BLW - Baby led weaning support thread

[Mum2b_Claire]

I was hugely proud of Elliot at lunch time yesterday, he ate over 2/3 of an adult size yoghurt just using his spoon and not his hands He uses it as a dipper rather than loading it up.

I've started giving him things on a plate / in a bowl again and they don't just get picked up straight away and played with or thrown on the floor

x

Great! I was just wondering when to introduce a bowl or plate, I've tried offering things in bowls but the bowl holds way more interest than the food. Even if I hold the side of it, she still tries to wrestle it off me!

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

ugh the last few days have been horrble for us.. Oh and i have both been really ill with a nasty tummy bug.. luckily ruby has escaped it so far, but feeding her has been seriously hard work.. mostly becasue the smell / sight of food is making us both throw up!
ive discovered she loves pineapple tho, like LOVES it!!!!

its interesting that you all have found this too.. but she really does switch between what she likes & dislikes... she always used to prefer fruit, and would take it over veg.. then it switched to be veg first, now its back to fruit again!

i havent tried her with meat yet, i know the book says its fine too, but i just feel more comfy waiting a bit lol... her daddy is a total carnivore.. he doesnt eat any fruit or veg at all, so i want to make sure shes got a good relationship with those things before i give her meat incase she ends up like him!!

Oh no, sorry you and OH have been ill. I bet having to make and feed purees would have been more stomach turning though. Or maybe it's just me!
I am the same about meat, we're just not comfy with it either, even though my OH is also a massive carnivore! He worries about her choking, I worry about her having trouble digesting it. I've offered it a couple of times but it's been ignored anyway. She ate some of my mum's xmas ham but no other meat. She picks up chicken and just puts it back down again.
I'm going to try and treat her as a veggie for now really, give her lots of alternative sources of protein which is healthy anyway.

 

[joeyjo]

OK - I need some advice again!!!

After some meals I have noticed G has a bit of food stuck in the roof of his mouth - it was pear yesterday and toast today. I've avoided bread coz I heard this could happen, anyway today I noticed it when I was lying him down to change his bum about 10min after food - I keep him upright for 10min just in case of this. I tried leaning him forward and tapping his back but it didn't shift. In the end whilst he was still lent forward I slid my finger in to his cheek and then hooked it round and pulled out the offending piece. I went in cheek first to avoid pushing it back further but I'm just wondering whether to do this regularly after meals as I'd hate to lie him down and then have it dislodge.

Does anybody else find this issue? If so how do you deal with it?

 

[kirsten1985]

I have never noticed any food being stuck, but Freya often gets a bit which she won't swallow, can't chew and won't spit out, lol. I give her as long as I can (usually about 20 mins) to deal with it herself but then I go in and get it. I don't like doing it, but it doesn't happen often.

 

[faille]

Sorry Joeyjo, cant help as we havent had that issue. Only once I've had to get a bit of food out her mouth because she couldnt quite spit it out but it was already hanging out her mouth so I just grabbed that end!

Would maybe a drink help at all?


Elm, that's great to hear about the bowl/plate. I let Violet see her bowl with breakfast and she usually ignores it until she's had a good bit of food but then thats it and all she wants to do is eat her bowl

 

[joeyjo]

A drink might help but he's BF and not really grasped drinking yet, I do offer water in either a sippy or a doidy but he pushes the sippy away and blows bubbles into the doidy

 

[NIfirsttimer]

nope not noticed it here either, and i do check... ive found a few bits in her cheek, but never up there.. maybe its just the shape of his mouth.. his roof is a little higher?
Ruby has a good drink from her doidy after shes eaten, and i find bits that are still in there tend to come out into the cup.. she has a very ladylike open mouthed style of drinking at the moment lol....

 

[TigerLady]

Otter has had bread stuck to the roof of his mouth a couple of times. I just make sure I get it out when I do the regular sweep of his mouth after he eats. He's always keeping little bits in his mouth like a chipmunk!

I need a bit of help, Ladies. Being pg again has officially made me violently lactose intolerant! I had this with Otter, too. It totally ruins my diet as I have so much dairy in it normally. When I am pg, I can't even eat a piece of cheese!

Anyway, will have to cut it out again. This means no dairy in Otter's breastmilk from here forward. But I want to keep him exposed to dairy as much as possible so that he doesn't develop a problem with it. He loves grilled cheese sandwhiches. He isn't very good with a spoon yet, so won't be getting much in the way of yogurt down him. What else can I do to make sure he gets plenty of dairy exposure?

 

[kirsten1985]

TL, you could let him eat yoghurt with his hands? Freya loves doing this, we don't use a spoon for anything anymore as she was getting lazy and wanting me to feed her with it!

 

[Lu28]

Kirsten - how do you do yoghurt without a spoon? I just can't imagine Aisling getting any in her mouth! Luckily she's generally great with the spoon except that she's now trying to turn the spoon upsidedown before it reaches her mouth

 

[TigerLady]

^^ That is what Otter does! Which is why very little actually gets into him. He doesn't lick stuff off his hands yet, so I don't know how it would go without a spoon. But is worth a (messy) try!

 

[faille]

We do cereal with yogurt and Violet used to take the spoon herself no probs. But we recently started it up again (after not doing breakie for a while) and now all she wants to do is pick it up with her hands

Being that there's 'bits' of food in with the yogurt, she actually manages to eat a lot of yogurt with her hands. Could you maybe try something like that, TL if you don't think yogurt by itself would work?

And I just guess load him up with cheese, yogurt and add cows milk to as much of your cooking as possible.

 

[TigerLady]

Thanks!

I wonder if I can cook something with cow's milk for him and something different for me... or does that defeat the point of BLWing. I can't even put it in cooking for me it is so bad.

So, you just mix regular cereal with yorgurt instead milk? That might work! Hmm, and I could probably chunk up fresh fruit and mix it with yogurt, he'll probably get some that way, too.

 

[faille]

Thanks!

I wonder if I can cook something with cow's milk for him and something different for me... or does that defeat the point of BLWing. I can't even put it in cooking for me it is so bad.

So, you just mix regular cereal with yorgurt instead milk? That might work! Hmm, and I could probably chunk up fresh fruit and mix it with yogurt, he'll probably get some that way, too.

"technically", yes.. But it's extreme circumstances and obviously if you have an allergy to something you're not going to make yourself eat it or deprive LO of it either!

Yep, we do normal cereal coated/mixed with yogurt instead of milk. As the yogurt is a lot thicker, it makes the cereal easier to pick up with hands as a load of it just sticks together.

And yeah the fruit and yogurt is great idea too! If you want to make the cereal and yogurt a little thicker still to make it easier to pick up, you could always mash a bit of banana into it.

 

[TigerLady]

That's a good idea, too! (the mashed banana)

Do you use baby cereal or regular cereal? I haven't even thought about what kind of cereal to give him yet.

 

[faille]

I use regular cereal.. Rice Krispies (dunno if you get them over there??) and Weetabix works too

 

[TigerLady]

Yep! Rice Krispies sounds good, actually. Snap Crackle Pop!!! (only they probably don't do that with yogurt, do they! )

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

I wouldn't worry about making something different for yourself TL. Personally, I don't think them eating the exact same food as you is the most important bit of BLW. As long as you're sitting at the table with them and offering them 'normal food', not puree or mash or whatever, then that's BLW. The bible acknowledges that many parents don't give the same food as they're eating. If I was eating something different to Ruby I would make sure it was something that was safe for her to eat if she really wanted my food instead of hers, but that's not happened so far.

 

[kirsten1985]

Kirsten - how do you do yoghurt without a spoon? I just can't imagine Aisling getting any in her mouth! Luckily she's generally great with the spoon except that she's now trying to turn the spoon upsidedown before it reaches her mouth

I just put yoghurt in a bowl, hold the bowl myself and she grabs it in her fists and licks it off. Obv it's no good in her fists, lol, but her her hands get covered in it. Doesn't take her long to finish a bowl and she doesn't waste any!

 

[CountingDown]

I have a question. I am not sure of this is down to teething or just a phase.

Olivia keeps spitting her food out, purposely and not just because she has taken too big a bite. She will chew for a while then just spit it out, she has done this at every meal with every mouthful even with foods she seemed to enjoy.

I did put it down to teethng at first but she is still taking all her milk feeds fine and has started to wake up alot during the night wanting to feed. I am not overly concerned but I just wondered if this was a phase rather than teething.

Edited to add when I mean purposely, I mean deliberately poking her tongue out to spit the food out, not it working its way to the front via the tongue reflex because the piece of food is too big lol