I am not quite sure why, in The Bible on BLW, they say that it often happens more easily with child #2. It’s all very well to spend hours dining and clearing up when you’ve only got one to worry about, but not as easy when you’re sitting between two little individuals, one desperate to test your boundaries as to how much ketchup he can eat at one go, while the other keeps flicking globs of yoghurt all over himself, the floor, you, etc etc.
So whilst I am perservering, out of stubborness more than anything else at this stage, my observations by day 4 are:
- I have ignored all my own guidance to clean up quickly, and have consequently had to spend 20 minutes this EVENING scrubbing this MORNING’s Weetabix off the table, which had set like pebbledash
- I must remember that I now have 2 mouths to feed rather than 1; this lunchtime it was only when DS2 woke up wailing that I realised DS1 had eaten EVERYTHING in the snack box, including all the things I’d vaguely thought DS2 might enjoy
Trying BLW on a child with reflux is not as amusing as it was on a non-reflux child; poor DS2 can only go about 10 minutes in any one position before needing a good period of wailing (see pic), carrying, and finally a sick. Unfortunately being upright in a high chair has not resolved this issue; my tolerance level with the yoghurt-throwing would have been far higher if he had not been having a hissy fit at the same time
- A plus discovery is that teething means that he quite likes chewing a spoon; which if we’re really lucky is coated in food
- When they say that BLW often happens by accident with child #2 because child #1 is always ramming things in their mouth, I can see that being true, but I don’t think they’d recommend chilli-coated seeds as the optimum kick-off food.
Basically I am quite fed up with weaning altogether and am now going to take a very passive approach on the assumption that somehow, between now and the day that DS2 hits Freshers’ Week, he will have learnt to use a knife and fork, and be able to keep food in his mouth. So that’s that.