With blw some people say they can have anything you have just cut into strips.
Other people say you have to soften the food first eg cook apples, carrots etc and then cut into strips. (Which isn't the same as just having what you have)

Some people say no spoons, others say pre-loaded spoons.

This is so confusing..........

i say do whatever you want! we cooked hard things for a week or so until we felt more confident. now we just give him anything. i pre-load spoons sometimes but ds isn't that keen so i usually just leave him the spoon to play with and he eats yoghurt with his fingers!

I also say do what you want!

I give her whatever I'm eating in the form I'm eating it in, if that makes sense. So carrots for example, if I'm eating a raw carrot stick I give it to her that way. But if I'm having steamed carrots with dinner I give her steamed carrots.

Not sure about the spoons as I actually haven't used one at all!

I didn't know you could give a baby raw carrots. I assumed things needed to be soft. Did you give it to her when you first started solids? Could she actually eat it or just play with it?

I did BLW and just used softer foods to start with in the first month or so such as banana, rice cakes etc and any veg if I had cooked some for dinner. I mostly put it on a plate in from of them with a spoon and eventually a fork and they would copy me eating by themselves x

She wasn't really interested in anything until almost 8 months. She usually just plays with it but now that she's got some teeth she does eat a bit of the raw carrot. I just cut it big enough that she can't accidentally swallow it or anything.

I think it depends quite a lot on your approach to parenting. People who do BLW tend to have more trust in their LO's inbuilt ability to do what they need - it's about trusting your baby's ability to eat solids when they are capable of digesting them, trusting their gag reflex to prevent choking, trusting them to learn how to eat for themselves, trusting them to avoid foods that don't agree with them, trusting them to eat carbs when they need carbs etc. It's a lot of trust! If you parent that way in general, BLW is probably the best way to go. I am like that - I trust that kids will generally do the 'right' thing if you don't get in the way of their instincts.

However, if you don't really trust your LO's instincts fully, for whatever reason, you might want to 'help' by only serving certain foods, even if you still do finger foods rather than purees. If you trust your LO even less, you might want to do purees and spoon-feed.

That's not intended as criticism of those who "don't trust their LO's" - I mean it in a natural instinct kind of way. Some people, myself included, do believe that babies know what they need (with some obvious exceptions like trying to run in the road!), but others think they need a bit of guidance and others think they need total guidance in everything. To decide what you should do, I'd decide how much you trust nature

We didn't specially prepare much for DS. The only things we altered from how we would eat them were grapes, which we cut in half (but we don't anymore) and apple, which we steamed and peeled first (but again now he just is given apple raw but chopped, which is how I eat them anyway) It's only because I know that those are 2 of the most likely foods for adults to choke on, and as adapting them wasn't too much hassle, I went with it.

I agree that it's what you're comfortable with. Even as an adult, I'm wary with grapes and apple (and I would be with cherry tomatoes too, if I ate them) as they really are the most likely things you're going to choke on. I don't get too obsessed, as I do trust DS to look after himself. But when he's got a mouth full of grapes and is trying to do a forward roll, I ask him to sit nicely and chew properly. Ill probably still be reminding him to do that when he's 30!

I find all the books and websites totally confusing!