Baby Led Weaning

[mandbaby]

My little girl has just turned 6 months old and so we've started BLW. She is my third DC (I have DS1 aged 5 and DS2 aged 3). I did BLW with DS2 and it worked a treat - he was a much less fussy eater than DS1 and I found it altogether much easier. However, my husband hated it and would frequently get anxious and angry if he started to gag/choke. Mealtimes were very fraught for several weeks.

3 days in with BLW with DD, and now I'm starting to get anxious. I'm terrified of her choking and dread mealtimes.

I seem to remember with DS2 that it was a long, slow process. I bet he was 8 or 9 months before he was "eating properly" but when he did, he really would eat anything. Therefore, I'm keen to persevere with DD but need some assurance/tips.

What "finger foods" can I offer her until she's mastered chewing a little better and I can start being more adventurous? Tonight, she had some al-dente carrot sticks. She seemed very happy with them and was sucking away on them and breaking the odd bit off, but would just gag and spit them out. Yesterday she sucked on some cheese on toast fingers. I've also offered her banana (which she hated) and have put some strawberries in one of those net holder thingies.

Any other suggestions?

(BTW, I have the book by Gill Ripley but don't have the time to re-read it!!)

Carrot sticks probably need more cooking, you should be able to mush them by pinching.
DD liked broccoli as it was easy to hold in her fist and breaks up easily.
Sweet potato wedges and mashed potato were also very popular.

I offered finger food from 6 months alongside traditional purées. From about 8 months he was fully blw at his leading.

First finger foods very ripe pear (no skin), rice cakes, cucumber (also initially no skin), avocado (which he hated!!), cold mashed potato, breadsticks. Basically stuff which only needed very little chewing.

There was still a good deal of gagging but it's totally normal; body's way of protecting itself. Almost always he wasn't bothered by it!

Fruit and vegetables mostly is what we started with. Mango, melon, cucumber sticks, pear (peeled), banana (broken into thirds then sticks), roasted sweet potato, potato, parsnip (all cooked as sticks). Cooked carrots, broccoli (tender stem or normal), boiled potatoes (skin removed if you want), asparagus - all cooked until sort enough to turn to mush if squeezed so it turned to mush on their gums.

Toast or rice cakes with various toppings (cream cheese, peanut butter, mashed avocado). Porridge fingers (from blw cookbook).

Fish (flaked and checked for bones) - salmon, trout, etc...

To add to previous suggestions, strips of meat cut along the grain are good they get a lot of goodness just from sucking. DS finds fruit and veg easier if we give it with skin on as it's easier to grip - a crinkle cutter also helps. We do stir fry a lot for our meals (with lemon, garlic, ginger etc but no soy sauce) as that has lots of easy to grab bits. French toast and sugar free drop scones go down well too.

There's a handy summary of the BLW guidelines at www.rapleyweaning.com/assets/blw_guidelines.pdf

Having a nightmare with this myself, but have tried lumps of cream cheese which worked ok