Baby seems to be getting frustrated with BLW - is this normal?

[apachepony]

My baby turned 6 months last Friday, I started giving him some food a couple of days before this. I have been offering banana, avocado, toast, porridge fingers, weetabix, chicken, carrot and this morning some orange. He does put things in his mouth (banana on toast, chicken, and today, orange (I'm addicted to oranges so I guess he must be used to the taste!) seem particular favourites). However after about five minutes, he seems to get frustrated and starts crying. I don't know if it;s because he can't handle the food as well as it likes, whether the sensation of the food in his mouth or what! He got upset when he bit off a big chunk of chicken a few days ago and I'm afraid I took it out of his mouth (was that the right thing to do?) What should I do? I take him out of his high chair as soon as he gets whingy but I'm not sure if he wants more food or not!

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Could u serve mashed food too. Maybe he's hungry really wants the food but can't eat enough if it feeding himself? Maybe spoon feed him at same time?

[ChunkyPickle]

DS used to get frustrated too - so like Wheresmycaffeinedrip we spoon fed him some bits too (he ADORED mashed banana - and banana chunks were the first thing he managed to consistently eat for himself) - so he'd get some food to eat - which he enjoyed - and then he'd play with the rest and occasionally get bits into his mouth.

We never forced or fed if he wasn't interested, only offered when he was leaning forward and roaring for it!

I just imagined if I was DS, and I could see all this stuff that I knew I wanted, but I couldn't manage to actually get in my mouth properly then I'd get pretty miffed too.

[apachepony]

I do try and give him a little taste of a spoon - today of mashed weetabix, yesterday of yoghurt (though he brought that back up), though today if I recall I think he cried even after taking off the spoon - maybe he didn't get enough? Ah, I don't know! Maybe I should stop trying to do this BLW correctly and spoonfeed a lot more! I know I need to just give him water cos he wants it and can't handle the sippy cup yet so maybe it's the same thing with the food. He does so well at the start - sucked away at an orange slice today - but then just gets frustrated! this weaning lark is not easy I can't help but think I'm doing it wrong!

[PinkPepper]

Are you feeding him (milk) before he eats. He might be frustrated if he's too hungry.

Don't bother spoon feeding if you want to do blw. The whole point is he decides whether to eat or not - so it's fine for him to not at the moment.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Is he actually interested in food? There's no harm in holding off a couple

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Of weeks till he's more able to grasp the food

[PinkPepper]

I'd just let him play a few weeks

[apachepony]

I think he does want to try the food. the juices were totally sucked out of his first slice of orange. his main meal is breakfast cos we're always dashing around the rest of the day and he has it maybe 45 mins after a milk feed so shouldn't be hungry or tired - when rhis happened at dinner i assumed it was tiredness. maybe I'll just continue to let him play until he starts to get whingy when I'll just take him out ASAP - I just hope I'm not leaving him frustrated and wanting more

[mrsbugsywugsy]

dd is exactly the same Apache. I went to lunch with a friend with the same age baby and I couldn't believe it that her ds spent the meal happily contemplating a piece of tomato, while dd desperately attempted to shovel food into her mouth and got cross when she failed.

I try to give her something easy to pick up with every meal; mashed potato or porridge or thick homemade houmous.

I also bought a crinkle cutter for veg which makes the pieces easier for her to pick up.

I don't put food in her mouth but I do sometimes hand her pieces of food if she's obviously struggling to pick them up.

[ChunkyPickle]

PinkPepper - but sometimes they really, really want to eat, but being little they just don't have the co-ordination to get it in!

DS couldn't get a spoon successfully into his mouth with anything significant still attached until he was over a year - but he loved yoghurts, porridge etc. so I fed him - it felt too much like torturing to leave something right there in front of him that he wasn't physically capable of getting into his mouth in the quantity he desired.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Main thing is to relax. There's no rule that says he has to be eating certain amounts or three meals a day. If he wants to just try a bit and get down then that's fine. Dd1 wolfed down food From 4 months she was just hungry and she enjoyed it. Dd2 on other hand just wanted to suck on a strawberry , chew in a bit of steamed carrot. She wasn't on actual proper meals til probably 8 months and even then it wasn't much. It's all perfectly fine and perfectly normal. Forget what others are doing. :)

[mrsbugsywugsy]

forgot to say I don't use a spoon for porridge etc, just put a dollop on dd's tray and let her use her hands. she loves it, although it does get pretty messy!

[TrickyBiscuits]

I know it's not the popular opinion on MN but I would try him a puree in addition to the other things. (homemade and organic of course ;-) ) He might just be getting a big appetite and being upset that he can't get enough in!

I always gave a mixture of finger food and purees at meal times; some days DS only wanted to be spoon fed, other days he just wanted to explore the finger food. Just find over time what works for your own baby, they're all different of course, and I don't think there should be 'one size fits all' approach to weaning.

Pinkpepper babies are clever little creatures- of course they can decide whether to eat or not when they are being spoon fed, they just turn their head away or refuse to open their mouths, surely

[mikkii]

When DS was a baby, I'd never heard of BLW (he's almost 9). I gave him puréed, but always gave him finger food at the same time, so I might be feeding him yoghurt whilst he was holding bread crusts, cucumber or melon. I would then give him a spoonful when he wasn't busy with ha he was holding.

I used to go for things that small hands could hold, scrambled egg works well if not too sloppy!

[PinkPepper]

I never said they couldn't? Just said if you wanted to do blw then do that. Don't go spoon feeding just because of not eating - that's not blw.

Obviously spoon feeding is fine too!

[PinkPepper]

I don't think they really get that food is going to fill them up at that point though

[SpooMoo]

You might find Rapley's Baby-led Weaning book insightful. Food is just about play, a few comments here are misleading - hunger for a 6mo is sated by milk not solids.

BTW never take something out of your baby's mouth, you risk pushing it further in and creating a choking hazard. Little babies have a gag reflux nearer the front of their tongue than adults so they'll gag/cough it back up.

We've done only BLW and baby learnt over a number of weeks (ie not straight away!) - pick up, put in mouth, chew, swallow.

[apachepony]

Baby still crying a bit and I'm still confused about what he's trying to tell me. Carrot seems to upset him - maybe because a couple of times bits have broke in his mouth, whereas the tomato at the same meal was a big hit. He was sitting in my lap afterwards and actually grabbed my hands to pull the apple I was eating to his mouth, which he then sucked enthusiastically for as long as I would let him.
I have read the rapley book which would indicate he's not looking for food for hunger, but maybe it's over enthusiasm. Or could foods breaking off in his mouth be scaring him? A big bit of carrot broke off in his mouth and eventually fell out again but it scared me & he seemed to get v upset with the carrot (though did put it in his mouth again!). Whereas he sucked the juices out of the tomato happily for ages...or maybe he's teething and the carrot was too hard for him. Oh who knows what goes through the mind of a baby!

[apachepony]

He's crying less now but maybe just because I'm giving in and providing a lot of fruit. Chicken, egg, porridge...not much interest. Banana, tomato, orange...yum. Think he would have eaten a full orange this morning if i would have let himI'm a complete fruit-a-holic, eating at least two oranges and an apple every day during pregnancy & breastfeeding so guess that's where he got the taste - but I can't give in to his sweet tooth, can I?!

[SpooMoo]

Yes, you can - food is for fun right now! And keep offering lots of different flavours and textures, bits of your meal, he is just experimenting at the moment. In the nicest possible way, chill out

[SpooMoo]

I'd suggest steaming or roasting harder veg like carrot, not offering raw.