Baby Lead Weaning Check In

I wanted to do a quick check in on our Baby Led Weaning to solids is progressing. We began a little after five months old because Elijah showed all the signs of being ready (interest in food, able to sit up un assisted....since four and  half months!) We started very slow and did a somewhat modified version of Baby Led Weaning (BLW). Although Elijah was only given whole "grown up" food and he fed it to himself, I was gradual with what food we introduced and began with just a few choices of avocado and sliced baked sweet potato. Since then we have eased into eating two meals a day and snacks.  Elijah loved breakfast. He now gets choices of scrambled eggs, coconut milk yogurt, gluten free bread (we are gluten and diary/soy free for now), homemade muffins and sometimes banana or some other fruit. I found these great "organic puffs" that were developed by Dr. Sears and Elijah loves them.  They are a crunchy finger  food that Elijah loves and the ingredients passed my "Mommy Test". Those are a great snack.  I have to be careful what I eat around him because he knows we share. ( I like to let him taste what I have for lunch even though he isn't eating lunch daily yet and as a result we discovered he LOVES quinoa and marinara sauce!).  Dinner usually consists of a choice of avocado, squash, sweet or regular potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, sunflower butter on GF bread and the list continues to grow. Since it is sometimes difficult to plan our dinners around what Elijah can have, I keep frozen veggies just for him that I can microwave only a few pieces at a time. This way I always have something "Elijah friendly".  Because I was rather diligent about him feeding himself at the beginning,  I am able to spoon feed him on occasion without derailing any of our progress. Things like yogurt are sometimes just easier to give him myself. But thanks to BLW, we is actually able to navigate a loaded spoon pretty well and will often try to take over for me. We still nurse regularly and on demand with the exception of middle of the nigh. On the occasion that Elijah wakes up at night, we are working on soothing back to sleep without nursing. Oddly, these has seemed to coincide with better napping.  I am not sure if one has anything to do with the other but it as been awesome! I am thinking of adding meat to Elijah's diet next in the form of bone broth and maybe some organic ground turkey. Chip and I agreed that if Elijah is ever vegetarian, it will be by his choice and that we will include meat in his diet at this time so I have been researching sources for organic (preferably local) meats to serve my family. I maintain a strict no sugar policy for Elijah and all he drinks is water and sometimes almond or coconut milk. So there you have it, our BLW adventure so far. He is such an eager little diner and it is so much fun to watch him explore the culinary world around him!