Food, glorious food (6 months old)

April 2nd meant that Finn turned 6 months old!  That's half a year!!  So here is his monthly comparison picture:

5 months old

6 months old

As you might be able to tell he has gotten bigger!  By bigger I mostly mean fatter - he's gaining weight steadily but his length isn't keeping pace.  I think there might be some errors in measurement though because he's supposedly a centimetre shorter than he was two months ago... so either he is shrinking or he was measured wrong.  But this month's (possibly wrong) measurement has him on the 9th percentile for length - a big drop from the 91st percentile measurement of two months ago (which was probably also wrong) and not close to the 75th percentile of his birth and 2 month check (which he held a lot stiller for so I'm going to assume were correct.  Anyway, I stood him up next to another 6 month old baby and they weren't drastically different so I'm going to wait to worry until his next month's measurements to see what is going on...
But his weight is always textbook 50th percentile, right on the line, exactly where he should be, gaining about a pound a month.
Which puts him currently at 17 lbs 9 oz!
This is exactly 10 lbs over his birth weight - which I find amazing seeing as he has had nothing but breastmilk since he was born (what's in that stuff!?)...
until NOW!

The biggest update is that Finn now eats food!
It used to be that you were told to start babies on solids at 4 months.  But in 2003 the World Health Organisation  found that it was healthier to wait until 6 months and the official UK and US recommended age changed accordingly.  Health issues aside, one of the bonuses of waiting until 6 months is that this is also the age when babies are developing the dexterity to bring things to their mouth - meaning they can feed themselves!  Here this is called Baby Led Weaning. Weaning has a different meaning in the UK, here it just means adding solids, not dropping milk feeds. The Baby Led bit is just that - you let the baby decide what they want to eat and how much.  I won't get into all the details here - so if you're curious to know more, have a look at the wikipedia page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby-led_weaning ) which is quite good or this person's site ( http://www.babyledweaning.com/ ) which has some great pictures.
Basically the idea behind baby led weaning is as follows:
1) the baby is in charge of what/how much they eat
2) they eat the same thing as everyone else, just in sizes that are easier for them to hold (and without salt)
3) you don't put anything into their mouth for them (we cheat on this a bit - if what we're having is really liquidy, like soup, we help him out... but if it's a bit stickier, like humus, we put it on a spoon and let him put the spoon in his mouth)

There are, of course, other options for weaning but this one seemed to fit best with us and so far it has been going very well.
By very well, I mean very VERY well.

Finn.
Loves.
Food.

At first I think he just liked the fun of putting things in his mouth.  But now (a few weeks into it) he is definitely chewing and swallowing and will show a preference for some foods over others. When we put they tray on his chair he gets very excited.  The only problem is that it can be MESSY! so we have taken to eating in the kitchen because it has the easiest to clean floor.  It's a bit odd, the three of us sitting on the kitchen floor munching our food - but it's quite fun as well.  It really feels like family time and Finn is doing his own thing with us rather than us doing things for him.
So obviously I am now going to do the trademark first-time-parent thing of presenting you all with the glorious Lots of Pictures of the Exact Same Thing!

The first thing Finn ate was broccoli.  Weeeell - to be more precise my parents actually gave him a strawberry and some watermelon first... but that doesn't count because it wasn't 'official' lets-sit-down-and-eat time.  To be fair, I gave him food in that way too... and the first broccoli he had was at a restaurant where he wouldn't stop trying to grab my food so I gave him broccoli to gnaw on... again, we're going to say that doesn't count :)

So we sit Finn down, give him broccoli, and he LOOOOOOVES it.  And loves that we're finally letting him do what he's wanted to do for ages.... but we're so intent on the "OMG look at him eat!" thing that we forgot to take pictures until the end and the lighting etc is awful... (almost all the pics from our kitchen are like that... sorry) but here's his first food and the outcome

He now eats loads of different things...
Cucumber

Broccoli

Melon

Avocado... Oranges

Hummus (sometimes he's better with the spoon than others...)

No matter what, eating gets him very excited

It's also worth noting that his first impressions don't mean anything long term.  He loves tomatoes now.  But here is the saga of his first one...

It was quite funny I think you'll agree!!
But as I mentioned, he now LOVES tomatoes.
So what does he like? What doesn't he?
WELL -
Loves: carrots, cucumber, tomato, beef, turkey, hummus, melon, rice cakes, pea soup
Likes: chicken, pork, parsnips, pears, butternut squash, broccoli, apple, banana, toast, oranges, avocado
Doesn't like: mashed potatoes, stuffing, scrambled eggs, turnips

That's all I can think of at the moment - quite a range already and I can't wait to continue to watch him explore more!

And on that note - it's dinnertime!