laugh lots.

I got plenty of cuddles with the birthday girl and she showed me round her house and let me sit on her lap and everything.

There was lots of party food and mummy let me try some of her strawberries. They tasted good but were annoyingly slippery!

I met a real life dog. She was much bigger than my cuddly doggy at home. All the grown ups kept touching her so I thought I'd give it a go. She felt soft and furry and had a wet nose. Suddenly she licked my face. The grown ups told her off for doing that but I didn't really mind - it was just a little unexpected.

I had lots of fun but eventually I got tired and wanted to go home so I yelled at mummy and daddy to make my wishes known.  I must have fallen asleep pretty much as soon as we got in the car as the next thing I remember was waking up at home as mummy lifted me out of the car seat. When she picked me up I thought to myself  "more playtime? Amazing! This is the best day ever".  But it wasn't playtime, it was bed time - time to sleep and dream of my exciting evening.

The Adventure Begins

For weeks and weeks now Josiah has been showing a lot of interest in food. He sits and watches intently as we eat, his eyes following every mouthful from plate to mouth (it's kinda off putting!).  Sometimes if he's sat on my lap while I eat he starts leaning towards my food. This week that leaning developed into little hands reaching out to grab. The first thing he tried to grab was my carrot cake at play group so there was no way I was sharing that - partly because it's not good for him but mostly because I don't share cake!

I had always imagined that weaning would involve a lot of purees but now the time has come it seems to make more sense to give Josiah real food. Think about it - his reason for reaching for food isn't hunger, it's curiosity. As a friend told me recently "food before one is just for fun". So what if he doesn't swallow any of it. He's still getting all he needs from breast milk so there's no need to try to cram puree down his throat. It's just about letting him have fun exploring textures and tastes and taking time to develop the skills he needs to feed himself. If you are interested to know more about this baby led weaning style check out this link  - I found it really helpful.

This weekend we went away with the student group from church and as Josiah sat on my lap during a coffee and cake break he started reaching for my food again. So I decided to swap my cake for an apple and see if he still wanted to share. I cut the apple into some wedges and began to eat. Sure enough a chubby little hand reached out to grab a bit. So I handed him a wedge and watched to see what would happen. He gripped it tightly and happily sucked on it. But then I got scared he was gonna put the whole thing in his mouth and choke so I took it away from him.

Then he cried.

I gave him another chunkier wedge and he went back to sucking. Then, to my surprise, he began chomping on it. There were definate gum indentations on it by the time he was done!

Another time he tried banana. He found it harder to grip the chunk I gave him as it wasn't 'chip shaped'. He can't eat food inside his fist yet so he came up with his own method for eating banana - squidge it in your hand and suck it off your fingers......yummy.

So the result of our food experimenting so far is as follows:
Food swallowed = zero
Lessons learned = plenty! Gripping food, putting food in mouth, chewing, squishing, trying new flavours and textures. 

I still have plenty of questions about how to do this whole weaning thing and what he is and isn't allowed but looking forward to helping Josiah on his food adventure. I would love to hear from other parents about their experience of baby led weaning - any tips would be greatly appreciated.