how to started blw

[snowy-willow]

Ella isn't ready yet but I was wondering how do you start? Do you start just giving a bit of food for one meal a day or do you offer small amounts at each meal time and if they eat it they eat it if they don't they don't?

 

[aliss]

I highly highly recommend you buy Gil Rapely's Baby Led Weaning book - it offers a better explanation than any of us could!

For starters, many parents just offer a banana or finger slice of toast, or just show them some of their dinner plate and let them pick it off It's not like TW where you have the rule of a food per every few days, it's just offer/let them see/taste whatever they want and let them lead the way.

 

[snowy-willow]

I highly highly recommend you buy Gil Rapely's Baby Led Weaning book - it offers a better explanation than any of us could!

For starters, many parents just offer a banana or finger slice of toast, or just show them some of their dinner plate and let them pick it off It's not like TW where you have the rule of a food per every few days, it's just offer/let them see/taste whatever they want and let them lead the way.

Its not what you give or how often you give a new food I am asking about its how often you offer food - i.e with tw you usually start with a spoon of baby rice or puree for breakfast. So with BLW do you just offer something whenever you eat or do you start off with just once a day and build it up?

 

[aliss]

It's really up to you - there's no rule. If you want to offer some samples at each meal then do so, or you can start with just a fruit here & there. Most seem to just offer once a day, usually breakfast which is "easy" (ie. toast slices, fruit, an egg) and then move on. Some foods, like a lot of dinner foods, require preloaded spoons or a pincer grip and that's a bit hard for the dexterity of 5-6 month old.

 

[Babushka99]

Can you offer anything from the beginning or do you offer a new food every week because of allergies?

 

[aliss]

Can you offer anything from the beginning or do you offer a new food every week because of allergies?

Generally you offer anything (with the exception of honey for the botulism risk). BLW is meant to start at 6 months, not before, so the concerns over gluten etc. are not really taken into account (in general - there are more details in the actual BLW book).

Some babies start with a banana just once a week, others are eating curried fish by week 1! It's really up to you as the parent to offer whatever you want and let them choose.