"A baby's stomache can ONLY handle purees"

[SarahDiener]

What are some good books on BLW?

 

[Flake-y]

I started out with TW. So purees with finger foods. By about 9 months I was so sick of eating cold dinner myself that I just let her get on with it. Best decision I've ever made! Now at 19 months she eats everything herself, with cutlery or without.
I have friends who still spoonfeed their kids the same age, it would just drive me insane!

Yes in the beginning it's messy and not a lot might end up in their mouths, but they get the hang of it quite quickly! And then it's fantastic! I never have to worry about her anymore and we can all have warm dinner .

I did the exact same, TW with finger foods at 5 months, then by 6 months I just gave him what we were eating made without salt & he mostly fed himself, i only occasionally spoon fed him. Now he feeds himself with his fingers, or with a spoon. Took a while to teach him to spoon feed himself tho, he was happy to put a pre-loaded spoon in his mouth, but wouldn't give the spoon back! Now he digs food out of his bowl with the spoon himself tho I still have to hold the bowl or it'd be on the floor!

He always eats better if he's eating what we're having & with us, the only time he gets fed on his own is if I'm working & the MIL & FIL give him his dinner. I think it's a shame seeing babies being spoon fed a jar of purée then having to watch while their parents tuck into proper nice tasting food! Poor babies!

 

[Sam Pearson]

What are some good books on BLW?

It sounds like your Mum's information is out of date - lots of women her age have bought into the puree myth.

People need books on how to feed babies when they aren't following the natural eating habits of babies and are devising artificial diet programmes for them.You don't need a book no BLW.

You live in an environment where all the humans eat food. Your baby sees people eating all kinds of different foods in all kinds of different forms in all kinds of different places all the time. Your baby gets to observe you and other family members eating very up close. They sometimes copy chewing and show an interest in our eating tools (spoons, chopsticks etc.). Then they start exploring by putting food that they find is available to them into their mouths and they experience various tastes and textures. When they want to they will actually eat food...and sometimes other things that aren't usually considered food like sand or poo - this is where it's appropriate to guide them..aside from those situations I've not had to interfere with my baby's eating at all.

All of my babies crawl early and after the first baby they found on the floor that was discarded by their older siblings...so they definitely ate before 6 months. They sat on my lap when I ate and swiped food without me always knowing. They ggaged on occasion but always got things up beautifully. They enjoyed all kinds of foods from fruit to chili chicken.

Here is an article that you might like that I have permission from the author to reprint:

Baby Led Weaning.

What a sensible approach.

You walk past the supermarket shelves of nappies, dummies, bottles, teats and formula quite happily but somehow at around four months you find yourself glancing at the baby rice and colourful jars and tins. You are not sure if these so called “children’s foods” belong in a separate category along with turkey twizzlers but there seems to be a children’s version of most products and they are hard to avoid. Everyone else is weaning but somehow it doesn’t feel right for you and your baby?

Stop! There is another way. A fantastically instinctive and intuitive approach to weaning has been developed by UNICEF and the world heath organisation WHO

Baby led weaning basically is what it says – you do not even offer solid food until the baby shows signs of internal and external readiness (being able to sit up unaided, tongue thrust movement disappears, gut lining becomes less leaky between during the weeks between four and six months.) This generally happens somewhere around the middle of the babies first year.

At this time at normal family meal times you simply sit the baby up at the table and offer them pieces of the raw or cooked ingredients from your family meal. E.g. – cucumber batons, banana chunks, cooked pasta shapes, avocado slices. Until the child’s pincer movement develops further they are unlikely to be able to pick up pieces small enough to choke on and that is pretty much it! Over the time between 6 and 12 months on a very gradual basis they will move from being exclusively breast fed to taking about half of their calories from solid food.

When you consider that almost 350g of cooked carrot contains the same amount of energy as 100g of breast milk it makes those entire big baby / small baby / weight gain arguments look pretty daft!

The key seems to me that you are not “feeding” the child – so throw away those weaning spoons – Just as a breast fed baby has learnt to regulate their food intake for the first six months and you learn to adjust to the idea that you can’t visualise how much milk they are taking this is simply a continuation of trusting your baby.

Missing out the “goo stage” means you also miss out the fiddleyness of introducing one food at a time – babies who were videoed for the unicef study seemed to do this naturally.

Weaning is an incredible gradual process on using this approach - A child needs the same amount of calories at 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 3 years (as their growth rate slows) – it is simply the composition of these calories that is changing.

The “iron issue” is often used to encourage mothers to wean early – breast milk is low is iron yes but this iron is easily and readily absorbed by the baby – the store built up at birth is usually running low between six and twelve months – you can offer iron rich foods from six months but you must trust that the baby that needs them will eat them and the baby that doesn’t won’t!!

Health Visitors in the UK are only just beginning to be schooled in this new approach and it is unlikely to be rolled out until government plans to extend maternity leave are approved. (Just as the government weaning advice was changed in 2004 from four to six months when maternity leave rules were changed before.) Anecdotal evidence suggests most health visitors are ignoring this new advice anyway and still encouraging mothers to wean far to early.

Weaning does seem to be occurring later in the west – some babies born in the sixties were often solids at three weeks, ten weeks seemed popular in the seventies – and so on - politics of our attitudes to food aside you could view this as the logical next stage!

- Just because your four-month-old baby is watching you eat it doesn’t mean they are ready for solids – they watch you do everything – that is just what four-month-old babies do.

- Do not be tempted to spoon feed your baby – allow them to continue regulating there own food intake just as they have done already – a very useful skill and one that may help them avoid eating disorders in adult life.

- You can introduce a spoon as their manual dexterity improves but it is for them to use it.

- Present a selection of healthy foods in pieces they can manage – let them choose which to eat or explore with their mouths. Do not put foods in their mouths – this is where the choking danger comes from.

- Babies given solids early do not sleep better – gram for gram in comparison to breast milk solids are very low in calories so will not “fill them up” contrary to what many people think.

- Waiting for your baby to be ready means that preparing food is much easier (i.e. no hand blender etc needed) and food allergies are less likely.

- Baby food manufacturers should no longer be labeling jars and packets with “16 weeks” they have been told by the government to change this to 6 months but are being rather slow to do so.

- By twelve months a baby eating a variety of nutritious foods will be eating what its body tells it it needs and obtaining about half its daily calories from solids.

 

[Lauki]

I started out with TW. So purees with finger foods. By about 9 months I was so sick of eating cold dinner myself that I just let her get on with it. Best decision I've ever made! Now at 19 months she eats everything herself, with cutlery or without.
I have friends who still spoonfeed their kids the same age, it would just drive me insane!

Yes in the beginning it's messy and not a lot might end up in their mouths, but they get the hang of it quite quickly! And then it's fantastic! I never have to worry about her anymore and we can all have warm dinner .

I did the exact same, TW with finger foods at 5 months, then by 6 months I just gave him what we were eating made without salt & he mostly fed himself, i only occasionally spoon fed him. Now he feeds himself with his fingers, or with a spoon. Took a while to teach him to spoon feed himself tho, he was happy to put a pre-loaded spoon in his mouth, but wouldn't give the spoon back! Now he digs food out of his bowl with the spoon himself tho I still have to hold the bowl or it'd be on the floor!

He always eats better if he's eating what we're having & with us, the only time he gets fed on his own is if I'm working & the MIL & FIL give him his dinner. I think it's a shame seeing babies being spoon fed a jar of purée then having to watch while their parents tuck into proper nice tasting food! Poor babies!

Yea! I always fed her breakfast (porridge) then she'd have fingerfoods for lunch and then I'd feed her mashed up dinner. I never really pureed as such, just mashed.

Then I realised she did so well with her lunch it was actually silly of me holding her back!

 

[patch2006uk]

Gill rapley's book 'baby led weaning' does a good job of reassuring and explaining why BLW works and how to go about it. No, you don't 'need' a book, but having read an outline of what to expect is certainly helpful

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

agree. The baby food industry has ingrained so many myths about infant feeding into society, it's hard to separate myth from fact and the blw book does a good job of that.

 

[SarahDiener]

thanks for the info and the book! xx

 

[Jess137]

So can you do BLW if baby is in daycare? I would much rather do that then puree foods for her, but DH and I both have to work full time so she will be at an in home daycare. Is it possible when a parent isn't there for the midday meal?

 

[Rachel_C]

If the childcare respects your wishes, I don't see why it would be a problem (and I wouldn't want my kids in a setting where they didn't respect my wishes). If anything, it'd be easier for them, surely? At 6 months, I guess they'd just give your LO the same food as they give the toddlers there - all finger foods. I can't think of any major differences, still no nuts, no whole grapes or tomatoes etc. I guess maybe they'd watch out for honey and undercooked egg but I imagine they'd avoid those anyway to keep things simple. Whether they would actually do it properly would be up to the provider - I know sometimes people like grandparents have trouble sticking to the 'rules'.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

You could send a packed lunch anyway? That's what I did with ruby when she was with a childminder.

 

[KerryGold]

My nursery were a bit confused by it to start with. They would give her a bowl and spoon of the same mush the other babies were eating (and once soup ) then complain she wasn't eating.

After I had a good discussion with the manager (and co-incidentally the next day they got sandwiches for tea), they just broke up what the older kids were having for her to have.

She's currently the only kid in her room successfully using a fork We blazed the trail though, there are younger babies there doing successful BLW too.

xXx

 

[tinytabby]

This is an interesting thread, I've found all the comments really helpful.

My LO is just past 5 months. I was going to do the pure BLW route from 6 months but she's so interested in food I've been giving her fruit and veg purées this week because she just isn't ready for the BLW approach and there's not much guidance for a kind of compromise route.

I've just been bf her first and then 'playing' with spoon feeding fruit and giving her bm in a cup. I don't know if this is a good way to do things but hopefully it'll all be ok whe she can sit in a high chair and feed herself in a month or two.

 

[LaraB]

They actually recommend BLW now my community health nurse was really happy when we said we'd be doing baby led x

 

[pinklightbulb]

I had all intentions to do BLW with Liam and backed out at the last second. For those who are brave enough to stray from TW, I bow down to you. It looks so much easier.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Why is blw brave? Genuine question, as my hv said this as well...

 

[pinklightbulb]

Cause I'm scared shitless he'd choke to be totally frank

 

[Sam Pearson]

May I ask what TV is?

 

[pinklightbulb]

Do you mean TW? Traditional Weaning

 

[KerryGold]

They're actually more likely to choke with TW because they aren't in control of what's going in their mouth and they don't learn to chew before they swallow like BLW babies do.

They can gag quite a bit with BLW, you just have to remember it's not dangerous and keep an eye on them. My LO used to make her self sick once or twice a week early on I would say but she was never upset by it and learnt quickly (apart from the beloved banana she still occasionally tries to stuff too much in of) how much she could manage.

If you're really worried, learn what to do if they did choke. It's a good skill to have anyway!

xXx

 

[xsadiex]

Buy the blw weaning book, maybe she'll change her mind once she reads it? You don't need to introduce things gradually either xx