BLW-so far just mushing food-this ok?!

[A1983]

DD has been eating things put in her hand as snacks quite well, such as toast/rusk etc but the bits still in her clenched palm stay there until I release it-she doesn't drop it to get to it etc.

Also I normally feed her with a spoon or my fingers but want to start blw.. but when I have tried she just plays with her food by poking it/mushing it/throwing on floor. Not actually eating it?

Finally when do babies feed themselves with a spoon? I've read previous posts to answer my questions but not found the complete answers! But have read with blw babies use their hands with everything including dinners like mash potato?

 

[HKateH]

BLW is no spoon feeding/parental feeding whatsoever. You are TW with the introduction of finger foods.

See my other post in your other thread about putting food in baby's mouth!

I've just introduced a spoon ( the last month or so) with my BLW 11 month old. I've been loading spoons for him since we began weaning but now he tends to use the spoon over his hands for 'sloppy' food (porridge, beans, stew etc), although he doesn't scoop yet.

 

[Rachel_C]

We did BLW and I left cutlery out alongside food from the start. At first LO ignored them but when we were having yoghurt or porridge I would take the spoon and stir it in the bowl while saying "dip dip" and then give it to her (no scooping, just letting food stick to the spoon a bit). When she'd licked it off, I would say "Dip dip" again and she copied what I'd done. That was about 6.5 months and both kids were able to at least dip and lick from then. It was slower than if they scooped but they soon moved onto that. It wasn't until quite a bit later, maybe a year old, that they would use a fork for non-runny things (we only used spoons for things adults would use a spoon for). By about 18 months, they would eat mostly with a fork.

I don't see why you couldn't do the same when introducing fingers foods while TW. LO needs to develop the co-ordination first by eating with her hands, unless you plan to wait for quite a lot longer before using cutlery. It can be messier at first but BLW babies seem to use cutlery a lot earlier than TW babies, so if we'd had to do TW for some reason I would have made sure to introduce cutlery in as BLW a way as possible - no reason you can't.

 

[MindUtopia]

Yep, mushing and throwing and playing with food is fine and normal. They really don't know what to do with it at first and that's okay. It's just about exploration. I think it's a bit of a hard transition when you go from spoonfeeding to finger foods because your baby won't be used to feeding herself. Just give her time. It took about a month and a half for my daughter to start to eat much of anything (we started BLW at 6 months) and she wasn't eating any real quantity of food until 9 months. She would eat things like yogurt or porridge with a spoon, that I spoonloaded for her, around 11 months. She's now 14 months and has recently started to sometimes use a spoon or fork on her own, but still needs help most of the time (sometimes I stab something with the fork - 'forkload' I guess! - and then hand it to her), sometimes she does do it herself though. Otherwise, yes, she uses her hands, sometimes even for yogurt or porridge or soup. Just give it time and be patient. Your LO is still quite young, so I wouldn't expect to see anything change too quickly for awhile. But remember they don't really 'need' food for nutrition much before a year, so exploring and playing is what she's meant to be doing now.

 

[A1983]

Brilliant, thank you! I just didn't want to 'undo' any of her explorative ways to eat by then assisting with a spoon so she actually eats some but you've explained that both can occur at the same meal so thank you