{"id":151615,"date":"2017-09-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/localmex12017x109x1mirabelle-plum-clafoutis-baby-led-weaning-htmlx1\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T18:37:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T18:37:22","slug":"mirabelle-plum-clafoutis-baby-led-weaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2017\/09\/mirabelle-plum-clafoutis-baby-led-weaning.html","title":{"rendered":"Mirabelle Plum Clafoutis + Baby Led Weaning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I bought a lot of plums. Way too many plums. But they were all so beautiful\u2014dusty purples, greens, and gold. The littlest ones, the yellow mirabelles, are the sweetest. Eula likes to grab them in her fist and eat them straight out of the bowl, as do I. I also throw them in quick breads, poach them for topping pancakes, or, my favorite, put them in this plum clafoutis. Clafoutis is like a mix between custard and cake, a little bit like a Dutch baby in that it puffs up dramatically in the oven but settles down immediately upon pulling it out. My clafoutis has a bit of almond meal because I like the texture and orange blossom water because it\u2019s my favorite flavor, and it\u2019s made with whole milk<\/a> & eggs. It\u2019s custardy, fruity, not too sweet, and perfect for a weekend breakfast served with a creamy glass of milk, one of the original farm-to-table foods (and the namesake of this blog!) Eula rarely gets anything sweet other than fruit, so this was a revelation. Her eyes were saucers, and she bopped her head with joy between each bite. Read on for more about our experience with \u201cbaby led weaning\u201d.<\/p>\n

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First, for those who may not know what \u201cbaby led weaning\u201d is, it\u2019s just the practice of letting the baby wean herself at her own pace and start eating solid foods at her own pace. Usually purees and baby food aren\u2019t used, and the baby just eats whatever the parents eat or soft chunks of finger food. Weaning is used in UK sense of introducing solids, not in the US sense of taking the baby off of breastmilk. Eula is still, at almost 13 months, breastfed whenever she wants. Usually about 5-10 times a day or so. I don\u2019t really know exactly\u2014can\u2019t say I count. Once she\u2019s fully weaned she\u2019ll be eating a wide range of foods like whole milk<\/a> and other nutritious dairy products like yogurt (and, of course, French cheese!) as well as the obvious healthy choices like local, organic produce and whole grains and breads.<\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t set out to do it this way because of anything other than it\u2019s fuss free (big selling point for me), intuitive, and seemed to be a great way to introduce her to food textures and diverse flavors & nutrients at a young age. But this is what we\u2019ve been doing, so I just wanted to share that experience for anyone who is curious about the experience of another mom. We decided not to do purees or \u201cbaby food\u201d and instead at around 6 months we just started to offer her bites and tastes of whatever we were eating (providing it wasn\u2019t total trash and she could swallow it\u2026haha). She nibbled here and there, but it wasn\u2019t really until 10-13 months (with the advent of more teeth!) that she started eating a good amount. So, this has been the summer of Eula exploring food.<\/p>\n

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What she does get is all the beautiful farm-to-table produce I buy at the market and minimally processed things like farm-fresh milk\u2014which typically arrives on shelves in just 48 hours, on average, from many family owned and operated farms about 300 miles from your store<\/a>. I personally love and drink milk and seek it out whenever I can find it. Which might be obvious by the title of the blog. She loves it too along with yogurt and cheese, and it\u2019s a simple way to get her nutrients and protein along with local produce, nuts & seeds, and whole grains.<\/p>\n

She eats what we eat, and so far she has proven to be none too picky slurping down everything from chia seed pudding to fistfuls of green olives to gnawing on a ring of grilled calamari. That said she does have a talent for finding any raw green leaf and pulling it out of her mouth and she did spit out a pickled boquerone the other day. She still has mom milk many times a day and whenever she wants, but slowly she\u2019s going a bit longer in between feedings and incorporating more and more food into her diet voluntarily. Since she\u2019s still breastfed, we don\u2019t worry too much about how much she\u2019s eating. She\u2019s growing well, fat and happy, and that\u2019s all we really look at. Once she weans completely I\u2019m confident this method will have introduced plenty of whole foods like milk, yogurt, cheese, fruit, legumes, vegetables, and whole grains to sustain her growth and get her all the nutrients she needs. Dairy, produce, pulses, and grains are the main categories of food we focus on feeding her.<\/p>\n

If she\u2019s disinterested in something, she shakes her head no. We never try to force it if she doesn\u2019t want something or isn\u2019t hungry. What we do is just offer it again at a different time and continue to expose her to things she didn\u2019t take to right out of the gate and get her to try them\u2014best done with a baby that\u2019s hungry but not starving! And she loves to feed herself. With some foods that\u2019s so messy it isn\u2019t practical (like yogurt), so we help her or feed her, especially if we\u2019re out at a restaurant. But in so far as it\u2019s possible, I let her feed herself. Easy things like bananas, whole grain bread, pieces of cheese, sippy cups, chunks of fruit and cooked veg\u2014all of those give her the opportunity to feed herself. If it\u2019s something a little more, ah, challenging, we spoon feed. She doesn\u2019t seem to mind either way. The key for us is making sure she has opportunities to try food and to feed herself. It happens pretty naturally, that said. I don\u2019t find we\u2019ve ever had to go out of our way to feed her using this method, and that\u2019s what I like best.<\/p>\n

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A little more about feeding her what I eat. I regularly give her yogurt, the milk foam off my cappuccino, and cheese. I let her try the things I bake (including her one year birthday cake!), and she tried gelato in Venice because Venice. I\u2019m most mindful about limiting her sugar intake and highly processed foods, the latter of which we don\u2019t feed her at all. I let her try special things at special times and follow my intuition. I let her try my meals at restaurants and she\u2019s tried everything from oysters to black truffles. We let her try the foods around the world to broaden her palette, and we aren\u2019t neurotic about what we let her eat. I don\u2019t ever want to be a hypocrite and not let her have things I eat myself, but at the same time, we always care more about our children\u2019s health than our own, so I basically make decisions for her that I would make for \u201cmy best self\u201d. So no chips or candy or Coke Zero for the baby (haha\u2026.obviously!) Basically anything that I consider a personal fail, she doesn\u2019t get. Eventually she\u2019ll start asking for it, and I\u2019ll have to either stop failing to start explaining!<\/p>\n

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But for now it\u2019s an easy mix of breast feeding, sharing our meals & nutritious food, and even sharing our homemade treats like a slice of this Mirabelle Plum Clafoutis on a Sunday morning! Expect another post updating you on our experience once we walk down this road a little further!<\/p>\n

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