Baby-Led Weaning: My Little Woodchuck

How many cukes would a G-chuck chuck
if a G-chuck could chuck cukes?
And a G-chuck would chuck cukes
if a G-chuck could chuck cukes.
So, how many cukes would a G-chuck chuck
if a G-chuck could chuck cukes?

We started on the adventure of Baby-Led Weaning when G hit 6 months as he seemed ready.  If you want the full low-down on BLW, here’s a good site.  The very quick and dirty explanation is:

1. Nutrition is still provided by breast-milk.

2. Food is for “fun” for prob the first 8 months to a year of BLW.  This is mainly just to get baby used to textures, tastes, and smells, and encourages learning to chew.

3. Improves motor skills.

4. Baby eats finger-food portions of what you eat.

5. Mushes and purees are off the menu (unless you happen to be eating a mush or a puree, in which case, baby gets some, too).

There are a bunch more rules related to safety, I won’t go into it all here.

What I *will* go into is how much FUN it is to watch G eat cucumber. We cut it into strips (about 5″ long, skin on, seeds removed) and give them to him one at a time. He’s like a little wood chipper! If it weren’t wrong on every level imaginable, I’d use his gumming prowess to mulch up the innumerable dead black-eyed susan stalks in our backyard.

A typical meal starts with me searching frantically for one of the bibs that I KNOW I had in my hand just a second ago, while M straps G into his chair.

Once strapped and bibbed, G looks longingly at the pieces of cucumber on my plate, currently well out of his reach. I start him out by putting one spear down on his tray in front of him. He picks it up, looks it over as if inspecting a wine cork, then gamely sticks one end into his eager mouth.

Gnaw gnaw gnaw…

SNAP!

And then, like a gumball from a vending machine, a perfect niblet of cucumber pops out of his mouth onto the high chair tray. It’s so damn funny-cute that I want to insert a quarter and make it happen again.

Luckily for my piggy-bank, G doesn’t take quarters, and will happily repeat this performance again and again until we run out of cucumber spears, or he has a wet diaper, whichever comes first.

Really, it’s hours (ok, ok, twenty minutes) of serious family fun.

Also? I love the fact that even after a wipe-down, G still smells cucumberiffic!