Baby-led vs Purees?

[CherryPie3]

Help please, just approaching weaning age with ds2 being 5mths old.

Although this is my 3rd child he will be the first that I have weaned myself as I had to go back work early with my older 2 - not going back for a few yrs this time

:) xx

[LadyViper]

we do half and half

[CherryPie3]

Sorry for sounding so dumb but how?
I assume you build up to 3 meals a day rather thank suddenly introduce them straight away.

I get so confused with what my mum and mil say compared to what hv says

[sheeplikessleep]

Did purees with DS1, BLW with DS2 (apart from breakfast!).

Much prefer BLW, for ...

Being able to cook 1 meal for both DSs and at weekends, for all four of us (I can spend my time making sure we all eat something nutritious, rather than spending time pureeing, freezing and putting food in ice-cube trays!)

Being able to just put food in front of him and be able to eat myself

It's fab to see him munch away on brocolli stalks, shove spaghetti bolognese in his mouth, eat casseroles and mashed potato with gusto!

BUT ...

It is very very messy - I have to brush the floor after every meal and pretty much have to change his clothes too!

The first 1-2 months can be stressful if you let them be. They don't eat much initially and that in itself can be stressful (even though they don't need food at that age). That said, at 8 months, he now eats pretty much everything. I did tailor a bit of what we ate. For example, he wasn't and still isn't very good at grilled/stir fried meat, so I make sure we have a casserole 1 or 2 times a week (which he manages) and we eat more fish.

It is also quite wasteful and I hate seeing the food sat on the floor!

If we go for DC3 in the future, I'd do BLW again. At nearly 9 months, it feels like he has 'got it' now. If we had gone down the puree route, I'd still be trying to mash food up a bit, be wary with giving him different foods. We've always given him what we've eaten, now he eats it as well, indeed better than his older brother!

Enjoy the fun!

[DancingThroughLife]

Slight hijack, sorry.

Sheep - I'm glad you've said that. We've just started BLW with DD and she really doesn't seem to be getting much down. Am on the verge of where I might start stressing, but I won't now. She'll get the hang of it eventually then.

OP - we're enjoying it so far. We're about 2 weeks in and just doing lunchtime meals at the moment. DD just has a bit of what I have, and if she finishes that (throws it on the floor...) I give her a bit more. She mostly just plays with it at the moment, but I know some stuff is going in as I have evidence of it coming out again, IYKWIM

I'm going to start giving her spoons to play with this week, then start loading the spoons with cereal next week so she has two 'meals' a day.

HTH

[LadyViper]

we started off giving him the odd bit of finger food like rice cakes, slices of apple and banana whichwestoppedbecauseitgoeseverywhereanddoesn'twashout. He also loves brocoli spears.

then we sometimes gave fruit purees, we started with Ella's kitchen for convenience and then I bought a blender so now I make them myself. I tried baby rice but he HATES it, even if it is used to thicken other purees!!

In the beginning we gave little bits and bobs here and there and gradually built it up to three 'meals' a day and all the food groups by 7 months. (A meal might just be a bowl of yoghurt or something more substantial like "roast dinner")

We never make him eat if he's not interested, although he will never refuse strawberry yeovalley yoghurt!

If he is thirsty during or after a meal I give him water in a sippy cup. He didn't like water to start with so I used to put apple juice into it but after a week he took water.

[sheeplikessleep]

dancing - it gets better, i promise. only thing i will say is that it might be worth just going for 3 meals a day? no reason not to and it just gives them more practice. might make the playing stage go faster.

[CherryPie3]

Wow, think I'm sold on blw! :)
He plays with baby spoons now, he likes to chomp on them, we did give him a tip-of-tsp amount of yoghurt a couple of times and he loves them (raspberry espesh) but I haven't given him anything more substantial than that, certainly not a meals worth - literally just a taste.

I'm rather looking forward to it now, will be starting in the new year if he seems ready for it as he's not yet sitting on his own, almost there tho.

Thank u everyone xxx

[DancingThroughLife]

Sheep, I've been wondering that too. Although she goes for what she does have with much enthusiasm!

I'm going to add breakfasts in, but I'm a bit confused about tea time as me & DH tend to eat late, and by the time he gets in from work DD is too tired to eat. I think I'm going to have to add a snack time in for me, somewhere around 5pm so she can eat then. Or cook a dinner that will keep, like spag bol or lasagne or pasta bake.

Cherry, you'll have a blast! I let DD taste a few things before 6 months but I'm glad I waited until the proper time as she's so much more independent and I don't have to hover or 'help' as much as her grandparents seem to want to

[VeronicaCake]

The best bit of BLW for us has been that it makes mealtimes completely hilarious. We started offering DD exactly what we were having once she hit 26 weeks. She'd been playing with the occasional bit of pear or rice cake for a couple of weeks by then and not showing a huge amount of interest. Then I gave her vegetable curry and rice and she was so excited by it she bent face down into her highchair tray to lick it up!

So long as you eat fairly sensibly BLW seems by far the most relaxed and straightforward way to introduce solid food. DD is now seven months and has taken to it like a duck to water. The only drawback is that she thinks anything I am having is fair game and snatched a substantial portion of cheesecake off me at the weekend. She looked ever so pleased with herself once she got it into her mouth.

[Bobby99]

BLW worked very well for us. We started at 24 weeks with sticks of cucumber/melon/mango etc and were soon offering DD whatever we were having. I did suplement it a bit with porridge at bedtime between 7 and 8 months as she seemed a bit more hungry than she could satisfy with finger foods herself, but by 8 months she was properly eating things. Now DD is 11 months and loves food, eating lots. It does make a mess - I use the bibs with long sleeves (the Mothercare ones that come in packs of 3 are actually pretty good value and dry quickly) with an old bed sheet under the high chair.

Be prepared for skeptical comments from everyone ... my Mom was very unsure about it but now she is BLW's greatest fan.

It's all been incredibly stress free, fun and happy. No purees to make/fit in freezer/clean off the walls.

[peapod2010]

Just to echo what some others have said, you may have to be patient with BLW. DD is now nearly 8 mths and it's only in the last couple of weeks that she's really "got it" and started eating a significant amount. I did have several weeks of worry as I saw friends spooning loads of puree into their babies of the same age, but am now really glad we hung on in there.

Also, on the mess front, I don't know if DD is unusual but I'm not finding it nearly as bad as expected. We also use long sleeved bibs and have a highchair with an extra wide tray (Chico Polly) so she rarely gets anything on the floor.

[CherryPie3]

I'm already getting the sceptical comments from my mum - she gets quite aggressive about it really saying how will I feel when he chokes!!

I just told her its my baby and weaning has changed a bit in the last 25yrs!!!

My mil is much worse as she keeps buying rusks for him saying just mash them into his bottle, except he is ebf so there is no bottle. I took them of course, me and dh enjoyed them .

Veronica I'm looking forward to some interesting photos to document blw! We have already given ds2 a taste of curry and he enjoyed it! He also enjoyed a piece of prawn cracker.

I'm sure he'll love it - I'm really looking forward to it.


Was wondering tho - is it worth buying the blw books?

[stubbornstains]

I wouldn't buy the books...everyone at the mummies' group who's read them has worked themselves up into a tizzy, and thinks that spoons are the devil's work.

Surely it's obvious- spoons for sloppy stuff (ie porridge), fingers for solid stuff (ie bananas, fishcakes)?

[Rosa]

I am a fan of a bit of both ....

[stubbornstains]

And, ahem, floor for anything he doesn't like...

[CherryPie3]

stubbornstains Thats what I was thinking, surely finger foods cant be that difficult?

Rosa A bit of both sounds good to me, bit of variety :)

[stubbornstains]

I myself am following a low-carb diet to shift the baby weight (it's working-hurrah!). This is known by some as the Atkins diet. Dr Atkins managed to write two bestsellers the size of phone books off the back of a theory that can be condensed down to one sentence- "Don't eat refined carbs or sugar".

Similarly, the Baby-led Weaning book seems to be just an elaboration of one sentence- "Put some food in front of them and let them get on with it". Ker-ching!

(Hmmmm....thinks- maybe I should write a diet or weaning book?)

[Poogles]

We did BLW with DS2 - best thing we ever did. There was a BLW book that had just come out at the time (can't remember who by but got it on Amazon). It talks about why BLW isn't something 'new' and gives you the explanations for when peopple say 'DS will choke' etc.

DS2 will try any food now. He sees it as something to explore and enjoy whereas DS1 has a nightmare with food (although he had a misdiagnosed hernia as a baby and projectile vomitted for 2 years - another story!).

Just relax about it! If baby is BF they won't need much else anyway at this stage so thet him/her explore taste textures etc at their own pace!

You will need spoons for yoghurt etc. DS wouldn't let us feed him so we had to load the spoon and help him guide it to his mouth!