Baby led weaning

[Emiu]

Looking for a bit of advice.
Im a third time mum and feel a bit stupid asking, but thinkgs have changed since my girl was born (now 12 1/2 moody teenager)and i am a bit confused with the baby led weaning.
Do the babies not choke ? when presented with a peice of broccolli for example? I they have no teeth how do they eat a steamed carrot? Im willing to give it a go and ditch the purees but am just a little aprehensive.
Any advice greatly appreciated.

Hi Emiu,
just wanted to say there is a BLW thread somewhere on here.I think, from my very scant knowledge, the idea is that because you wait until the baby is 6 months before starting, there is less chance they will choke. They are much more likley to push the food roud their mouths initially tasting and sucking.Plus think, although could be wrong, they still have the gag reflex at that stage??... sorry, not very useful!

Will watch with interest. I'm a 3rd time mum too and my other ones were weaned on purees and baby rice.

It is here

Hello Emiu,
We did this with ds (now 2.4) as he rejected all attempts at the more traditional pureed approach.
With ds, the fruit & veg we gave him were so soft they were nearly disintegrating. Broccoli florets are good because they have a kind of natural handle.
There is some gagging - but the gag reflex is very strong at this stage and ds got himself out of any difficulties pretty quick.
I think there are examples on Youtube if you want to see it in action.

I'm no expert, but I did BLW (or my approximation of it!) with ds (no 3), after also doing the usual purees with the first two. I think the idea is that they are less likely to choke as they have to move the food to the back of their mouths themselves, and if they can do this they are unlikely to choke, compared to having food spooned directly into their mouths? Certainly I found ds never choked- he was far more likely to just let a piece of food fall out of his mouth. I have to say, I found it a lot easier than all that cooking and pureeing (lazy? Me?) and I didn't experience the same obstacle when trying to move to lumpier foods (the first two were really difficult to get through that stage!)

Having said that, ds has also gone through a fussy stage, and refuses to eat meat (usually- will sometimes surprise me!), so it doesn't iron out all the pitfalls (but is a hell of a lot less time-consuming!)

I blw with my dd (4) and ds (1) and I would complete recommend it.

I steamed things like carrots and broccoli (sp?) so it was relatively soft. like travellerintime said, they do gag, but this isn't choking, it's just getting used to moving food round

The best advice someone gave me about gagging/choking is if they seem to be gagging and you're not sure if they're in trouble, take a very deep breath yourself. if they've stopped gagging by the time you've breathed in and out, then they're not chocking, they're just working out how to chew. v good advice - has saved me many a time from leaping in to perform heimlich when actually they're just learning to chew quite effectively.

chocking? choking, obviously

Also have a read of Baby Led Weaning, helping your baby to love good food, by Gill Rapley. It will give you a really detailed account of the theory behind blw and why you wait till 6 months.

have just started with ds number 3 after doing puress with the other two. Really enjoying it so far and apart from the mess, so much easier than purees.