Introduction – Maya & Baby J

Hi! I’m Maya, mom to 2.5 year old Menininho (a nickname that means “little guy” in Portuguese) and 8.5 month old Baby J. J is my first BLW baby. He was exclusively breastfed until 7 months. Menininho was breastfed as well, but I did the traditional rice cereal followed by homemade purees with him.

I started learning about BLW from friends on Twitter when the Menininho was about a year old. I decided we would try it with our second baby. My hope is that it will help J be a lifelong lover of good food. Plus, to be honest, I wasn’t sure when I was going to have the time to make the variety of purees that I did with his older brother.

Baby J has Marfan syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that affects every major body system. In terms of impacting BLW, Marfan has caused low oral muscle tone and he was delayed in sitting up. When we started solids at 7 months J could not sit unassisted but showed every other sign of readiness, so we put him in a Bumbo chair or on our laps. Now he sits up well unless he’s in a high chair, so he still mostly eats on our laps. J isn’t swallowing much food yet or even doing a lot of chewing, but it’s my hope that feeding him solids instead of purees will help strengthen his muscles. Besides, I tried spoon feeding and he absolutely refuses, haha. He also LOVES to nurse, so I’m not really worried about caloric intake at this point.

My husband has celiac disease, so all our dinners at gluten-free. At the recommendation of our pediatrician we decided to keep both boys gluten-free until they were 12 months old. This is a little challenging with J, since his brother and I both eat foods with gluten, but so far so good.

Also, I blog over at Musings of a Marfan Mom and would love to chat BLW with you on Twitter too!

MarfMom

My name is Maya and I live in California with my husband Mark and two sons, "the Menininho" and "Baby J." J was born in Dec. 2010 and is our first BLW baby. He was exclusively breastfed till 7 months of age when we started solids (asparagus). Baby J has Marfan syndrome and some motor delays that can go along with that diagnosis, so we're being cautious about introducing solid food as he is still working on sitting independently for long periods of time. So far, he's quite enthusiastic about the foods he has tasted though!