BLW - Baby led weaning support thread

[ellie]

Hi all :wave:

we've sort of started now so can i join you ??

K's been sucking on bits of cucumber all week (helps his teething as well) and slices of pear, yesterday he loved mushing up banana and may have even swallowed some also chewed on a slice of mushroom from my stir fry, but looked appalled at this! He also had a spoonful of yoghurt (holding it himself) and smeared this everywhere, looked very pleased with himself!
I was terrified earlier in the week and would still panic at the gagging as he looks at me with a 'help me' look on his face ... but ive tried to rein this in a bit.

we're about to have scrambled egg and smoked salmon for brunch 'yuum' Can LO have a bit of well cooked scrambled egg?
I wish I could give him a bit of toast but he's not supposd to have gluten yet and I didnt manage to get him any GF bread

 

[chrissie33]

Hey girls, Katie has been doing BLW for several weeks now and so far, so good. Is she not meant to have bread though? I have been giving her toast as she loves it but thought I would check after a few comments here.

So far, Katie has tried Cucumber, broccoli, carrot, baby corn, green beans, poached salmon, melon, banana and apple. I want to introduce spoon food to her but dont know what the best thing to try is. Any suggestions?

 

[Racheldigger]

Ellie, I don't see why your LO can't have scrambled egg - as I understand it, the fuss about egg white is aimed at traditional weaners who are weaning much younger babies. Chrissie, as far as I know, you only need to avoid bread if you've got reason to suspect wheat or gluten intolerance, because it runs in your family already. My LO was eating toast and bread from the first day we tried her with solids, and enjoyed it no end. I would recommend using the 'reallest' bread you can find, though - from a real bakery if you can't bake your own. Apparently commercially produced loaves contain scary amounts of salt, and floppy white sliced Mother's Pride type bread is practically impossible to eat, even toasted, when you've got no teeth.

 

[ellie]

Ellie, I don't see why your LO can't have scrambled egg - as I understand it, the fuss about egg white is aimed at traditional weaners who are weaning much younger babies. Chrissie, as far as I know, you only need to avoid bread if you've got reason to suspect wheat or gluten intolerance, because it runs in your family already. My LO was eating toast and bread from the first day we tried her with solids, and enjoyed it no end. I would recommend using the 'reallest' bread you can find, though - from a real bakery if you can't bake your own. Apparently commercially produced loaves contain scary amounts of salt, and floppy white sliced Mother's Pride type bread is practically impossible to eat, even toasted, when you've got no teeth.

cool - will try him!
chrissie, we're only avoiding / minimising gluten as there is coeliacs disease in the family, otherwise he would be having toast, we buy yummy locally made organic bread, i found a lovly simple recipe for spelt bread though

 

[jenny82]

I've tried my LO with scrambled egg twice so far, but he hates it! I think its the texture :/ I tried to make it as creamy as I could but no joy so far.

I use kingsmill 50/50 bread although after reading an article about bread the other day, I may need ot look into another type as maybe this bread isn't as good as I thought it was...

 

[chrissie33]

Katie has tried meatballs in tomato sauce tonight...thank god for waterproof bibs

 

[florabean1981]

I make my own saltless bread & use unsalted butter in it too. I know he's ok with gluten, but I worry about the salt, lol.

 

[Shiv]

I am torn with bread - make your own and you can control the salt, but shop bought bread has added vitamins and iron I think - 6 of one half a dozen of the other!

 

[jenny82]

I scoured the bread aisles last night before choosing a Hovis granary wholemeal - low salt, low sugar bread. Tastes pretty good too, although I don't think I'llever fully trust any kindof food now...

Maybe I'll invest in a breadmaker?

 

[Donna35]

Can I join in here too please? We've been unsuccessfully trying to wean JJ on and off from 6 months old (he's almost 10months now) and he's had zero interest in food only wants boobie - my milk must just be amazing lol

So now I'm trying really really hard to wean him - I've even took this week off work to have plenty of time to do it. He's not entertaining being spoon-fed or us trying to feed him a bottle so I've figured it's cos he's an independent little lad and wants to do it himself...so I made up a botle n left it beside him and he picked it up put it in his mouth a few times and dripped the milk into his mouth. I suppose after 9months of boobie it'll take some time to get used to it.

I'm also going to go fully BLW - mainly as he won't allow me spoonfed him and pushes the spoon away every time.

So far this week I've given him half a banana - bit a tiny piece off but not much interest, rusks - he does bite these a good bit but prefers mashing them off the highchair lol, toast with spread which got mushed up and thrown on the floor.

Today's been our best day though - gave him a couple slices mango which he LOVED he sucked the life out of one for a few minutes, a pink wafer biscuit which he bit a few pieces off and may even have swallowed some and for tea I made sweet potato wedges with Roary spaghetti shapes - the spaghetti got tasted and I was given a strange look lol and he chewed one wedge a little bit. He did love the sticky feeling on his fingers from the spaghetti tho lol and giggled for ages afterwards.

Very small steps but its a start...been really inspired by this thread and also the one saying what LO's have eaten in a day - JJ is lactose intolerant so I'll have to be pretty nventive what I give him and got some good ideas thanks everyone. Hoping he's soon eating as well as all your LO's

 

[eeyore007]

Hi! I'd like to join please!
Have a question re formula. . . . . . .
Frances is exclusive boob. Has only had a little aptamil. (20ml on night of birth as I was exhausted - saved the breastfeeding! ironic eh!) She has never had a bottle. We tried, but after third attempt I promised her never again. She now drinks from a freeflow cup, or doidy cup. She's 1 week off 6 months and has been feeding herself for 1.5 weeks. Doing really well and eats humous, pitta, cheese, those wotsit carrot sticks, melon, broccoli, carrot, corgette, fried courgette (unsalted butter!), baby sweetcorn, rice cakes, toast, bannana, plums, stewed apple (mashed) and mashed mango etc etc. (both of these I mash as steamed the apple is to slippery and she tends to drop it, and the mango doesn't stand a chance in her hands - squish! - a;though I leave them with a good rough consistency, and she chews, doesn't suck. Anyway, it's all going very very well indeed and the time has come for her to have time with daddy and daddy is soooooooo excited. Now, I know that I should express milk to give her, but for the purposes of daddy taking her over to his mums for say one or two feeds worth of time, I'm so not going to express - have tried it before. Don't like it and I'm very useless at it. Therefore I am going to give her formula. She likes the aptamil stage 1 carton stuff and will drink it with no problems from her cup. Question is, for these couple of feeds once aweek, do I use the stage 1 carton? I've read about the weaning one and the hungry baby one, but these seem geared towards weaning them off milk, whilst giving them a full on mush diet. Obviously frances is still reliant upon breast milk, and I'm not looking to give her concentrated stuff to leave space for food as that doesn't seem necessary.
So what do I use? Stage 1, 2 or 3?
Any help would be most appreciated and thanks to everyone for the super info on this thread!!

 

[Donna35]

Eeyore if pumping really isn't working out for you then I'd probably use the stage 1 for the time being as shes not yet 6 months then move onto 2 or 3 as I think thats for older babies 6months onwards (I could be wrong tho) so the nutrition in it should be geared more towards her at that age group. After all it's only for 1 maybe 2 bottles as you say when your OH takes her off out so I don't think it'll fill her up too much while weaning.

Shes doing brilliantly with the food - wish my little lad had taken to it as soon and as well!! He's a typical man laid back and taking his time lol

 

[Donna35]

JJ's done a bit better yesterday again - for tea I gave him tomatoes cut in quarters, celery sticks and carrot puff things - more to introduce different foods etc. He tasted the tomato but lost interest. Gave him a largish strawberry for dessert though and he LOVED it and ate nearly all of it. It's the most of anything he's eaten so far and ate it all by himself he spent about 10minutes munching away on it. I'm chuffed. Broccoli is today's menu lol

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Glad it's going well Donna.

 

[eeyore007]

Hi Donna 35 and thanks for the advice. Re. your LO, I spoke to a very supportive health visitor and she said to give every new food at least 6 chances before declaring it as not liked. Sounds like he is just setting his own pace, which is fair enough. If he's happy and you have the time, then I guess just let him get on with it!

 

[Donna35]

Thanks Claire. Eeyore - yes I'm going to keep trying with everything til we figure out what he likes and what not thanks xx

 

[bloodbinds]

A few questions for you experienced girls!

Can you do BLW if your baby has no teeth?
If they have no teeth, what can you give them that they actually might have a chance at eating properly? (ie, swallowing)
What's the best thing to start with? I've tried bananas, apples and cucumber but she can't get a good enough grip on them really and gets fustrated i think!

 

[florabean1981]

Harry has no teeth still- it took him time to master biting down & pulling the piece of food away to break segments off so he can chew/gum it & swallow. Things that were good for him grip-wise are broccoli (really good one), bread, cheese (kinda gnaws away at it, lol), mash that he can smush & lick off his fingers/hands, ripe fruit- it makes a mess & most of it gets smushed, but he defo gets a fair bit in his mouth, large pasta tubes (like extra large penne were best as it gives them more to grip on), sweet potator sticks, cucumber with the skin peeled off & done into long chucks so he has more to hold onto etc, mango, peaches (better than nectarines as less slippery).... I found that giving longer strips & chuncks helped as if it was really slippy, he could grab it with both hands, if that makes sense. Chicken breast strips have gone down pretty well too; kinda peels it off, iyswim?

The more experienced ladies will be able to help better I'm sure though!

 

[joeyjo]

Sorry not been in this thread much but it's lovely to see all the new faces & I hope you enjoy BLW as much as we have

I'm after some feedback from the "oldies" if there are an around please. We had the night from hell - g (fully bf) woke for a feed at 11 (not too unusual but he fed more vigorously than his usual night feed) but then woke again at 1, starving hungry, sucking really really hard and fed on & off for 2 hours, rejected water but dived on the ebm I offered and also some yogurt. Nursery said he ate all of all 3 of his meals but I'm thinking perhaps they just offered normal portion & no seconds?

Anybody else experienced sudden night hunger like this?

 

[polaris]

Thomas has no teeth either and manages most things reasonably well now. He manages better if veggies, pasta, etc. are quite well cooked (soft enough that he can break them up with his gums) but not so soft that they fall apart in his hands. Roasted veg were easy to manage at the start because they are firm on the outside but soft in the middle. Sweet potato wedges went down very well - I just cook it in the microwave and then cut it into pieces for him. Ricecakes or toast fingers spread with anything are good. Breadsticks are OK too, he sucks them for ages and then crunches them. At the beginning I used to leave skin on fruit as it made it easier for him to pick up, but they do get used to handling slippy food. At the start I used to give him long fingers of food so that he could hold one end and gum the other - but now he prefers to be able to put the whole piece of food in his mouth and gnaw it up with his gums.

The only things he can't really manage are hard foods like apple - so I cook pieces of apple for him and he loves them. He even manages to chew up meat like stewed beef or roast chicken. I have been amazed by how much he is actually able to manage with no teeth!

I think the whole thing with BLW is that babies will go at their own pace though - Thomas really just started tucking into three meals a day very very quickly whereas I know other babies don't eat much at all for months. Milk is enough for them at this age so you can let them explore food at their own pace. Just keep offering a wide range of foods and she will soon be surprising you with what she is able to manage.