By George! I think she's got it.

Eleanor is eating, not just putting things in her mouth and seeing what makes it to the back of her throat kind of eating, real bonafide eating with purpose. If I'm honest I was getting a bit disheartened with baby led weaning as it was looking like Eleanor was just using food in exactly the same why as she use anything she gets her hands on ie put it straight in the mouth for examination. It seemed like anything that she was swallowing was just by sheer fortune. I'm not ashamed to admit that thoughts of blenders and spoon shaped aeroplanes were haunting my dreams but thankfully I didn't succcumb.

I'd say the change took place a couple of weeks ago so not long before she hit the 8 month mark. Now when I give her a piece of toast for breakfast she actually manages about half of it whereas before I'd say she was managing less than an eighth, if that. The change did seem to happen quite suddenly. It wasn't really a gradual thing where we noticed an improvement over a period of time. It was just like one day she got it. The downside of it is I now have to be more rigorous in my salt checking. As she wasn't really swallowing much before I was a bit blasé about it but now food's actually being digested I'd better get my salt nazi hat on.