OK to start BLW early?

[CantWaitToTTC]

My daughter will be exactly 6 months on Friday, and I know it says everywhere to not start baby led weaning till 6 months - but is it OK to start 5 days early? I started her on baby rice then purée at 5 months and she has taken to that brilliantly (3 mealsvavday now). She now even moans after her meals, as if she wants more. Plus she ALWAYS tries to grab spoon herself, which when she does, she shoves it in her mouth and sucks on it. Every meal we eat she stares so intently in the food going in our mouth and grabs for it.

I will wait the week if needed, but I think she really wants to gum on some food now.

Also, any ideas on what to give her for the three meals (easy first foods).

I can't remember what I did with my son haha.

 

[liz1985]

We started at 5.5 months. We went straight to blw she'd not had food before and took to it really well. 5 days will be, if she's already been having food anyway. If she's not ready she just won't be able to eat it. Just give whatever you're having. For breakfast we give things like toast, pancakes, scrammbled egg, ommlette, fruit. For lunch she normally has a sandwich with some fruit and cheese, then for dinner just whatever we have.

 

[MindUtopia]

If you feel she's ready, then 5 days won't make a difference. We didn't officially start BLW until 6 months, but we were on holiday the week before and our daughter grabbed some raw veggie sticks and fruit off our plates occasionally, which was fine. First foods can be anything really, but the easiest things are in stick shapes/have a handle (cucumber sticks, melon sticks, broccoli florets, big chunks of banana) or things she can dip her hands into like yogurt or porridge. Our first official meal (minus the few cucumber sticks she sucked on the week before) was roasted carrots and parsnips, yorkshire puddings and mashed potatoes.

 

[Lady_Bee]

I say go for it. Some babies will be ready sooner than others! I think Benji will be ready soon too and he is a couple of weeks off 6 months. He grabbed my banana out of my hands today and shoved it into his mouth! In the moments before I managed to retrieve it, I was shocked at how well he was doing! We started purees very tentatively 2 weeks ago and he has been doing fabulously with those.

Go with your gut. If you think your LO is ready, try it. With DS1 we started with banana and steamed carrots. Avocado slices would do nicely too, or toast fingers with butter. Really you can start with jut about anything... Just make the chunks nice and big with enough of a "handle" for your baby to grab.

 

[Ganton]

My LO is also 6 months on Friday. We started purées 4 days ago but he's not really taken to it very well. He loves playing with the spoon but just spits out anything that goes in his mouth (DS1 was the same until 7.5 months, so I'm not stressing). However, he grabbed some toast off my plate yesterday, so I decided to let him try it and it kept him entertained for a gods few minutes while he sucked away at it. So I think I'm going to offer finger foods as well as some purées. I've thought of trying toast, banana, pieces of ripe fruit, cheese, scrambled egg. I'm going to try porridge for breakfast tomorrow and just let him get a bit messy with it.

 

[Moolia]

My dd is 6 months on 15the. We've been doing purees for a few weeks but she doesn't seem that interested really. The last few days I've given some finger foods (banana, broccoli, mango) and she is much more interested but I feel so scared! A couple of times quite a big lump has come off into her mouth. Does anyone know whY you're supposed to do when this happens? Do you let them chew it or remove it from their mouth?

 

[CantWaitToTTC]

So first time, she didn't seem to know to lift food to her mouth, but last night she actually sucked on some toast, was amazing!!

I didn't know you could do cheese so early, will try that,

Moolia - grab food from mouth using your finger (if baby is making a gagging sound). They will soon learn to chew, so don't be put off from this.

I did a baby first aid class, had to use the back slap on my son twice and already scooped out some food from my daughters mouth lol.

Gonna do some melon today hehe

 

[Moolia]

Thanks. Do I only do that if she's gagging or anytime she bites a chunk off? She just seems so young to have any big lumps in her mouth!
Great about the toast. Might try that tomorrow!

 

[CantWaitToTTC]

I'm pretty sure it's only if she is gagging. She won't swallow a big bit without gagging, and if she doesn't gag, then she will more than likely just suck on it or spit it out.

I'm wondering - when can she eat the food I make my son (like past with sauce)? I feel like now is so early...

 

[Moolia]

Hmmm, I'm not sure but I'm thinking probably once she has had a few individual flavours and is better at picking things up? I definitely need to read up on this!

 

[noon_child]

Moolia - grab food from mouth using your finger (if baby is making a gagging sound). They will soon learn to chew, so don't be put off from this.

I disagree. Gagging is a child's way of pushing the food back out of their mouth and by putting your hand in you are preventing that from happening and could push food back further. Obviously if they are gagging and gagging and gagging and nothings coming out after 20 seconds or so you might want to help them by tipping them forward and letting gravity help out rather than putting your finger in.

If your LO doesn't seem to be coping with the chunks she bites off I'd wait a few more weeks before introducing any more finger food.

 

[liz1985]

I've given dd the food we eat from 6m, i dont cook with salt so she's literally just had everything we have.

When I've done first aid courses ive always been told to never put my fingers in their mouth unless they are actually choking ie. Not breathing, turning blue and only by sweeping your finger over the tongue other wise you can push the food further down when they were only gagging not choking. If you cant easily sweep the food out its back slaps. Gagging is babies natural way of preventing themselves from choking. The main difference is gagging is usually loud and they may be sick, choking is silent.

 

[Popples1]

Moolia - grab food from mouth using your finger (if baby is making a gagging sound). They will soon learn to chew, so don't be put off from this.

I disagree. Gagging is a child's way of pushing the food back out of their mouth and by putting your hand in you are preventing that from happening and could push food back further. Obviously if they are gagging and gagging and gagging and nothings coming out after 20 seconds or so you might want to help them by tipping them forward and letting gravity help out rather than putting your finger in.

If your LO doesn't seem to be coping with the chunks she bites off I'd wait a few more weeks before introducing any more finger food.

This. Gagging is a safety mechanism to help baby move food to the front of their mouth. It's their way of figuring out how to handle food and to judge how much to put in. If you don't let them gag now, they may struggle later on when the gag reflex moves back (which may increase the risk of choking). I'm a nervous BLW'er as my son just holds food in his mouth for ages and seems to forget it's there (!) so I'm offering grated, mashed, soft foods just now until we both have more confidence. I only intervene with my finger if absolutely necessary.

 

[petersmamma]

My daughter will be exactly 6 months on Friday, and I know it says everywhere to not start baby led weaning till 6 months - but is it OK to start 5 days early? I started her on baby rice then purée at 5 months and she has taken to that brilliantly (3 mealsvavday now). She now even moans after her meals, as if she wants more. Plus she ALWAYS tries to grab spoon herself, which when she does, she shoves it in her mouth and sucks on it. Every meal we eat she stares so intently in the food going in our mouth and grabs for it.

I will wait the week if needed, but I think she really wants to gum on some food now.

Also, any ideas on what to give her for the three meals (easy first foods).

I can't remember what I did with my son haha.

I always have to mention the Food Feeder when it comes to starting solids because it helped so much with DS (who is very finicky). The holes are really small in the feeder so I wasn't worried about choking. Clean-up was also very easy.

DS's favorite recipes were banana and avocado, chicken (cooled down and cut) with apples, and frozen blueberries.

Hope this helps~