Baby lead weaning terrifies me.. anyone else?

I did purées to start with; first singke vegetables or fruits and then combinations, slowly moving onto mashed foods then finely chopped up dinners. Eventually they would just be eating a portion of whatever we'd had for supper the previous evening (so that it could be ready at a moments notice when the outraged hungry screaming started!)

Chasing frozen peas around the high chair tray was always a good option to keep little fingers busy, too!

Are they?

I just picked a random one out.

The ingredients of a Heinz cheesy pasta jar.

Vegetables (42%, Tomato (21%), Carrot (14%), Courgette (7%)), Water, Pasta (14%), Water, Durum WheatSemolina), Vegetarian Cheddar Cheese (9%,Milk), Rice Flour.

It doesn’t look full of shit to me.

Ella's kitchen and the aldi ones are fine. But the jars are full of shit

All jars and pouches - ingredients were perfect for them. Good variety and it introduced them to a wide range of textures and flavours.

Lol they can manage without teeth. None of mine had a single tooth until about 13 months

It’s certainly got more popular.

I agree about the terrifying part. I just wanted to start with purées so that’s what I did.

Really? I was never a sahm( although with maternity leave being long these days you could have weaned before returning to work), longest I breastfed was 10 months

Nor did I have an endless budget

Babies would have milk before being dropped off to childminders or nursery. Then have meals there.

At dinnertime they were up at table with the rest of us, doesn't take long to scoop up the mat under their chair and wipe table down

Now? It was popular when my now 21 year old DS was a baby. Also did BLW when DD2 ( now 30) was a baby.

I'm not sure why it would be terrifying though

Do what you feel comfortable with. I used the Ella’s Kitchen First Foods book and basically followed that! It had some nice recipes too. I liked having something to follow that kind of told me what to do, as the whole process made me so nervous!

To begin with I started on baby rice/porridge and puréed loads of different veg and froze them in ice cube trays so I could introduce them one by one and I had smaller portions for him to try everything. Once he’d tried most veg I then moved on. We did a mixture of baby-led and purées (some homemade and some shop bought) until I got more confident with what DS could manage. We started off with soft finger foods like toast, steamed veg, salmon and fish fingers, baby biscottis, banana, homemade fish cakes etc. alongside puréed food or soft foods like pasta, omlette/scrambled egg, porridge, overnight oats. DS absolutely loved puréed apple and blackberries and we used to mix Greek yogurt with a bit of a fruit pouch. We moved onto meat like sausages, burgers, mince, meatballs etc as easier for him to get used to eating than tough meat.

I did homemade at home but out and about I took the pouches with me that were appropriate for his age group so I always had something for him - HiPP organic and Ella’s were good ones. I found looking at the consistency of the pouches for his age group gave me a good indication of how much I should be mushing/not mushing his food up alongside the finger foods.

Something my friend and also our HV told me to reassure me is that they will gag. It’s normal. They’ll make noise while they do it. It’s when they’re silently gagging that you need to worry. If they’re making noise they’re getting air. That always reassured me.

One meal prepared, so you all ate jars and pouches?
Mine ate what we did minus the salt it was way easier and cheaper.
Two of the four preferred feeding themselves the other two preferred being fed. They all had fussy stages now they're all good eaters.

I thought babies were supposed to be getting most of their energy and nutrients from breast or formula milk until the age of one?

They are and that is what is stressed when I was taking mine to be weighed at 6 months. Think it says the same thing on the NHS website about weaning.

None of mine lost weight or dropped feeds when we started weaning.They stayed on their growth lines.

I would say just follow baby’s lead.

With DS2, he was constantly staring at our food and mimicking chewing from five months. We didn’t give him anything until he was 6 months starting with a bit of banana and moving to more foods.

DD1 is an independent sort. I knew she was ready when she latched off from nursing while I was eating and grabbed my utensil to try and feed herself. She doesn’t want anyone to feed her and must do it herself. Her brothers have learned not to have their plates within her reaching distance. She would pull herself up to stand and hook her finger into their plates and pull them closer to her. The moment she started walking at 10 mo it was all over and at 13 months no one’s food is safe. You have to give her food first otherwise you’re going to find a tiny hand inching towards yours and she is quick like many tots.

i did BLW and in retrospect it really doesn't matter. Purées are fine too and if it makes you less anxious go for it

Nope. Why would it?

You make normal food without the salt. Give it to your baby. Add salt for everyone else. Job done.

Why would that be difficult? It's literally less work than purées would be. Literally less.

And yet here you are

We did it for our kids because I couldn't be arsed with the faff of purees and not feeding them what we were having.

I do think a lot of people think choking and gagging are the same thing.

I did BLW which I really didn't think of as particularly radical - it was how I was fed as a baby too and is normal for my family.

Lol at the idea from @MarketValveForks that I was some sort of earth mother who gave up work and practiced attachment parenting.

For me, it was by far the easiest choice. Much nicer and easier to give the baby some toast to munch in the morning while getting my work bag together etc, than sit there spoon feeding. Also meant didn't have to puree things, mine just had components of what we ate.

Perhaps because we didn't wean early or perhaps just luck, neither of mine gagged at all - I actually see more spoon fed babies gagging as they aren't in control of their food.

Purees are fine if that's what you want to do - but nurseries tend to expect children to feed themselves by 14 months or so so if you are planning to go back to work, I personally think just starting with finger foods is easier.

We did it to start with when baby had a tummy full of milk so they don't get hungry and frustrated while they are figuring out while it all works. What helped me was learning that babies' gag reflex is much further forward than adults so they will gag and help expel any food way before it gets far enough back to choke.

Get the recipe book. It's amazing and has all the info about it at the front. We loved it. It also made great play too.

We did a mixture of both.
Due to multiple food allergies the first taste of each food was a puree so I knew that no reaction was because of no reaction and not because she hadn't actually eaten it.
Then we would offer both pureed carrots with carrot batons. Some days she would have a spoon of the puree other days it would be the batons. Her weight was essentially static from 7 to 13 months as she barely engaged with weaning nothing more than a few mouthfuls a day and she didn't eat a full meal for the first time until 13 months. She was 20 months before she ate enough to start reducing her milk intake. It took until 18 months to identify all of her allergens so I feel this played a part in her slow weaning journey.

I would do a mixed approach again. Offer the same food as whole food and as a puree. We would some times use strips of pittas as an edible spoon with some puree on the end. She did better with big food. One day she stole a 1/3 of a cucumber from the fridge and spent the entire day eating it another time she had half an apple and spent the afternoon demolishing that

A few posts on this thread seem to suggest that BLW is a fad or new idea. My child did BLW and they are 19 now and it has been around a while then.
it was popular with all types of parents, I never co slept and only breast fed for a few weeks.
Also I think a lot of people say ‘choke’ when they mean gag or cough on the food. Choking is completely different.

Purée is easy - go to supermarket and buy trolley full of jars

It really isn’t. It’s considerably less faff than puréeing everything to buggery.

God it's been years since I've been on a weaning thread, I forgot how fucking boring it was.

You'll be fine OP, do what you want, it's shit however you end up doing it, but they have to eat eventually.

BLW is messy, labour intensive and wasteful.

It really isn’t. It’s considerably less faff than puréeing everything to buggery.

They eat what you eat. They get given a bit. They drop it - you pick it up and give it back to them.

I don't understand the weight loss bit. I thought babies were supposed to be getting most of their energy and nutrients from breast or formula milk until the age of one? Were some parents incorrectly cutting out milk when they should not have been? I very much followed my child's lead on when they were ready to reduce or cut out milk feeds.

OP, you most definitely do not have to do BLW. I started with purees and then worked up to eating proper food. Do what works for you and baby. Some people get very hot and bothered by how other people are weaning but just learn to tune it out and enjoy your own feeding journey. My DS is now 19 months and happily joins in with all meals and has been eating the same meals as us for a good while. The puree days are now long behind us.

So don’t do it. Purée is fine.