problem solved

So we've been very happy with this Baby Led Weaning business. The Baby loves to eat, loves to feed himself, loves to mumble happily away on all manner of foods, and manages to ingest a good percentage of what we put in front of him. And its good for our family too, in the sense that he's pretty low maintenance as he happily gums away at asparagus and sweet potatoes. Which is handy because the Little Dude has become increasingly high-maintenance at dinner times. Three is the new Two, or so they say. Getting him to stay in his seat is a bit of a challenge, as he's learned that to get out of his seat all he needs to do is say the magic words "May I please leave the table?" But of course, he usually utters that oh so polite request about four minutes into the meal. And we've had our fair share of spilled milk. And water. And pickle brine. And really, all I want to do is sit down and EAT for Pete's Sake!

So. The only complication we've had with Baby Led Weaning is: The Messiness. Boy is it messy. Like, head to toe messy. Its causing a lot of laundry. I end up washing his bib, his shirt, and his pants. It seems like no matter how big I make the bib, it still is no use. How does he get food under his arms and on the back of his pants? Actually I can answer that: flailing baby arms and gravity. Anyhow, laundry is not such a big deal, but he eats a lot of foods that stain (fruit is the worst. For some reason I did not remember what havoc a peach can wreck on a favourite onsie) I managed to completely ruin one shirt by not getting it into the pre-soak fast enough. And its not like this kid doesn't have a ton of clothes, but still, I hate to have things ruined. 

So I was thinking about it the other day and realized that I was going about it the wrong way. Instead of an agressive post-meal pre-soak laundry regimen or bigger bibs, what I really needed was a paradigmatic shift in the way I was thinking about the problem. Instead of thinking 'how can I keep the clothes from getting dirty', I needed to be thinking 'what if it doesn't matter that the clothes get dirty?' Do you see where I'm going here? To the thrift store obviously.

There are some people who think that every problem can be solved with duct tape. I think every problem can be solved with the thrift store. My original plan was to make some very long, very thick smock-type bibs. I also wanted them to have full sleeves. But I thought I'd save myself some work by buying shirts and cutting the sleeves out of them to attach to the smock bodies I was going to make. It did not matter what they looked like, since I was going to cut them up and the Baby was going to smear avocado all over them. My goal was to not spend more than a buck on any of them. The local thrift charges 1.50 per shirt, but I explained to the nice lady what I was planning to do with them, and since I was buying a bunch she let me have them for a dollar each.

When I got home from the store it was almost lunch time, so I grabbed one of the ugliest ones and threw it on over the Baby's clothes.  You can't quite see it in this picture, due to the lighting, but it got good and dirty. However, despite the fact that he vampired to bits nearly an entire quarter of a cantaloupe, the clothing underneath this little sweatshirt stayed dry and clean. And that's when it occurred to me, I didn't even have to make these things into smocks. They already are smocks! So now there is a little stack of them in the drawer by the table where we keep the napkins and bibs. We refer to these as 'ugly shirts' as in "Put an ugly shirt on that Baby before you let him loose on the watermelon." We also have a few button up the front plaid flannel shirts that we use too. Nice and absorbent. We usually top those with a drooler to act as a sort of neck caulking to keep the peach juice from getting his clothes wet at the neck. Its a very good system so far, and since they are not 'nice' shirts, I don't worry about soaking out stains or anything. And now when I'm at the thrifts I keep my eyes out for the cheapest, ugliest little tops I can find. Which is kind of fun. Bad colours, boxy fits, cheesy appliques, unfortunate slogans in other languages - I'm up for anything. As long as its absorbent. 

 

Comments

[Marcia Van Drunen]

Lord KNOWS you know more about clothes and sewing than I do, but I was certainly relieved to read that you had the same thought as I did -- why cut off the arms to attach to another body when it's on a body? (clothes, of course, not people) WHEW! Glad that is successful! I'm so enjoying your experience with babyled weaning and LOVE it way more than icky pablum-y food that my kids weren't that fond of. A happy eating baby is marvy. And BOY do I get the "I just want to sit down and EAT" thing. I wonder when that starts? Maybe when the youngest stops being a trial at the table ...
Happy rest to all of you! I'm guessing your family is recuperating, for you to have a blog post that's fun and has pics :)

[Karen]

That's funny-- you're trying to avoid or remove stains and now I'm playing with them (but not on my clothes). I made a few white cotton duck placemats to "gather" the stains from normal use. Of course, I hide these before company comes! Great idea with the ugly T-shirts!