FertilityZone

Hi BGE, Happy New Year!
Did Santa not bring you the Gill Rapley book "Baby Led Weaning"? Fiona has it, and I think from reading other threads on this subject, it is the best one.
Before you start BLW, your baby has to be able to sit up well and pick up objects and put them in his mouth. Lily was able to do this at 5 months, so Fi started her a couple of weeks before the 6 month mark.(she was born 2 weeks past edd as well) The first thing she had was well cooked broccoli, which she managed to eat without losing too much. Fi has done a mixture of BLW and spoon feeding ( spoon feeding the messier things like porridge, soups and yoghurts to make sure she didn't lose too much) Lily now eats absolutely everything she's given, and loses very little.She has never choked on anything. If something is too big to swallow, she gags a little and moves it to the front of her mouth and carries on chewing. It's amazing what they can chew without teeth! She has never had any pureed food. I'm absolutely amazed by BLW. I wish it had been around when I had my children.
Good luck with this new stage. It's great fun!

None of this is an exact science Greeny, babies are individuals, they aren't all little copies of what somebody says they should be. In the end you have to do what you think is right for your baby - follow your instincts a bit. And a week here or there is hardly going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things!

Ooooh Greeny.

Like Chris said, provided he can sit up he will be fine. When we started O still had a load of cushions around her but I found that the high chair supported her enough.

It sounds like he already knows what to do so I bet you don't have any problems with him eating and tasting things!!

BLW babies do learn to chew before they swallow and traditionally weaned babies learn to swallow and then chew.

There will be a hell of a lot of sucking involved. O can suck a piece of chicken to nothing!!

I also do a bit of spoon feeding with yoghurt and fruit pots. I found that this way I knew that she was getting something in there too.

It does take time and it is scary the first time they gag is scary but the main thing is to be calm and remember that it is how they move things around their mouths.

Re the longer to eat bit. O can now polish off a slice of toast faster than I can eat my cereal!! BUT it takes practice.

The milk thing, you don't have to change. A rubbish HV I saw told me to change to the next stage but O was so constipated. It was only after speaking on here that I found out that you don't need to change the milk.

O's first food was toast and chicken!! The toast I just cut up into fingers so they're Tilly hand pick up size.

I think with BLW you just need to go for it. I would say make sure you eat your meals together so he can copy. And make sure you offer water. It may take a while to get used to the water but he will get there. Its taken O till now to 'get it'.

It is great fun when you get over the anxious bits but after that its great!!

Don't worry about him falling forwards when reaching. He will get stronger. O still amazes me when she reaches for stuff now, I think 'man, I'd fall over!!'

I would give his milk first and then wait about an hour. This is what I do with O. That way she's not starving hungry but can manage to eat and play and learn

When we started I gave it each meal time to start the routine of eating. Even if she didn't eat anything she knew that at this time it was food time. So I did breakfast, dinner and tea. I also just went for it so breakfast was toast, dinner was a bit of whatever we were eating and tea was the same. It still is. I just took food off my plate and put it on her tray for her to explore and practice picking up.

I don't know much about vitamin drops but when I told the HV we were BLW she just said to make sure we fed her a variety of things and to make sure they were healthy.

I just pull her up to the table so she's sat next to me and we eat together. It is great to be able to eat together! I love it!

I waited till O was 6 months, just to give her that extra bit of time to grow and develop.

Thinking about it I don't think we've actually had any choking incidents, just loads of gagging at the start. And she goes red round her eyes when she gags too! I just don't make a big deal out of it and she doesn't either!!

BGE, I don't have time to read the thread (not that that would stop me from chipping in )
Just wanted to say, its fab you are doing BLW. I did too, and it is fabulous. I can take the girls out anywhere and they eat whatever I eat. People do stare when my little girls tuck into a mahoosive baguette :-)
But I did spoon feed some things too, like sloppy cereal and yoghurts. Before long, the girls took the filled spoon out of my hand and fed that to themselves too.

xxx

Hey BGE, it's great news that you are going to give BLW a go! We did it and it is fab.

About vitamin drops, personally I wouldn't worry about them at the moment. What I read was that at 6 months a baby's iron levels start to tail off but it's not like they just disappear completely overnight! When we started I made sure that we used a fortified breakfast cereal (we went for plain-and-simple Ready Brek but there are plenty of baby ones out there if you'd prefer those) so I had the reassurance of knowing DS was getting some iron and vitamins through that. (Oh, and like Flic and Blue we spoon-fed things like milky cereals, yoghurts etc.)

At the beginning I think you'll find Ben will be more interested in playing and experimenting with food than actually eating it. He will stick it in his mouth because that's what babies do with anything that comes to hand and he'll probably give it a bit of a suck and maybe a gnaw but he might just mush it about a bit with his hands or smear it in his hair or something. It's easy to start panicking and thinking he's not eating 'enough', especially if you compare him to friends' babies who are being spoon-fed. I felt a bit isolated when my friends all started comparing how many ice-cubes' worth of puree their babies ate but it didn't make me feel like moving over to spoon-feeding and I'm pretty certain we have had a much easier time of it than most of my friends who took the traditional route.

Remember that Ben will still get pretty much all his nutrition from milk for the first few weeks when you start weaning. As long as you don't try and rush cutting down his milk feeds he will be fine - just let him take the lead on that. My DS kept feeding exactly the same number of times a day for several weeks after we started BLW. I thought he was never going to cut down (and I posted on here, in desperation!) when all of a sudden he started dropping feeds left, right and centre.

You are right about the chewing vs swallowing thing too and this is perfecting normal and fine. It means that Ben will chew food quite competently and just when you are thinking he's cracked it all the food in his mouth will come dribbling down his chin! But, again, don't worry about this. What will happen is that suddenly he'll 'get' swallowing and once that happens there will be no stopping him because he'll be really good at managing the food in his mouth and he'll be fine with any sort of texture, lumps etc - unlike the babies who learned to swallow first.

As for gagging and choking, we never had a choking incident and only a couple of gags. Remember that the gag reflex in young babies is really near the front of their mouth (much further forward than it is in us) so when they gag it doesn't mean the food was about to go down their windpipe and choke them. If you can just stay still and not panic or start thumping Ben on the back or dangling him upside down you'll find he'll just bring the food to the front of his mouth and either chew it a bit more or spit it out. As he gets older the gag reflex will move back in his mouth - another good reason to make sure he learns to chew early on and another reason why spoon-fed babies often struggle with lumps, because by the time they are on lumps their gag reflex is further back and so gagging is a bit scarier for them by then.

Of course you should find out what to do in the event of a choking incident, just in case. but remember what they say - you only really need to start worrying if there's no noise. If Ben is coughing or sounding like he's choking then he's fine, it's just if he's silent that you've got a problem on your hands. (And, like I said, we never had anything remotely close to it).

Sorry this is a bit of a ramble. If I think of anything else I'll post again!

Good luck and enjoy. x

Ooooh, well done Ben! And well done mummy!

Sounds like he's gonna love it!

Xxx

Awww, bless him, sounds like he is going to really enjoy the BLW!

Lots of good advice from the ladies up there ! But just wanted to say, I did traditional weaning with H, BLW with L (albeit with a bit of spoon feeding alongside the BLW to start with), and if I could have my time again, I'd have done BLW with H! It's absolutely amazing, I'm so positive about it, L loves her food! At almost 17 months she can feed herself yogurt/porridge etc with a spoon, and has done from quite a few months, probably since a bit before she was a year old...and I think the hand-eye co-ordination she developed with BLW definitely helped with this. She eats more or less everything, and is very clear when she has had enough, and I'm very relaxed about that, I know and trust she eats what she needs/ and when she says she is 'finished' (and bless her, she has just started saying 'finished') I know she is.

I remember starting with food that she had a 'handle' to hold, which helped her to grip, and also at first she couldn't move the food up in her hands. Bananas, cauli, broccoli, toast were good. By about 8ish months, we were putting everything on her tray, and she was away! We still spoon fed the odd thing, but not much.

From what I remember, we started with breakfast, about an hour or so after mil, that was a spoon fed breakfast to start with, but then swapped to mini shreddies dipped in milk, which she loved. Lunch was about an hour after late morning milk feed, and we moved to finger food quickly for this, and I think we gave finger food such as toast or fruit from the start with breakfast and lunch. Lily would have mid pm milk, then tea with us. We also offered her snacks, rice cakes etc, when Harry had his, just as another opportunity to leand and play to start with.

Lily seemed less and less interested in her mid am milk feed, so that was the 1st feed we dropped, and the kept the mid pm for a bit longer, before dropping that one,

I couldn't believe how her pincer grip, and hand eye co-ordination developed, it was amazing to watch, infact weaning Lily was such a positive an enjoyable experience. Yes, we had the odd gagging episode, but she seemed in control, and just moved the food to the front of her mouth, and either spat it out, or had another chew!

Going out is soooo easy, as is going away, I never worry about what to feed her, and I remember fretting with H, taking little pots of mush everywhere, etc etc...BLW is sooo liberating!

I really hope you enjoy this new 'chapter' with Ben, it's so much fun! x

Not wanting to come over as a completely lazy cow but I would advise against you investing too much time and/or effort into Ben's food for these first few weeks. It always seemed the way that the things I slaved over ended up summarily rejected and on the floor whereas things that took seconds to prepare he loved! And if you've put your heart and soul into something it's a lot harder to be phlegmatic when it's refused; and one of the tenets of BLW is that you don't turn meal-times into a battle so if things are refused you're not supposed to sit there pleading with Ben to try another mouthful etc etc!

Breadsticks are good - they can be sucked till they go soggy! Also sticks of veg and fruit as you suggest, toast fingers. We had success with low-salt ricecakes with cream cheese - you can try other stuff on them of course but the cream cheese was a bit of a hit in our household. Oh, also sticks of hard cheese. Just try stuff and see what happens (only remember to watch salt content, of course).

My DS hasn't yet been impressed by egg, but we keep trying. Eggy-bread is easy to do and at least if he rejects it I like it so I can eat it!

Have fun!

Sandwiches!!! We put dairylea in ours or ham, or both!!! I usually just do one slice of bread folded in half with the crusts cut off and flattened a bit.

I think on Jessica's good advice I also didn't put much effort into O's food. I just used to give her bits off my plate, so if we had a roast chicken she had a bit of chicken and some veg and a potato to eat/play/throw with.

I don't think with BLW there is a should and shouldn't give at a certain time really, its all about learning and exploring and practicing!

Quoted from "Jessica"

It's easy to start panicking and thinking he's not eating 'enough', especially if you compare him to friends' babies who are being spoon-fed. I felt a bit isolated when my friends all started comparing how many ice-cubes' worth of puree their babies ate but it didn't make me feel like moving over to spoon-feeding and I'm pretty certain we have had a much easier time of it than most of my friends who took the traditional route.

Jessica I can't agree more. My friends baby is 13 months and is still on stage 1 jars. But it was so hard listening to them talking and comparing and telling me to do things 'their way'.

Exactly Greeny. They all get frustrated. Its more likely that she was frustrated at him not eating. Seriously though now she's 'got it' we're away. She will eat/try to eat anything. Where as my friends are either really nervous about giving their children proper food or they just won't eat it. I'm just calm and relaxed about it. Like the other day we went to see a friend and her daughter had left half a cheese straw next to the telly, O found it and promptly ate it quietly and it was only when I called her name she turned round with some of it poking out her mouth and bits all round her mouth and gave me the cheekiest grin in the world that we realised she found it!!!

Quoted from "biggreeneyes"

has philedelphia got a lot of salt in?

I found our supermarket's own-brand had less salt than Phillie. To be honest although online grocery shopping is the way to do it when you've got a little one you do have to go to the shop in person at some point and read a lot of food labels so you know what are the best choices salt-wise! I spent hours (OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it was ages!) going cross-eyed trying to work out which products had the lowest salt in them.

Remember as well that at this stage Ben will eat about an inch of breadstick at a time, or a smear of cream cheese ... I worked out which things had the lowest salt content and then just made sure he didn't eat too much of them at a time. The BLW book says not to get too fixated about how much protein, carbs, fat etc your baby has during a specific meal but to keep a sort of rolling total and make sure it evens itself out over a few days or even a week. I guess that applies to salt too - if you think one meal has maybe been a bit salt-heavy then make sure he doesn't have any salt for a few meals and it should be fine (though of course when I say salt-heavy I'm still talking about tiny bits of salt).

I'm afraid when you start really looking at food labels you realise salt is put in just about everything - even sweet things! And some things have to have salt in them like bread and cheese, so even if you decided to make your own you'd still struggle - there are times when you just have to accept he'll have to have a tiny bit of salt.


Getting fat - yes! I now eat much less for my lunch (ie: what I make for myself to eat) because I know I'll be hoovering up everything DS leaves! Mind you, it's only little quantities so as long as you don't do BLW with cream cakes I think you'll be fine!

Oh, and as for traditional weaning; a favourite topic of conversation between my friends seems to be how 'naughty' their babies are at meal-times. I have nothing to add - DS has never been 'naughty', at meal-times or any other time I mean, he's a baby, how can he?! - but I'm sure it's all about power struggles and trying to get the babies to eat when they don't want to, cajoling them to eat stuff etc etc .... BLW is a much happier approach!

Jessica, my friend was saying this today about her 13 month old how naughty he was at meal times. This was after trying to feed him in front of the tv on the floor before I said to put him in the highchair. He still didn't want to eat. It was about power. You could see the look of determination on his face, he was not going to open his mouth at all!!

Saying that I stupidly tried to help O today by putting a bit of ham in her mouth and she proper shouted at me until I gave it to her and she ate it herself!!!

What Jessica said!!
I was looking after Lily today as Fi had been sick on and off from 4am until 7.30. For lunch she had a portion of Fi's homemade tomato and basil soup from the freezer. I buttered a slice of wholemeal bread, gave her 1/2 cut into fingers and broke up the rest into her soup. I had one spoon, she started off with her own spoon, then ditched that in favour of hands - much more efficient! Any bits that landed in her scoopy bib, she fished out and ate. I spoonfed her petit filou, and halfway through she decided she'd had enough and pushed it away and turned her head. Clear enough signal that her tummy was full. She drinks her water from a Tommy Tippee feeding cup herself during her meals - with a bit of banging it on the tray for entertainment. Happy mealtime, no fuss - a fair bit of mess, but what the heck

Forgot to say - she had "garlic breath" all afternoon

I wouldn't worry about moving Ben onto a sippy cup yet, BGE. I don't know who says he should be using a cup but I haven't heard that for babies Ben's age. It's good to get him used to drinking water from a cup - sippy or doidy or whatever - but it won't cause any problems if he's still taking his milk from a bottle.

My DS is 20 months and still has his milk from a bottle. He drinks water from a cup perfectly happily, but his milk intake really drops if we use a cup (which, from speaking to other mums, I think is fairly common) so for the time being we're sticking to bottles as I'd rather he took plenty of milk and I'll tackle getting rid of the bottles at a later date!

O still has a bottle too! I wouldn't worry about it Greeny.

I've read that after 1 year old is good thing to try to move child from the bottle (reduce to one bottle in the eve, before bed). DD hated beaker first and it was combinations of both and basically it didn't work about 1 year old but then suddenly she started to like it, but as I said BG I tried it/move from bottle only around one year old, not earlier.

I would say on the water with meals thing that you can let him hold it and get it everywhere. J started with a sippy cup at 6 months and at first he would not drink it and it would go everywhere but then I started to drink from it and then of course the contents became the most desirable thing in the world ever and he started to make much more of an effort to use the cup himself. At 8 months he won't really need much water as he's on milk so at this stage it's really just about playing with his cup and getting used to how it works.

The reason that they recommend you start using a free flow cup as soon as you dare with milk is that bottles and cups with valves allow the milk to swill round the mouth rather than going straight to the back of the throat and this can cause tooth decay - at least this was the speech our post natal group got from the health visitor - I was lucky though as J wouldn't touch a cup with a valve or a bottle so I had no choice but to use a free flow cup. 8 months is still a bit early though as he's also trying to master eating so I wouldn't worry about it too much till he gets to about a year old and then try a variety of cups to see which he prefers as I went through about 6 types before I found one J would use - which turned out to be the cheapest most basic one you could buy from the supermarket.

Hi, just been reading this thread as am about to embark on BLW with my DS. He's one week short of 6 months, is desperate to eat anything we are eating and has a face which is a picture of disgust when I tried (albeit 3 times) to give him and 'traditional' first weaning foods. (Have to say I tried the baby rice ... yuck and double yuck.) You have given me the confidence to give BLW a go and persevere with it even though I suspect a few people will tut that he is playing rather than eating. I've also bought the Gill Rapley cookbook... what a revelation. I would never have thought of cooking some of those items. (Ok, I know I won't be cooking some of them for a while.) little man will love being a BLW boy.

Xander already uses a sippy cup every now and again. Thus far it has had breast milk in it but will also try water. A fair bit of it goes all down him as he does have a habit of waving it around like a hand grenade, but he looks so pleased with himself for being a big boy that a bit of mess is the least of my worries.

I'll let you know how it goes and if anyone else has any tips, they will all be gratefully received.

Yey Elisa!! And Goooooo Xander!!!

Just wait till they start eating things like gherkins and other funny flavours!!! Its ace!!

Elisa you're right, you will get a lot of people trying to tell you you're doing it wrong, or like you said he's playing with his food. Er, he's supposed to!! How else is he going to learn?!?!

I am a HUGE advocate for BLW. It was the best thing ever for us.

It does take patience, and you will worry he's not eating enough ( I did, there's a thread on here somewhere where I had a panic on!) but he will get there. Especially as he's already wanting your food!!

My mum said she thought I was trying to choke her granddaughter! But now she thinks it's amazing. We can all go out together and eat together.

It's amazing when you watch them eat and chew for the first time too! And we've not had any power struggles which has been great!

Love it!

Thanks everyone for the support. (Have to admit that am expecting FIL to be one of the critics, especially as his other grandchild lapped up purees). Most of my baby friends have gone the traditional route, but I have one who is also just about to start BLW. Her DD and Xander share the same birthday & we met at the breastfeeding group so it has been really handy to chat about all sorts of things with someone whose baby is exactly the same age and who we see at bumbs and babes.

Anyway Xander sucked on a Heinz apple biscotti this morning and I think may have swallowed some. Daddy was pretending it was one of his biscuits and had it poking out of his mouth and Xander decided he wanted it. Somehow he got biscotti in his eyebrow, but it did look cute. Am also thinking about rice cakes as it dawned on me overnight that as LO loves chewing on rattles and anything hard, maybe he found the soft stuff just far too soft.

It's my birthday tomorrow ... wonder what Xander will make of birthday cake.

Just a quick question, when you first started out, how many times a day did you try your LOs with things?

Off shopping in a mo. DH has to buy part of my birthday present so I'll take Xander to feed the ducks.

I tried at every meal time, really just to establish a meal time routine and so she knew what was going to happen.

I also think it's important to give a variety of soft and hard foods so they get used to different textures and feelings n their mouths.

Happy birthday for tomorrow chick!

Sandwiches! Ham, dairylea, cucumber, tomato!

Thanks again for the advice. We're still trying to work out the best times to try Xander with food and I don't think the weather has helped as he has wanted more milk and has been pooped. Anyway, yesterday he sucked on banana again and chomped & sucked on a rice cake. He also had a little mashed potato in the evening, although as he was pooped we broke the rules a little and he sucked it off daddy's finger. He seemed to really like it when he got a bit of apple sauce with it too.

After promising that I would never eat ceiling tiles (aka rice cakes) again after I had to eat them as part of an elimination diet, I have taken your advice BGE and bought some so I can have one when Xander tries his. At least this time I will be able to put something on it!

We have made progress. Mini breadsticks .... what a hit!! Xander has also had (and certainly swallowed) banana, chicken and apple biscotti and he has waved a carrot stick around as if conducting an orchestra. He wasn't so interested today, but as you lovely ladies have reassured me, we will get there.

Gooooooooo Xander! He sounds like he's getting it!

Xander seems to be getting the hang of this eating lark and is turning into a bit of a food thief.

It all started when he intercepted daddy's cheese sandwich between plate and daddy's mouth. My mum was a little shocked and worried as it was mature cheddar cheese on seeded bread, but the little chap just demolished it. This has been followed by chicken, mashed swede, philadephia, fish, red pepper, banana, toast, weetabix (he's currently helping daddy eat it) and Xander-slaw (grated carrot and cucumber in philadelphia). Don't worry that little lot was not all at once!!! Then to top it all last night he stole daddy's chocolate cake and started gumming that. He's not too keen on my food, but seems to love whatever daddy is eating!!

Will post some photos soon

Elisa thats fabulous news!! Xander definitely sounds like he's got the hang of this eating malarky!!

My Mum thought that I was going to kill O by giving her proper food but now she's so proud that I stuck to my guns and that O eats everything!!

Its so so handy (or at least it is for me) because when we go out I can just either take a sandwich with us and a cup of water or I can buy something while we're out, banana's and stuff is so easy to come by, or if we're at someone house and O decides she wants a snack I can just ask for a ham sandwich or anything really!

But be warned, you will get some funny looks when people see a baby chomping on a sandwich or something!!

BGE, I added grated radish to the Xander-slaw today and he scoffed it even more quickly than the 1st version. Going to try spag bol tonight. Think we'll be taking the highchair outside and dining al fresco for that one!

Hope Ben likes Ben-er-slaw (yeh, that does sound like a dinosaur, are you going to make dinosaur-esque noises as you make it / give it to him?). Have to confess with the Xander-slaw we would put some on the spoon, but then Xander takes the spoon and aims for his mouth by himself. Some of it has gone up his nose by mistake!!!