Baby Led Weaning Rosie at 9 Months Old

9 Months Old

Rosie has been true to form and at 9 months old has really ‘sussed’ out how to eat. She has now achieved her pincer grip and has 6 teeth so pretty much anything goes. The pincer grip is the use of the fore finger and thumb and it is quite an acquired skill. You can test to see if your baby has this grip by putting some raisins or peas on their tray for them to pick up. Baby led weaned babies will only usually put in to their mouths what they can safely pick up and chew or gum. Many babies at this stage will only just be getting their first teeth so they will tend to naturally select foods that they can break down and swallow. If your baby can pick up a raisin or pea then you know that they can handle small foods without a great risk of choking.

As well as achieving the pincer grip, Rosie has also mastered sleeping through the night. Hurray! At nearly 10 months old this is considerably longer than her older brother who slept through from 13 weeks old. If you have a baby not sleeping through I completely and totally commiserate with you. Sleep deprivation is seriously hard to cope with and I have really struggled with it the last couple of months. Rosie will still wake up on occasions but 6 out of 7 days a week she will sleep from 7pm until 7am.  She seems to know the days when I’ve got to be up early and work as these are the ones she chooses to wake me up at 4am, the cheeky monkey (or similar words not to be spoken here!!)

Rosie has really dropped her feeds (still breast feeding) and is now taking only 3 a day. Generally speaking she has a feed around 11am, another at 3pm and then one just before bedtime at 6.30pm. I recently tried to express some milk but couldn’t get anything to come out. It’s difficult to know exactly what quantity of milk she is getting as she also feeds so quickly (2 minutes maximum on each side). If you are bottle feeding you will probably be giving 3 feeds of 210ml or 7 fl oz although every baby is different especially if you are demand breast feeding.

For breakfast Rosie tends to have either porridge, oatibix, mini shredded wheat, puffed rice or toast with unsalted butter and sugar free jam. She always has a selection of fruit and about once a week I will do her eggs although she is not really that keen, unlike her brother who would have ‘eggy peggy’ every day!

For lunch the old favourite ‘Kallo Unsalted Rice Cakes’ are usually on offer with either hummus, nut butter, cheese, ham, chicken and tuna plus cherry tomatoes, grated carrot, strips of pepper and cucumber. Alternatives will be a sandwich (using only one slice of bread due to the salt content – 0.5g per slice of bread is common) with any of the same fillings given above. Since getting her pincer grip Rosie also quite enjoys a mixed bean salad. I will always give her some fruit or yoghurt afterwards. She absolutely LOVES yoghurt. We use either plain natural yoghurt, Plum Fromage Frais or Rachel’s My First Yoghurts as these do not have added sugar.

Usually in the afternoon Rosie will have a snack, this will be a few flavoured rice cakes or organix biscuit or fruit.