BLW - Baby led weaning support thread

[Sunrise]

Hello all, just popping in here for some advice...

My LO is almost 6 months and we have been traditional weaning for around a month now. I am considering switching to BLW but not sure yet. I have a few questions for you ladies:

1) I love the idea of eating at the same time with BLW but my DH doesn't get home until gone 6pm and by that time LO is DONE. There is no way she would sit happily in her high chair and eat. How do you get around this? Do you feed LO earlier in which case do you need to make two seperate meals?

2) How do you give bready type foods? I could just imagine LO getting bread and wraps etc stuck to the top of her mouth since they can be quite "claggy"

3) Has anyone else switched from TW to BLW? How did you get on?

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Sunrise,
I feed my LO before DH gets home, although sometimes after. So we have two seperate meals. Usually I will either have made something for LO which is for us as well, or LO gets leftovers and then DH eat something later.

We have been giving our LO bread, but generally not white bread (although that is perfectly fine to do so), as we don't usually buy it. We buy spelt and rye bread which is less "claggy" and a bit more tough. I've never seen bread get stuck to the roof of his mouth, but it's possible it does and he works it free with his tongue.

We didn't do TW so I'll leave that for someone else to comment on.

 

[cranberry987]

Hi, wondered if you had any ideas as Im a bit stuck for breakfast and lunch. Im doing slimming world and want to eat roughly the same things as my LO (obv would give him full fat versions). He's nearly 7m and has been on solids for 2 or 3 weeks now.

Breakfast I usually have yogurt and fruit which is fine now as we only just started and he hardly eats anything, but Im not mad keen on him having so much dairy when he is actually getting food in.

Lunch I usually have a mug shot (which is probably horribly salty) and fruit and give J some boiled brocolli, or pesto on brown pitta bread, random stuff out of the fridge rly, maybe some leftovers from the previous night.

Dinner is fine as DH cooks and J isnt on dinner yet.

Oh and these ideas need to be things which dont involve 100 ingredients and loads of proper cooking as I just cant do it.

Or is it ok that we eat totally different things? it feels wrong somehow.

 

[Blah11]

we've been blw for a month now & had a great start then he started teething so we went backwards again lol.

today hes only had a few chews of cucumber sticks, a suck of tomato wedges, 3 strawberries and 1/4 slice of bread. he seems to just gum the food, chew it then spit it out is this ok? shouldnt he be starting to actually eat some food now lol so irritating picking his entire bowl full from the floor to the bin every day, ugh.

 

[kosh]

i started a new thread but i thought i could ask here too
i want to start BLW soon - my LO seems to have a weak tummy (lots of pain due to gas) what would you give first that is not too harsh?

 

[Dragonfly]

Finally I can join here properly lol though I realise that I will have the oldest BLW child who actually only started eating in the last few weeks. I just kept offering and he took food off my plate in the end for a while then his own. He loves fish fingers, waffles, pancakes, yoghurt, toast, Philadelphia , pasta, ragu., cake.

 

[mistyscott]

we've been blw for a month now & had a great start then he started teething so we went backwards again lol.

today hes only had a few chews of cucumber sticks, a suck of tomato wedges, 3 strawberries and 1/4 slice of bread. he seems to just gum the food, chew it then spit it out is this ok? shouldnt he be starting to actually eat some food now lol so irritating picking his entire bowl full from the floor to the bin every day, ugh.

Totally normal -'if frustrating - I'm afraid LO didnt start consuming much until 8mths and we still have days where he eats very little. If only my LO spat things out though....he holds them in his mouth

 

[hannah22]

Hello all we are currently in our second week of blw! I'm a slimming worlder too and starting to find meal times tricky as what I have to have probably isn't much good for her also my Hv told me that food should be replacing her milk now and that we need to drop feeds! This can't be right if all she does is gum it and spit food back out - surely????

Some days she will have a good go on things but then days like today when she has thrown everything on the floor make me doubt my decision to blw I have no one to ask advice from in person as everyone I know has or is currently tw! I guess I just want a bit of reassurance

 

[hannah22]

Also I'm struggling with the decision of switching to follow on milk, though I've read it's no better for them than first stage milk arggghhh lol help!

 

[cranberry987]

I've realised that J just has to have the plainer parts of my meal. Eg if I'm eating a mugshot and fruit he has the fruit. Breakfast is easy. Dinner is scrambled egg, philli on ricecake, stuff like that. He's having lots of fruit and veg. I add yogurt and hummus to things for him

Now that I've decreased the healthy extras on Sw due to weaning the weight is flying off. Lost 2lb this week and I totally didn't do 1/3 fruit/veg. I take that to mean that he's still feeding a LOT. Frequency hasn't changed but I thought maybe he would take less. I think if you're going to be truly babyled you can't reduce the feeds, the baby will do it itself.

 

[hannah22]

Thanks! She has 5x 7oz feeds at the moment! And she definitely doesn't want to give any of those up as she moans at the same times everyday for them. I just didn't know if I was filling her up too much with milk to be interested in food.

You're doing really great well done! I have only lost 6lb in 3 weeks and feeling unmotivated

 

[Duejan2012]

Hello everyone i too am very interested about starting baby led weaning but would like some advice about what type of foods to start out on? My baby is 6 months now but was on purees since 5 months. But i am loving the idea of this. So any advice would be greatly apreciated and some advice on what foods to start. My son is 6 months and has no teeth yet but i gave him a banana today and he bit into it and chewed it very well. Thank you everyone!

 

[Miss_Quirky]

Has anyone who has done BLW ever had their LO want food earlier than recommended? Mine is almost three months, and he is way ahead of himself. He can sit up and stand all on his own (still working on balance though), and we have to be very careful now when we are eating. He will reach onto our plates if we aren't paying enough attention and stuffs it into his mouth. There has been a few times where we had to fish bacon or french toast out of his mouth because it was too big!

Even though he is only three months, should I still follow his lead and introduce him to soft foods slowly? (he has only a few teeth. has since birth)

 

[Dragonfly]

I must say its great to never actually spoon fed Alex . He never let me anyway and just eats away at what you put him now at his own time.

 

[evasmum]

Has anyone who has done BLW ever had their LO want food earlier than recommended? Mine is almost three months, and he is way ahead of himself. He can sit up and stand all on his own (still working on balance though), and we have to be very careful now when we are eating. He will reach onto our plates if we aren't paying enough attention and stuffs it into his mouth. There has been a few times where we had to fish bacon or french toast out of his mouth because it was too big!

Even though he is only three months, should I still follow his lead and introduce him to soft foods slowly? (he has only a few teeth. has since birth)

Personally I think 3 months is way too early to introduce any solid food, even if he can sit and grab. Generally 4 months is the minimum age, there is lots of research to say that babies fed before 4 months will develop allergies and stomach problems when they are older. Personally I would wait.

 

[blondey]

Has anyone who has done BLW ever had their LO want food earlier than recommended? Mine is almost three months, and he is way ahead of himself. He can sit up and stand all on his own (still working on balance though), and we have to be very careful now when we are eating. He will reach onto our plates if we aren't paying enough attention and stuffs it into his mouth. There has been a few times where we had to fish bacon or french toast out of his mouth because it was too big!

Even though he is only three months, should I still follow his lead and introduce him to soft foods slowly? (he has only a few teeth. has since birth)

Personally I think 3 months is way too early to introduce any solid food, even if he can sit and grab. Generally 4 months is the minimum age, there is lots of research to say that babies fed before 4 months will develop allergies and stomach problems when they are older. Personally I would wait.

I agree, 3 months is way before the guidelines, even for early weaning. 17 weeks is the absolute minimum you should start weaning, although it's best to wait to as close to 6 months as possible, especially if you want to BLW.

At 3 months he's still a tiny baby and his insides can only cope with milk.

BLW is recommended for 6 months onwards as it deals with whole foods, so starting a lot before this could be a real choking hazard.

If you do decide to wean early then it should only be fruit/veg and gluten free baby rice (if you decide to TW) gluten (wheat etc) and meats etc shouldn't be had before 6 months.

x

 

[Siuan]

Hi all, well - we're starting on BLW around now. LO seems ready, I gave her a carrot and broccoli floret in a restaurant yesterday to play with and found some broccoli in her nappy today so she must have eaten some!

I need to do LOTS of research into this because I have no idea really about what foods to give and when so I might be asking a lot of silly questions (I apologise if they've already been asked, but with this thread at 460 pages... it is impossible to find answers easily I think!)

 

[My_littlbump]

Hi everyone! I'm going to be starting BLW in a couple of weeks, and was wondering what you do about introducing water with meals? Do you introduce it from the beginning, or once they're actually eating rather than just playing with their food? Do you use a soppy cup or doidy cup? And do they have to be sterilised? And should they drink cooled, boiled water? LO has only ever drank breast milk direct from the source, lol, so I'm pretty clueless about it! Thanks! X

 

[mistyscott]

Hi everyone! I'm going to be starting BLW in a couple of weeks, and was wondering what you do about introducing water with meals? Do you introduce it from the beginning, or once they're actually eating rather than just playing with their food? Do you use a soppy cup or doidy cup? And do they have to be sterilised? And should they drink cooled, boiled water? LO has only ever drank breast milk direct from the source, lol, so I'm pretty clueless about it! Thanks! X

Hi there

To be honest, we didn't worry too much about giving water until he started dropping bf at 9 months or so. LO struggled with BLW though and didn't really eat much until then, so if earlier I'd have offered water with meals. We started with a sippy cup but he didn't get that so gave him soft spouted beaker instead and he took to it straight away. Moved back to the sippy cup at 10 months or so and he still has that now. Never bothered with cooled boiled, just good old tap!

Have fun - and embrace the mess! (And frustration...)

 

[BigAl]

Hey, I am just looking for a bit of support. My LO is 6.5 months and hasn't shown a massive amount of interest in food, but I'm offering him one meal a day. He will take the spoon from me and usually put it in his mouth but will spit the food back out, (I also try and offer finger foods, but I'm mainly giving brekkie at the moment). I go through phases of being depressed by this, and others of thinking, it's fine he is just getting used to flavours and textures.

However I went to the Hv to get him weighed today and got a stern lecture about how he should be on 3 meals a day by now, and only take 4 BF's. I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing so hard, but I have been stewing away on this all day.

I shouldn't be worrying yet about him not eating a lot should I??