Baby-Led Weaning Support Thread #1

[grahamsmama]

Someone may have already said this, but keep in mind that she isn't really going to be eating all that much bread at first.  She's really only going to be sucking on it. So, don't worry too much about the sodium.

[Lippy Chick]

That's a very good point to remember, thank you Lyn.

I think when she does start to eat the bread, my husband is suggesting baking our own, minus the salt.  He is a very good bread baker, particularly his ciabatta, with bacon.  Sorry, going off on a tangent.

We bought a shower curtain today and her banana and pear intake for the week.  So we're all ready to start on Monday.  We're going to start with breakfast and lunch for a while and only give her these two fruits for a week and then introduce something else next week.

Will let you know how we get on.

Pauline

[grahamsmama]

He is a very good bread baker, particularly his ciabatta, with bacon. 

Wow!  Lucky you!!!
Good luck and have fun!!!

[Lippy Chick]

Wow!  Lucky you!!!
Good luck and have fun!!!


Thank you muchly.

Pauline

[Bryony]

Well I thought I would report in having done a whole week of eating out for lunch every day!  It was such fun, and Katie did great...  I went out each day with a bib, her TinyDiner mat, her sippy cup and an emergency supply of breadsticks and rice cakes in my backpack - and that's it.

Monday : local pub. They did a children's menu so I just ordered a children's portion of steamed veg which Katie sucked on, plus a rice cake or two from my bag. She seemed to enjoy looking around and smiling at people.

Tuesday : bread and cheese lunch at local church.  Katie LOVED the french bread and cheese, but ignored the banana I gave her. Their high chair had a tray which wasn't very clean, and the TinyDiner mat didn't really stick to it, so we got in a bit of a mess, but I think we did OK

Wednesday : cafe in our local high street. I ordered a slice of bread and butter for Katie, which she had a good chew on, but ignored the chunks of sweet potato I gave her from my meal. Had a bit of a suck on some of my lettuce.  High chair way too low so the table was at the level of her face. But she managed!

Thursday : I had chunky veg soup and bread in the park cafe, and Katie had some of my bread and some chunks of veg from my soup. Plus some rice cake from my handbag...

Friday : we went swimming and so the plan was to eat in the leisure centre cafe afterwards. But it had closed!   So we had a picnic of emergency rice cakes and bread sticks - and I ate the ones that Katie dropped on the floor, I was soooo hungry 

Saturday - back to the local cafe with DH as well - another slice of toast and butter.

Sunday - we went to a restaurant around the corner for brunch and Katie had her first taste of WHITE toast (she seemed to like it much better than the brown toast I always do at home - she ate nearly a whole slice!) with a bit of scrambled egg, and then an enormous piece of pineapple which she seemed to love chewing on.

So - not an enormously varied diet, but we had such fun!

Now that my stay-at-home holiday is over, I need to tighten my purse strings and we are going to have lunch at home again this week...

Bryony x

[Lippy Chick]

Wow, what a week, you've both had.  Go Katie, go Katie!!  That sounds brilliant.  It is so interesting to see that she eats all those things, where people watching not looking a bit amazed, that you weren't shovelling in mashed nothing?  How much of it do you think she actually eats?  How proficient is she?  How long have you been doing BLW and how long was it do you think before she started to really eat, rather than just lick and suck and mash?  Ooh, ooh, so many questions, sorry!!

Pauline

[Bryony]

Hi Pauline!  yes it was great fun.

In answer to your Qs - I wasn't aware of any funny looks - but I wasn't really looking for any IYSWIM.  It varies how much she eats - but generally not very much. Some days she seems to actually "eat" a fair bit (almost a whole slice of toast or a whole bread stick - minus the bits dropped all over her  ) . Other meals she hardly touches a thing. I would say that she only started "eating" rather than sucking in the last two weeks or so... Katie also makes it very clear what she wants and what she doesn't - some things she will always go for (bread/toast/rice cake etc), others she will suck on sometimes and ignore or put straight onto the floor on other days (most fruit and veg), others she will just ignore as if she hasn't even seen it (banana, sweet potato, tomato, cucumber, any meat...)

BTW, following on from the discussion about eating out earlier in the thread - I did tip (even in places where I wouldn't normally - for those of you in the USA, tipping is not such a big thing in the UK) and I did pick up anything biggish that ended up on the floor 

Bryony

[grahamsmama]

Bryony- It sounds like Katie does great out and about!

We went out for lunch today.  Meghan had a cracker and a rice cake and milk in her sippy.  It wasn't really one of her "meal" times, so I just gave her something to entertain her while I ate.  She ate a lot of the rice cake and drank all of her milk from her sippy.  Good girl!
Tonight dinner will be banana and cheerios.  And this morning she had avocado.  This baby loves to eat.   

[Lippy Chick]

Bryony, thank you for answering the questions.  Sorry there were so many.  I think people's main concern is that when giving puree, they are actually eating it and being satisfied on it, whereas with BLW it takes a while before they take any food on board and therefore may not seem satisfied and always hungry etc...  We'll see how Alice goes.

Lyn, Meghan sounds like she's doing really well, she's 4 days older than Alice.  When did you start BLW?

I started today with Alice.  Gave her some pear.  It kept breaking off in her mouth and she sucked and mashed and I think was swallowing the juice.  Her wee face was hilarious.  Going back to banana for lunch.

Pauline

[Bryony]

Pauline - no problem!  Remember though that milk has a lot more calories than most purees - so our babies should not go hungry if they are still filling up on their milk!    Katie does not seem to be going hungry, is gaining weight exactly on her centile line and is only having 4 milk feeds a day plus whatever she takes in with the solids....

Bx

[Lydiasmom]

Hi,

Everyone seems to be doing great on here!

Pauline - We started blw around the same time you are with Alice and a couple of months in, the improvements are not huge but both mine & Lydia's confidence have grown & I'm not scared in trying her with most things now!!

Bryony - I took a leaf out of your book and went out for a few meals last week with Lydia.  OH & I took her to Frankie & Bennys and she was good as gold with the little box of tricks I took with me.  The waitress and fellow customers commented on how well she was doing "for such a little bit of a baby".  I have a mini bottle of surface disinfectant spray (some freebie I got!) just to give the high chairs a once over, before (but mainly after) our adventures  

Rachel x

[grahamsmama]

Lyn, Meghan sounds like she's doing really well, she's 4 days older than Alice.  When did you start BLW?

Well, I started her on cereal at 4.5 months because her pedi said we needed to get more formula into her and that seemed a good way to do it.  However, she hasn't been too keen on spoon feeding, only taking 4-5 bites at most. I was starting to stress about this, but then I noticed that she loved playing with the food I put on her tray to distract her from the fact that I was spoon feeding her.  She's been taking her bottles better, so I decided in the last few weeks to just start doing mostly finger foods.

[Lippy Chick]

Bryony, it's really encouraging to hear that Katie is gaining weight steadily too.  Alice is taking her 4 feeds a day and isn't finishing the whole bottle, so we're happy with how things are going.

Rachel, I think a lot of it does come down to confidence and not panicking when they gag.  Alice gagged a few times on the banana I gave her today, but didn't panic, let her deal with it as she didn't seem to be in any danger.  She just coughed a bit and brought it to the front of her mouth and spat it out.  The main negative comment I get when talking to people, won't they choke.

Lyn, good for you for being brave enough to just go with it. 

Think she downed a couple of wee bits of banana and she was standing on her own today with just me holding her hands.   Clever girl!!

Pauline

[lotteloulou]

Well I'm pleased with how well charlies getting on, i have given her cheerios and sultanas for breakfast the past couple of days which she loves and yesterday she had ham for the first time and demolished it so she's not afraid of trying new things, the only food we have trouble with is veg she's not so keen but she'll eat any fruit you give her, the only negative comment i have received about blw is from one mother who said that she should not have too much milk or it will make her a lazy eater, well i think feeding puree of a spoon could do that to so I'm choosing to dismiss her comment.

[VickyB20]

Well I have now totally given in to my boys' love of finger foods!!  They simply refuse to eat anything savoury from a spoon.    They have a good breakfast of cereal and fruit puree followed usually by toast with butter (which they adore).  For tea, they'll happily eat natural yoghurt with fruit puree (which I bulk up with baby rice or other baby cereal) but anything else on a spoon, they refuse... even fruit puree on its own they now refuse.

So lunchtimes are solely finger foods and they have other things at breakfast and tea too.  Today was a great day.  They had home-made cheese straws (the first time I've ever baked!!) for lunch along with some broccolli florets (I couldn't believe how much they loved them) and a piece of toast with cheese spread on between them.  For tea, they had their usual yoghurt followed by oat cakes with goats' cheese.  That was a first and they adored both the food and getting really messy!

I'm aware though that the stuff that they really properly eat is mainly wheat based stuff (apart from the oat cakes, of course).  How do I avoid that?  Fruit and veg tends to just slip out of their fingers.  I tried making veg 'chips' with butternut squash and carrots but they just kind of came out all squishy and weren't very popular!!

It's so completely different to what I did with my daughter.  I didn't let her have any wheat or dairy at all until she was one!  And now my 7 month old boys are having Dairylea sandwiches!  Crazy!  But clearly they have very different needs.

Vicky
x