I had no intention of introducing solid foods this early, but Daphne not only has great head control, and sits fairly well in her Bumbo, but she’s been showing a LOT of interest in our food. So, partly out of Jason’s prompting, by following her prompts, she got her first real attempt at playing with real food yesterday.

Months ago, before we were born, we decided to try baby led weaning when it came time to introduce solids. The basic idea is that introducing solids is not about feeding, but rather all about curiosity. And a baby can generally manage what she feeds herself if she is the one who feeds herself. So, no putting parent putting food in her mouth. No purees to be “sucked”. Give the baby a wedge of food that she can grab and explore on her own. Of course it’s not fair to start off by giving her something that her toothless mouth could never handle – like a raw carrot – but something like a ripe pear. Which is what Daphne’s first food was.

We had finished eating dinner, and she was showing interest throughout the whole thing. So I had Jason get her a spoon to play with. (In baby led weaning, you do use spoons, but for them to feed themselves, not for putting food in their mouths for them.) She grabbed the proper end of the spoon, and with surprising little difficulty, got the spoon into her mouth as a fun toy. So I hemmed and hawed, then grabbed a pear out of the fridge, cut a slice so it would make a nice wedge, peeled it, and held it in front of her. You can watch the rest: