To ask you what your baby's first food was??

[ethelfleda]

DS is 5mo and we are going to start weaning at 6mo. He is already showing a big interest in food and is showing all other signs of being ready so want to try as soon as he is old enough.

I like the sound of BLW and maybe a bit of spoon feeding as well but.. well where do I start? Offering food just once a day? And should I put a few different finger foods in front of him or let him try one at a time? How did you wean your baby?

As you can probably guess by my tone, I am a first time mum so I have no idea where to start!

Glovguvner Mollydaydream is correct being debunked is probably the wrong wording as it’s never been a sentiment supported by any official body it’s simply come from those advocating BLW. All official advice is that they do need nutrients from food from 6 months. It makes me mad as I’ve seen people telling people not to worry that their 14 or even 15th month old isn’t eating with BLW as milk is all that’s important - these children could be seeing their cognitive development and behaviour affected for the rest of their lives

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4235202/

Info about importance of iron and cognitive deficiencies
www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/understanding-food-groups/

www.uhs.nhs.uk/Media/Controlleddocuments/Patientinformation/Childhealth/Ironintake-patientinformation.pdf

fuckoff I'm very pro blw but hate the phrase above. It's total horse shit. I can't remember the source but the research boiled down to the fact that most young children, at some point between 9 and 12 months, go from requiring milk as their main source of nutrition to needing food as their main source (and milk as secondary) obviously there are outliers at both ends, those who need the change earlier or later than others. So realistically, it's food before 9 months is 'just for fun' or more accurately, for learning to get it in our mouth, down your throat and digesting it!

Baby lead weaning is such a hyped up event,like you’re introducing the mandibular Olympics

When does BLW end?
If you're eating out and the baby/toddler wants soup, or spag bol or something really messy do you let them?
I'm assuming you must otherwise it's no longer baby led right?

Tbf they can't read so they can have plain pasta, plain broccoli or plain potatoes.
Us spoon feeders are letting them have the soup and spag bol, and some food to eat from our plates.

Pizza!!! Was just discussing with my husband that he seemed to be showing interest in food and whether we needed to start weaning when he snatched a slice of pizza from my husband!!

DD1 (aged 18 months) wandered into the living room and spoon fed her own peach yogurt to DD2 (aged 8 weeks!).
DD1 had leaned face first into my mashed potato dinner at 8 weeks herself, and hoovered some up.
i just continued with home made purees from 8 weeks, and they are both now healthy adults, normal weights and no allergies. I think there is too much fuss about weaning ages and methods these days. As long as you avoid salt and sugar, and give a good balanced diet with plenty of veg, you're unlikely to have problems.

Brillo, you're coming across quite aggressive. It's quite easy with soup, just give it to them in a doidy cup. There's really no reason to assume (wrongly as it happens) that people that BLW only let their DC eat plain foods.

Carrot purée

@IHaveBrilloHair You can feed your child however you choose. I let mine feed himself because I value the increased fine motor skills over him being able to order the gazpacho in a restaurant setting. He hasn’t the ability to read the menu so it has never really caused much drama that I would order his bolognese with penne not spaghetti

I should imagine the majority of BLW mums just use their common sense and clear up after themselves rather than feed their DC a diet of plain boiled potatoes. Just a thought.....

DS1 mashed banana, DS2 mashed potato. First finger food was garlic bread for both, just off my plate when they fancied it. Did a mix of BLW for proper solids and spoon feeding for anything gloopy just to save cleaning up. They're both good eaters now and DS1 has recently taken an interest in cooking, so I must be doing something right!

Yes Brillo we did blw when out. I just used to clean up the floor after he was done. I never ordered him plain potatoes, he just had whatever I was having (which is usually stew based). Just ate it with his fingers until he could use a spoon.

Did a mix of BLW for proper solids and spoon feeding for anything gloopy just to save cleaning up

Good philosophy 😊

Baby rice. So, basically thickened breast milk. I am a bit baffled by the fact that people moan that "It has no nutrients!" and then in the same breath declare that "They don't need to get any of their nutrition from food because breast milk is a complete food!" What logic is that supposed to be?

Moved on to bits of whatever we were eating as long as it was not salted, sometimes as a chunk, sometimes mashed up with a fork. The only puree I made was meat puree (good source of iron, very important for breastfed babies after 6 months).

Oh, and YY to this:

‘Food before 1 is just for fun’ has been thoroughly debunked. Babies need nutrients, particularly iron from sources other than milk from 6 months old. Iron deficiencies can lead, in severe cases, to cognitive impairments. Those who BLW in a purist way and declare it doesn’t matter if their child doesn’t swallow a thing until their 11 or 12 months are wrong and it’s a dangerous thing to push to other parents.

Reality is most people do a mix of feeding, purées, mushed foods, finger foods and it works perfectly well.

We always did a mixture of self feeding and parent led feeding. Self feeding is nice for babies to work at, but parent led feeding has a long history (dating back to traditional societies where mothers and other carers prechew a lot of babies' first foods and feed them mouth-to-mouth)--it is not some modern idea created by babyfood manufacturers.

Babies do genuinely need to have solid foods from around 6mo, so it may be helpful for parents to actively help babies get food into their mouths, at least if your particular baby is not quick off the mark at wanting to feed themselves. Some babies are slow to develop motor skills, and sitting there for months on end waiting for them to self feed could put them at risk of iron deficiency.

Feeding babies mashed foods and letting them self feed finger foods is surely just called 'weaning' and is what most people in most societies for all of human history have done.

Feeding babies mashed foods and letting them self feed finger foods is surely just called 'weaning' and is what most people in most societies for all of human history have done.

Well exactly. I find this current trend for labels, rules and a 'club' that you're in or out of to be fairly silly. But it certainly sells books, that's for sure.

Porridge

If you'd actually read the thread, you'd see that I said 'apologies for incorrect terminology'
I'm a new mum so never been through any of this before and none of my friends or family have babies either. People knew what I meant when I put 'BLW' so it's not really a problem, is it???

Oh... and I haven't bought any books on the subject

Ds1 had carefully prepared bits of cooked apple, fingers of toast, things like that. I waited the full 6 months that was recommended at the time.

Ds2 started at 5 months old, with chips grabbed from other people's plates.

Ds1 and ds3 has baby rice. Embarrassingly ds2 was a Cadbury’s crunchie 🙈 he was on my lap facing outwards. It was open and I turned to talk to ds1 and when I went to bite the chocolate he had sucked the chocolate off.

Had not had they are 16 and 11 now!

Baby rice but this was a long time ago and we weaned from 16 weeks then.

@thegruffalosarse well said

This thread is making me cringe. All these labels.

“BLW”
“BLW mums”
“Spoon feeders “
“Purists”

For FUCK sake just feed your child?!
Why so many people feel the need to be so judgemental about it I don’t know.

My child will have better motor skills than yours and will be able to fold a napkin into a swan. Urgh.

Op do whatever you and more importantly your child feels comfortable with. It’s not a race. As tempting as it might seem to “do the right thing” and join the purist club, just have fun exploring food with your child. They all hit school age eventually and can eat. Crunch.. chew .. tear..

soup AND steak.

What a revelation

I think you're getting a little too wound up over a few harmless acronyms