Baby Led Weaning Support Thread - Part 6!

[Mrs Coops]

Hi Heidi
If he likes banana give him a big chunk! That was my LO's first solid food, half a small banana! Anything they can gum or suck to death is a winner it just has to big enough for them to pick up. Tomato's are fab as well. I used to cut it into eighths, remove the seeds (to save on mess) and physically bend each bit backwards so they stayed straighter! She used to strip it through her gums until all the flesh was gone leaving only skin! It's also cold so nice on teething gums! Broccoli is the best, as they can hold the little branch shapes, just don't cook it to a complete mush or it will get all over his face instead of in it! My rule was until you could just pull the little green bits off with a fork. We didn't give dairy products early but that was more because of the physical state of cheese, too soft it will just mush everywhere and too hard they can't really 'suck' it. Plain bread I found got too mushy and just stuck to the top of her mouth, but very lightly toasted makes it's soft enough for them to work on, without being too soft.
 The best part about blw weaning is figuring out what and how to feed them. I could go on for weeks but I'll leave it there for now!!!

Oh one thing cooked carrot sticks I found caused the most choking issue. As it's quite slippery when cooked, so I definitely watched her with carrot and made sure I didn't over cook
it.  I had her sat on my lap with anything I was suspicious about so I could help her when needed. She figured out the choking thing very quickly and had no problems sorting herself out, they just make a very alarming gagging noise when they do it!!!

Enjoy, apart from the mess it's so much fun!

xxx

[heidiruthie]

thanks for the ideas, ladies! i'm going to try to be a bit more adventurous now....i read on the finger food thread to coat some of the slippier foods in some baby cereal, which i think is such a great idea since he gets frustrated when everything slips out of his grasp.

thanks again

-heidi

[Jiinx]

hey guys have been reading quietly along..

Tried giving her some boiled yams (didn't taste good...not that "sweet") after a breast feed. She wasn't keen on eating that. Then I tried boiled broccoli and she turned her nose up and moved her head from side to side. Then a carrot...again she pursed her lips and shrank away from the food.

hmm..is there a "way" to introduce solids? She loved puree prunes when I gave that to her a few weeks ago for her constipation.

[Mrs Coops]

Hi Jiinx
How old is she? She might just not be 'ready' yet? Are you trying to feed it to her or getting her to hold it?

[Jiinx]

she's 6 months yesterday
i was doing both! holding and then trying to feed her

[Mrs Coops]

How is her coordination? Does she try to chew on everything you give her?

The best thing is to let her explore it in her own time. Try just putting the food on a plate in front of her or you hold it in your hand while she sits in your lap. When she's ready she'll pick it up and have a go at it! I started with Bananas, soft, slippery and not too sweet. 

The idea is to try and let her lead the way, some babies can take months to actually eat anything doing BLW. I lucked in with a greedy monkey who ate straight away!

HTH

x-x-x

[Manueli]

Hi,

my 6 months old seems to be wanting more food now that I can give him through breastfeeding, so that we decided it's time to introduce some solids. I really like the idea of BLW but got some questions:

1. How often do I start to offer him food? At every meal time or just once a day for now?

2. I understand that I can offer any foods I want, but why is this the case for BLW and not for pureed food, where you are supposed to offer only one food at a time?

3. Since I want him to actually eat something I would like to do some pureed food as well. We started with carrots cause that's what you start with in Germany. Now I let him kinda hold his spoon. He is not really able to handle it properly, so that I guide the spoon but he is allowed to hold it. This makes the whole story really messy, which I don't care too much about. But my mom said that if I let him "play" with his food now, he always will and will never really learn to eat properly. Is that an issue?

4. We also gave him a banana to munch on, but he wasn't too impressed by the taste. Should I give him more pureed food to fill him up a bit, if he takes too long to learn to eat other solids? I just don't know if my milk is enough for him anymore and I read that some babies take months with the BLW before they actually eat something.

Thanks for the help. Manuela

[dijjibob]

Hi
  Wondered if i can get any help, i have began BLW about 4 weeks ago and my LO loving it, she is eating really really well, but nothing seems to be doing well on her tummy.We began with ready brek for breakfast made with water and carrots and courgettes in day, Constipation began, changed veg, offered fruit, constipation for 5 days then cleared. Tried different veg, still constipated. I was told maybe giving too much of same food and that with BLW should just try varied food, so trying but really gassy and waking with bad wind. I am sure she has tummy ache. She loves food though, i have stopped her eating what seems like alot, although hard to tell how much is actually getting swallowed. Constipation seems to be clearing but the gas and tummy ache still seems bad.
   She is 7 month this week. I was thinking of going back to just one veg at a time but also want to give her the choices as baby led weaning should be. How much is too much.
   Is it just her tummy settling in to food full stop or am i doing it wrong, can you do BLW wrong?
   
I know some night waking could be to do with our EASY schedule but that's a different story i can't get right, so any help with the food issues would be great.

[Mrs Coops]

Hi Manueli

Firstly milk is still the most important part of your LO's diet, at this stage any solids you give are to complement your milk and eventually replace it. We started giving DD solids once or twice a day and in between meals so she wasn't starving or just fed! Eventually (only after a few weeks) she started crying in between meals and we soon figured out she actually wanted solids!

The theory with BLW is 'they eat when they are ready' so when you 'offer' foods he may choose if and when he feels like eating it. Plus he will eat as much as he wants or is able to. With puree feeding they don't get a choice, mum and dad are normally spooning food into baby's mouth whether they want it or not! The feeding one new food a day is allergy based, we are paranoid that our babies will be allergic to everything! There is a book by Gill Rapley:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-led-Weaning-Helping-Your-Baby/dp/0091923808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262902640&sr=8-1
that covers this quite she well. She says that some babies actually avoid food they later discover they are allergic to! The other theory with BLW is that a baby's digestive system takes months to adapt to new foods so by puree'ing it their little bodies don't have a choice but to digest it and allergic reactions can happen more frequently. With DD we frequently had a nappy full of fresh food! We would see whole chunks of tomato, avocado skin (she accidentally swallowed) and all sorts. She's 16months old now and only obvious foods show up like peas, sweetcorn (naturally) and kidney beans!

You can still do purees with BLW, it's just purists like me (DD has never had a single spoonful of puree) that can't be bothered with it all! Admittedly we do spoon feed her when we don't have time and want to avoid mess so some stuff like yogurt we feed her, until she gets bored with that and takes it off the spoon with her hand before eating it!

I'd say at 6 months he's too young to hold the spoon and that will develop with time. As for playing with food, all babies learn through play! Every part of their development should be fun and playing with food is probably the most important part of that. DD NEVER played with food in the early days, she was just intent of shovelling it in her mouth! Now she's older and 'developing a mind of her own' play time has started! She uses peas as 'tiddly winks' squashing them or making them ping across her tray! She crushes everything to see what happens and loves to try and use her Doidy cup as a hand wash! We went through one stage where she wanted to put all her food in her water, let it soak and then eat it!
  We NEVER encourage behaviour we don't see fit and we find most things are 'phases'! Some things are really annoying and you just have to bite your tongue, other things are incredibly funny and we have to walk away or turn around so she doesn't see us laughing in case she thinks what she did was good! We are currently in the full 'lets throw food on the floor when we're angry' mode! This is not a fun time!!!!

It's true some babies take months to get the idea of food! It depends how fast you want him to wean! We have been dropping milk feeds one at a time. In fact we have just dropped the morning bottle which was only 5oz and she really couldn't be bothered with it, she seemed more interested in eating what we were eating afterwards. It's not been a week yet and so far it's going well!

I found the hardest thing with BLW (apart from the mess) is our parents! They CANNOT accept this 'new way' of weaning and are constantly putting doubt in your mind. My father in law actually said (months after we'd started) that they thought what we were doing was rubbish, it would never work and we'd soon be whizzing away with the purees! We proved him wrong!

Let him lead the way. Never give up with a food he seemingly doesn't like, one day he'll eat nothing but bananas (we had to hide ours for quite sometime!) other days banana's will be repulsive to him!

HTH?
xxx

[Mrs Coops]

Hi Dijjibob

Just a few questions. Is she on breast milk or formula? And how often? Are you giving any kind of baby rice? The Ready Brek, is it for adults? Does she drink any water or juice? Does she eat it all herself or do you 'help' her at all?  Sorry, more questions than I thought!

We give DD porridge made with cows milk but you could use formula or breast milk. We also only use plain porridge oats, usually Tesco's budget stuff as it has no added salt or sugar!

I can't say I'm an expert on the digestive system but I find it strange she's getting bunged up by veg! DD eats more than the required 5 a day an adult needs (she is a greedy pig) and is far more regular than we would like! The wind is probably veg related! Have you tried broccoli? It's not too bulky a food so might help things along without the gas. DD had broccoli just about everyday at the start and didn't really suffer with wind.

It's very difficult to know how much they've had, but we never limited DD's food intake, we gave her as much as she wanted. Thankfully that's slowed down now as she went through a really fat phase!

I don't think it's possible to do BLW wrong. It might just need a little tweaking!

[Jiinx]

goblin..thank you for your detailed responses. I tried a couple of "pureed" foods (not bc I didn't want to try finger foods, but I wanted to see how she did with these new tastes) and she wasn't a fan of mushy carrots or yams..my paed says to keep trying. I even gave her a banana to hold ..she licked it..told a couple of gummy bites and then was like "no thank you!" lol..I thought a banana for sure would win her over..hmmm this isn't going to be as "easy" as I thought!

She loves drinking water and grabs the bottle with her hands and places it in her mouth..she loves sucking on "fluids" (vit d drops, breast milk (duh) and water)..I gave her pureed prunes a couple of weeks ago for her constipation and she was so eager to keep eating that. Now she doesn't really enjoy that either..hmm any idea what's going on?

good for you on sticking to your guns! My mil thought it was "rubbish" that I was giving her water a month ago and thought that I should supplement formula along with my breast milk....you just smile and listen and keep doing things your way!

[Mrs Coops]

One thing I have learnt is babies are fickle creatures! DD was a food hoover at the start everything (except hard boiled eggs) put in front of her was eaten! Now she's discovered she can choose what she wants, and request more! It's like living with Oliver as she holds her little plate up saying 'more, more, more!' The problem we're having is she will only eat one item off her plate, the current 'favourite of the meal' gets gobbled up and everything else systematically removed from her plate! So we have started giving her the non favourite first so she eats some before introducing the rest, plus that gives us chance to eat some of ours before we have to start handing it over to her! Last night all she ate was mash potato!!! The sausage got chewed, spat out, then thrown on the floor, fun times!

Jiinx, is your Paed saying to keep trying with purees? Is she under weight at all? It sounds like she might be a little fussy or just not interested yet. Mind you, I would get bored with pureed prunes quite quickly!!! Good that she likes water. DD has never had any juice only breast milk, then formula when I went back to work and water with every meal. Now she has a little cup that she has unlimited access to or she drinks from our glass/ water bottle!

There's nothing like a family to make you feel inadequate! How many mothers have quit breast feeding because they are constantly told 'you're not producing enough milk', 'you need to supplement...' 'He/ she needs a little extra now', 'in my day....'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My FIL also said when DD was four months old 'he can't wait until I have finished breast feeding so he can feed her a bottle'! How much incentive did I need to continue as long as possible?? He has NEVER fed her a bottle to this day!

[Manueli]

Thanks Goblin, that does help alot. We tried some carrots, bananas and toast this morning. With the carrots and bananas he always shakes himself when he bites of a big piece. I think he doesn't really know how to chew yet since he didn't shake after a couple tries when we gave him pureed carrots. But it could also be a too strong taste for him. He still keeps trying though, it's just too cute. He sucked happily on the toast but didn't bite anything off.

By the way, I can totally relate to the 'family problem'. My husband always tells me to get off the breastfeeding as well, because it is sometimes hard to tell if the LO is really full or not. But I don't really think he is ready to deal with all the preparations needed for formula (and I am not ready to give up breastfeeding). I also just started giving our LO pureed carrots because my mom was all excited about it. We visited her over christmas and I thought I do her the favour. She doesn't get the concept of BLW either, but I guess that is the regular generation issue.

[Jiinx]

goblin,
 Not at all. The paed just said she's ready to start solids, but not because she needs the supplement. I hope my breast milk is still enough for her.

hehe your lo sounds like she's going to grow up and have no problem experiencing new things!

A little bit more luck today - she was gumming a banana that I held for her..when she held it, it would slip out of her hands. Carrots..gave her a stick and she just sucked on. Pureed carrots, not a fan. hmm maybe she's not a vegetable person!

[Manueli]

Hey Jiinx,

regarding the banana: try leaving the skin on on parts of the piece you give your LO, that way she can hold it better. It works great for us. I also think that it is normal that they just suck on the food in the start, my LO does the same thing with carrots and even banana and toast. He sometimes bites off some pieces but still doesn't know what to do with it in his mouth. He just tries really hard to push the pieces back out of his mouth.