Baby lead weaning terrifies me.. anyone else?

[MumofHennHals]

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I didn’t do it. Too scary. Started on homemade purées and the carrot dissolving crisps to build up to holding and chewing things. Not a fussy eater and likes veg so it worked itself out in the long run.

Go with your gut. If it feels really uncomfortable don't. I BLW with first and had no issues..but not with second as he seemed to really struggle and I had really bad feeling with it. He has a lot of stomach issues so whether that's why he struggled..

But just go by your baby and how you can enjoy it together. If your stressed it won't be enjoyable for either of you.

I did puree and then finger food with my son. But with my daughter from 4 months, she had both

DD's first food was a roast potato stolen from her dad's plate when she was 6 months old. So BLW worked for us!

We did BLW with some purees when introducing important foods like peanuts (peanut butter).
They don’t actually ‘eat’ much to start with, they kind of gum it and suck a bit, spit lots out. Choking more commonly occurs when the pieces of food are too small. Bigger is better. And veg should be soft enough to mush between fingers. They are very good at gagging!

3 children and I've hated weaning with all of them - and I am a HCP. Choking is one of my biggest fears. My first was on mostly pureed food until a year old, the second wouldn't take purée so was BLW and the third was a bit of both. They all took to textures and taste differently. Maybe speak to your health visitor and ask about any courses they are aware of for weaning? This could help you feel more confident; recognising the gag reflex is normal etc?

I agree with other posters about doing a first aid course or similar. The Solid Starts app/website also has a lot of information on how best to prepare different foods for different ages.

I suppose we did baby led weaning (don't give them lead though, that's bad for them). We didn't make a big thing of it though, just gave them a few suitable bits of what we were having to play with/squish/fling and occasionally actually put in their mouths.

If it’s a fear of choking then I’d say do a first aid course regardless of whether you do purées or not - not doing BLW doesn’t eliminate the risk of choking!

FWIW I was far too lazy to puree anything and never used pouches/jars, I knew the difference between gagging and choking and both kids weaned great and it was very uneventful.

I did BLW with my 1st. Traumatised after it, to the point she is now 2 years old and I stare at her eating, convinced she is going to choke on every bite.

My 7 month old has only had purees I make myself. Not even so much as a gag out of him and it's so much more relaxing.

No. Weaning bored and frustrated me mostly so I was happy to do whatever was easiest. Which was sharing our food whenever possible with some pouches here and there when we were out.

The "best" way is not to be wedded to any particular way

No. BLW is a valid choice.

@MumofHennHals

it can be scary, but it's far less so when you actually understand why it's the optimal way to go about things& how to help then & not confuse them.

Baby led weaning is part and parcel of a particular brand of parenting that also encompasses extended breastfeeding and mum being a SAHP for several years, plus having infinite budget for food waste and infinite time for cleaning. It comes with mottoes like "before they are one, food is just fun" because there's no need to care how much food is actually going in or hoe long it takes. It's very lovely in theory but totally incompatible with the kind of lifestyle where you have a limited time to get your baby fed, clean and delivered to nursery before getting to work on time, or collected from nursery and fed quickly before he gets too tired and grumpy to focus and you have to start the bed time routine.

I never bothered and just stuck to purees. They both ate well and got all their vitamins so I didn't see the need to do anything else.

@MarketValveForks BLW wasn't like that for me, although I did breastfeed both of mine for 18 months ish (not really extended bf but longer than average I guess). I wasn't a SAHP, cleaning was quick and easy and there wasn't infinite food waste. The key to minimising waste is not to put too much out to begin with, as you can always put out more if needed. Both of mine were also very against wastage and happily shoved most of everything in!

I had a busy day, with work, nursery and all the rest. Didn't find it incompatible at all.

I never did it my three. Such a mess

With my three*

It didn't scare me no, but I'm not an anxious type. If I was I might have stuck to traditional weaning. As it happened my kids did great with BLW and I enjoyed it too. I think weaning is one of the fun parts of having a baby really, but I probably would have enjoyed it just as much either way. The whole puree thing does sound like much more work unless you use prepackaged food for every meal.

Do whatever works for your family. All these doing purées must either have a wedge in the bank, shares in Ella's Kitchen (e.g.), or a whole lot of time to make them from scratch!

We did BLW because it worked for us and cheaply. Both my children ate off my place or DH plate, saved so much time energy and money for us doing it that way, literally eating what we were and are eating.

My first and only experience of choking was with my eldest, 4yo, who shovelled in too many chocolate fingers and the top broke off one and got stuck. Thankfully I had done a paediatric first aid course so managed to handle it but sh!t! The terror was real when they started turning blue! This was a couple of months ago.

But anyway do whatever works for your family. It's an exciting time, weaning!

It’s really counter intuitive Ie. Weirdly the younger they are the larger the pieces you need to give sometimes. This means they kind of gnaw on it rather than choke on smaller chunks.

There’s a great app which shows you all the ways to cut the food into the right shapes and sizes for each age range. It’s an app by solid starts and has a food database.

https://solidstarts.com/foods/

Some pics attached so you get an idea of what I mean..

I don't think this is necessarily true. For me, I only tick the "extended breastfeeding" box. I've never been a SAHP and certainly don't have infinite money or time. In fact I'd say BLW is great if you're naturally lazy, like I am, as there's no need to prepare then purée everything. You just prepare it and plonk it down in front of them.
"Food is fun before they're one" seemed like a valid slogan to me. They are supposed to be getting most of their nutrition from milk at that age.

DH's family thought we were nuts. But they were happy to do things like put rusks in a baby's bottle at 2mo to make it sleep better, so I was happy not to follow their lead!

I know what kind of parenting you're getting at, but I didn't do either of those things and thought BLW was great.
It was perfect for being lazy tbh, negligent parent that I am I've got pictures of DH and I drinking cocktails at brunch whilst 6 month old DD knocks herself out on peanut butter on toast. We ate out regularly and it was easy to just cut her a strip of meat off our steak or give her a slice of our pizza. It actually felt quite intuitive and I feel DD weaned faster and easier as she got the pleasure of enjoying food.

There isn't a higher risk of choking with BLW, it's the same risk as a spoon fed baby.

I didn’t even think of attempting BLW and both of my dds have grown up to have normal healthy appetites and are healthy weights. So don’t do it if you don’t want to op!

I am not making a judgement on what everyone else does, everyone should do what suits them, but for me it felt wrong intuitively, so I didn’t do it.

I felt pretty confident that I could read my babies reactions and expressions as I fed them, and I felt I had more control over the nutrients I gave them and the amounts they were eating when I fed them myself.

I enjoyed making purees and gradually making them thicker and then only partially pureering dishes as my older babies teeth starting coming in.

It all felt entirely natural to me and as I dislike gagging when eating I couldn’t see why my dds would like that either or why it would make them look forward to meals?

They started instinctively reaching out for food when a little older and that’s when I introduced finger foods. It all felt like a fairly smooth and natural progression and I have fond memories of sitting there feeding my babies, singing nursery rhymes etc.

The book "how to feed your baby" is excellent and I also found having done a baby first aid course really helped put my mind at rest when dealing with gagging / fear of choking.

Finally someone who says this. Tbh I've been feeling guilty for not doing BLW.