Giving both purees and finger foods?

[woozlet]

I'm not sure if I am doing the right thing - I have been giving DS mashed up veg, , tiny amount of meat, pureed fruit and sticks of food such as toast or bits of fruit. Then I read on another forum that if you do BLW you shouldn't give any purees so I am confused.... What is the problem with giving both types of food?

Oh he is almost 7 months btw.

[hoochymama]

hi, don't have an answer, but was wondering the same thing, as someone told me you couldn't do both BLW and purees. Can't for the life of me work out why, so lurking to find out....

[greensnail]

No problem, if you're both happy then carry on

[thisisyesterday]

there isn't a problem with doing it if that's what you want to do.
but it isn't BLW if you are spoon-feeding.

iuf you want to do baby-led weaning then you have to let the baby lead ALL of it. thus eating what he wants and regulating his own appetite. that won't happen if you are spoon-feeding purees.

but like i say, if it suits you and it's what you want to do then it's fine1

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

i can explain!

[Prosecco]

I weaned before I knew anything about BLW and this was how I did it 3 times

[PacificDogwood]

Giving both worked for my 3...

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

oh, thisisyesterday got there first.

[thisisyesterday]

i don't think there are militant camps on weaning.

and there is no reason why you can't combine finger foods and purees.

but if you are doing true BLW then you would not be spoon-feeding your child at all because that's not how it works

[MrsMattie]

DD is 9 mths old (my 2nd baby) and I've been doing the same. Seems to be working for her.

There is no 'typical day' as she eats lots of different stuff, but for instance today she had:

Breakfast: 1/2 a weetabix with milk and a bit of apple sauce (spoonfed) plus munched a bit of ripe plum and a bit of banana as finger food.

Snack: had a bit of cheese as finger food

Lunch: Spoonfed some sweet potato, leek and cheese blended to mashed consistency

Snack: Munched on a rusk, sucked on a little bit of toast with butter

Dinner: Spoon fed our dinner mashed up (chicken, broccolli, potato), plus some steamed carrot as finger foods. Spoonfed some plain yoghurt plus had a bit more plum and banana as finger food.

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

it's not camps, it's just that if you're letting them eat all by themselves then spoonfeeding isn't letting them eat all by themselves. it's no biggie.

actually, a mix of finger food and spoonfeeding is what the nhs is recommending after six months, so there is absolutely nothing wrong at all. substitute 'finger food' for 'blw' and a mix makes sense, it's just that blw means self-feeding.

having said that, though, i think a lot of people if they were giving yoghurt let;s say, would spoon feed that but still consider they were doing blw, iykwim? but not going to the trouble of pureeing etc.

[PinkTulips]

I'm doing a mix with ds2.

He's quite badly tongue tied to the point that he didn't even know how to swallow his own saliva, we've been doing mush for a month now and he's gotten the hang of swallowing now, no more drooling and more food goes down than not.

I've been giving finger foods all along too but he wasn't able to do much with them til this week, now he's munching away happily and i'll slowly be able to cut out the mush as he gets more proficient.

It's not ideal, ds1 was properly BLW but it's what was right for ds2 and that's all that's important

[boogeek]

That's right - you can give both mash and fingerfoods (and, in fact, should do this: even people who wean their 3-day-old babies onto smooth runny purees start to introduce lumps and fingerfood around 6 months). You just don't get to call it BLW.

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

pt i emailed that woman but haven't heard back, btw. i wonder if she's on her hols?

[thisisyesterday]

pah, ds2 will tell you that yoghurt makes a lovely finger food! lol

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

BOTTOM LINE IS... it's no big deal. if mixing is more convenient or attractive for you, deffo do it.

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

i cannot stand the yoghurt mess, i must say. dd flings her spoons all over the place...

[PinkTulips]

ds2 often helps me hold the spoon and makes it very clear when he's had enough, at which point the meal ends even if he's not eaten more than a few drops.... out of curiosity how is that not letting the baby lead?

(not picking a fight btw, just honestly perplexed as to how there's an immediate presumption that if you use a spoon you force feed)

[PinkTulips]

aitch.. ds1 is 3 and i barely tolerate yogurts as he still acts like a weaning baby with them

Thanks for contacting her for me anyway, hopefully she is on her hols... somebody should be!

[woozlet]

Thanks for the replies, makes sense now!

Pinktulips - I was thinking the same about spoon feeding = force feeding. If my ds doesn't like what I am giving him on a spoon there's no way he will eat it and if he's full he'll just turn his head away/stop opening his mouth! So am interested in the thinking there too.

[greensnail]

PinkTulips, that is letting the baby lead on volume they take but with blw they get to pick what they have as well, and in what order and quantity, rather than having it all pureed together. For example they can choose to just have their meat, and leave the veg which they couldn't do if it was a mixed up puree.

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

yeah, i totally agree, i was always similarly miffed when i'd read things about how bottle-feeding = over-feeding.

yes to what greensnail says, that is true, but at heart i basically think that gill rapley chose a not-very-sensitive name when she first started thinking about it. i don't suppose she thought it would ever become a big thing, tbh, and people would think in those terms.

personally, i prefer to think of it as 'self-feeding'. and if you do that, then the whole spoon thing makes more sense.

[PacificDogwood]

Yes, greensnail, but why is that important? I am truly just puzzled, not trying to stir.
Like PinkTulips I think there are other ways of following your babies cues re likes and dislikes and getting them used to different textures and flavours.
Ds3 had an absolutely amazing amount of mangetouts last night but refused chicken and potato - is baby feeding not v much a "You can take the horse to water, but you cannot make it drink" situation?

[MiniMarmite]

I'm doing what you're doing and it works well for us.

Although I do some spoon feeding (especially early on) I offered rather than put it in DS's mouth so he had a choice about whether to take the food or not (as others have mentioned) so he has control of how much he eats.

Despite some spoon feeding, DS still considers hummous to be a finger food - works for him but less well for me!

[greensnail]

i'm not saying its very important, I'm just saying that's how its different.
However you do it, at the end of the day its all just feeding your baby.

[AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis]

PD, i think that greensnail's point is that if you'd pureed the chicken and the mangetout the baby might have rejected the lot. that is, to my mind, one of the attractive things about blw, that if a baby doesn't like something they can reject it by looking at it. whereas a green puree might be rejected because the baby hates broccoli, even if it's a spinach puree, iyswim?

but anyway... no biggie, like i say.