BLW - Baby led weaning support thread

[faille]

We have that at lunch sometimes Kirsten. So after about an hour (in total, not after me finishing) she seems to slow down but still keeps going. But as soon as she slows down and stops showing as much interest in her food, I take it away.

I know that probably isn't "right" but she starts off so enthusiastically so when she stops showing interest, I take that as a cue she's getting bored or having enough. I still do the whole 'finished?' thing though and if she picks anything up as I'm about to take the tray away I let her finish but if she's playing with it and not actually eating it then I assume she's done. She only does the finished sign at dinner (is raising her arms more frequently now!), never does it at lunch?

 

[kirsten1985]

They are so confusing!

 

[saraendepity]

Sara, Freya is the same, last night was the first night it really happened, we were having dinner, she had roast squash, roast potato (her fav) and roast carrot. We had eaten all of ours and she hadn't even picked any up, just mushed it into the table, swept it onto the floor etc. So I decided she wasn't bothered and was about to go bath her, when I picked up a bit and gave it to her and she started eating it So then she ate loads and we were sat there over an hour.


I think I am going to have to do as Lu says, I will pass her bits and bobs and hope it is a phase, I would rather she practised her chewing and swallowing (which have got very good recently I think!!) than just sat there and didn't eat. Technically she is still feeding herself, and it is our food, she just isn't picking it up. So that's fine with me. Hopefully it won't last long!

We also banned porridge about a week ago, we now do rice cakes and fruit for brekkie, although when she is 8 months I think we'll do the odd bit of toast too.

It still takes a lot for Freya to take the spoon off me and put it in her mouth herself, she tends to whine a lot before she does it, I resorted to spooning a bit in yesterday as her poo was mega hard and making her bleed. So I stewed some plums and got loads of fruit in her.

I have another problem though, I don't think Freya has ever actually finished eating by the time we leave the table, she never shows finished signs, we sit there for ages and ages, her food gets all cold and manky, I seriously think she would keep going forever (this is just at dinner by the way, she shows she is done at other meals). When we went to the chinese buffet the other day she was eating for over 2 hours, but there is no way I could sit at the table at home that long?! Does anyone else have this?

yep daisy does the exact same thing sittin there either screaming ar just playing with her bib/clothes/sippy cup then if i hand her something she devours it

Daisy loves taking a spoon off me, she proper grabs it then puts it in her mouth and gives it back to me !!

and with the not finishing when daisy does eat she never (at any meal) shows signs that she's done......she occasionally gets a little sick, especially if its porridge and i'm taking too long to load the spoon i suppose it will come with time

 

[Lu28]

Yep, Aisling is the same, I wonder if she's ever finished! This is mainly at dinner time, I think she could sit there and graze for hours. She always has a yoghurt after dinner and some bits of fruit so hopefully she's fully before she goes to sleep, I have this horrible thing of her going to sleep hungry!

 

[CountingDown]

They are so confusing!

I agree lol. I take it that Olivia is finished when she just plays with the food for more than 5 minutes or when she cries to get out of the highchair lol.

It has just taken me over 10 minutes to clean Olivias highchair down (We had beans on toast with cheese). As you can imagine the beans were everywhere and stuck right into the grooves of her highchair seat. I wish someone would invent a self cleaning highchair, in fact I might ask Santa for one for Xmas lol x

 

[faille]

It has just taken me over 10 minutes to clean Olivias highchair down (We had beans on toast with cheese). As you can imagine the beans were everywhere and stuck right into the grooves of her highchair seat. I wish someone would invent a self cleaning highchair, in fact I might ask Santa for one for Xmas lol x

Lol know the feeling!
It's even worse when the food goes under the seat cover so I've got to muck about trying to get the cover off and then get it back on again..! The grooves I can deal with but I hate it going under the cover lol, especially squishy food

 

[JayleighAnn]

I need help girls, we where given a second hand highchair but it seems like it's not quite right, he can't sit up in it properly and the tray isn't removable, it's too far away and TBH I don't like it. He doesn't like sitting in his bumbo so do I have a valid excuse to buy a new highchair? lol OH say's no so I need a good argument for it lol

 

[TigerLady]

If the highchair isn't working for you, I'd say that is a valid excuse! I can't imagine not having a removable tray!

I actually loooooove Otter's high chair. The tray has a plastic cover in addition to being removable! It makes clean up so much easier! It is a great height, too. I can scoot it right up to the table so the tray in on the table top. Makes him feel like he right there at the table with us. It also converts to just a bar stool type chair eventually -- so will grow with him for aaaagggeees! Plus not too pricey for wood.

https://www.diapers.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?productId=15235

As for handing things -- I don't see anything wrong with it sometimes. Especially in the early days! I had to pick up Otter's veggies for him and hold them out in front of him so he could grab them from me. For some reason he was having too much trouble getting them off the tray. He kept trying but was getting wicked frustrated. I think they were a bit too slippery as they had cheese on them...? I didn't think twice about helping him just a bit -- after all he has only just started learning!

 

[faille]

I need help girls, we where given a second hand highchair but it seems like it's not quite right, he can't sit up in it properly and the tray isn't removable, it's too far away and TBH I don't like it. He doesn't like sitting in his bumbo so do I have a valid excuse to buy a new highchair? lol OH say's no so I need a good argument for it lol

Yeah you have a very valid reason!
Tell your OH that he needs to be able to sit upright in the highchair (as it reduces risk of choking) and he needs to put himself in your LO's shoes... How would he like eating from a table that he couldn't reach properly? It's amazing how much difference a highchair can make to how much they're interested in the food.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Jayleigh I had a similar problem with my OH, we basically just bought the cheapest high chair we could find and it was crap. The tray was too high and the seat wasn't adjustable so Ruby was trying to eat from a tray that about armpit level! Useless. We replaced it with a Tripp Trapp and the difference is amazing. OH needed several weeks of convincing. I showed him some of the weaning pics on BnB so he could see that Ruby wasn't in the right position compared to others!

 

[aevenstar]

Hello - hope it's OK if I join you! I posted yesterday about wanting to BLW but Eleanor loving purees - got some good answers there and advice. Think I'll see how we go with both but move to an emphasis on her feeding herself.
I wanted to ask anyone who's bf what a typical day looks like for milk/ food etc. I'm just giving her food at teatime at the moment but trying to work out how to fit breakfast and lunch in as well?
TIA
Rachel x

 

[TigerLady]

I exclusively BF on demand. Right now, as we only started BLW last week, I offer LO bits of steamed veggies or fruit. Usually only once per day at dinner time.

I will start trying to fit breakfast and lunch in after he is older and eating more. Your LO is still under 6 months, too, so I wouldn't worry too much about jumping in with all 3 meals from the get go. But that is just me!

Typical day for me:

4 or 5 am -- LO eats
6 am -- get LO up and take him to daycare (I work full time)
LO usually has one bottle of EBM sometime between 730 and 830 (on demand)
1100 ish -- I go to daycare and nurse him
1200-500 -- LO has either 1 or 2 bottles of EBM (on demand, depends on what he wants)
500-900 ish -- LO feeds on demand, usually 2-3 times.
630 ish -- we eat family dinner and LO eats, too. I try to have dinner about 30 min to an hour after a feed so he is interested in food, but not hungry yet
900 ish -- we go to bed for the night (he co-sleeps) and have a feed to go to sleep
Aprox: 1130, 130, 300 he wakes for feeds

And we start all over again. Weekends when I am not working follow similar patterns.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Well, I am surprised! I couldn't find anything to do for a snack just now so I cooked up some pasta bows. I thought, 'she'll never manage these', but she picked them up really easily and ate some! Ruby is not what you'd call a patient baby, but she was concentrating so hard on picking up the pasta, I couldn't believe it

 

[TigerLady]

Go Ruby!

 

[faille]

Aww well done Ruby!!
Do you think maybe she's starting to get the hang of it Claire?

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Aww well done Ruby!!
Do you think maybe she's starting to get the hang of it Claire?

Yeah, although she doesn't eat much, she ate like one pasta bow in total, that was made up of nibbles from several though. But pasta is cheap and quick to cook so I might try different pastas a bit more now, I'm seriously bored of chopping veg, roasting them then throwing them in the bin later!

 

[JayleighAnn]

Ohhh go Ruby!!

 

[kirsten1985]

Yay well done Ruby!

 

[JayleighAnn]

If the highchair isn't working for you, I'd say that is a valid excuse! I can't imagine not having a removable tray!

I actually loooooove Otter's high chair. The tray has a plastic cover in addition to being removable! It makes clean up so much easier! It is a great height, too. I can scoot it right up to the table so the tray in on the table top. Makes him feel like he right there at the table with us. It also converts to just a bar stool type chair eventually -- so will grow with him for aaaagggeees! Plus not too pricey for wood.

https://www.diapers.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?productId=15235

As for handing things -- I don't see anything wrong with it sometimes. Especially in the early days! I had to pick up Otter's veggies for him and hold them out in front of him so he could grab them from me. For some reason he was having too much trouble getting them off the tray. He kept trying but was getting wicked frustrated. I think they were a bit too slippery as they had cheese on them...? I didn't think twice about helping him just a bit -- after all he has only just started learning!

Tiger I like that highchair very classy!!!

I need help girls, we where given a second hand highchair but it seems like it's not quite right, he can't sit up in it properly and the tray isn't removable, it's too far away and TBH I don't like it. He doesn't like sitting in his bumbo so do I have a valid excuse to buy a new highchair? lol OH say's no so I need a good argument for it lol

Yeah you have a very valid reason!
Tell your OH that he needs to be able to sit upright in the highchair (as it reduces risk of choking) and he needs to put himself in your LO's shoes... How would he like eating from a table that he couldn't reach properly? It's amazing how much difference a highchair can make to how much they're interested in the food.

He just can't sit in it, he slides around and ends up with his hands stuck under the tray, his feet stuck out the side of the seat so totally not safe! and the lady before me (no idea why) cut the straps off??? So we're strapping him in with a DRESSING GOWN STRAP. It was one of those 'I really don't want it so why won't you accept no as an answer??' and then I completely forgot about it until the other day when I went to get it out and realised I hadn't got round to buying a new one!

Jayleigh I had a similar problem with my OH, we basically just bought the cheapest high chair we could find and it was crap. The tray was too high and the seat wasn't adjustable so Ruby was trying to eat from a tray that about armpit level! Useless. We replaced it with a Tripp Trapp and the difference is amazing. OH needed several weeks of convincing. I showed him some of the weaning pics on BnB so he could see that Ruby wasn't in the right position compared to others!

I'll have a look at a tripp trapp and will have a look at the pics to see what position he should be in. M&P do a really nice one that looks almost like a molded pushchair style seat with big thick support straps which I really like the look of

 

[JayleighAnn]

Halen had Broccoli, Cauliflower and Swede tonight and he HATED them He kept puttig them in his mouth, screwing his face up and gagging/spitting it back out and then dropping it on floor and moving onto the next piece...and doing the same I held myself back though and didn't tell him to eat it all up, I just left him to it, when he stopped I said "finished?" and he grinned at me and held his arms up lol
It was so weird not trying to coax him into eating it as that's all I've ever seen people do with babies