BLW at 5 months - too early?

[ElleDubloo]

I felt my DD was ready for solid food at 5 months. She was above the 91st centile, could sit in a high chair without help, had pincer grip and could move things from hand-to-hand and hand-to mouth. She was reaching for our food whenever we ate.

So I made some rice with breast milk, nice and soft and soggy, and put it on a baby spoon. Instead of letting me feed her, she grabbed it and started feeding herself. It was messy, most of it went around her mouth rather than in it, but she was definitely keen to do it herself.

Since then she's been happily gumming on sticks of apple and pear whenever we have meals.

Yesterday (1 week after we started) I steamed some broccoli and put it in a bowl in front of her. She played with it and fed some to herself. But this time she coughed a little after taking a big bite, so I got worried and stopped. Overnight she had lots of wind and a massive poo in the morning with bits of undigested broccoli.

She's fine now, 100% her usual happy self. But is what happened normal, or was it too early to wean?

Just to clarify, before the broccoli she was ingesting minimal amounts - just gumming at fruit and licking the spoon of rice. Yesterday she ate about half a floret of broccoli.

No advice but bump for you.

All sounds normal to me, Elle....the gagging you describe is not choking, and she seems to have dealt with it fine. Wind/poo/undigested bits in nappy are normal after even a small amount of broccoli.

Doesn't sound too early - she sounds ready enough, but you can take a break if you want and start again in a few weeks....it's not something that is so time sensitive that you must act now :)

Thanks tiktok, that's really good to know :) I think we'll keep giving her things to lick/gum but stay away from big bites of food for another couple of weeks.

Do babies get better at digesting things? Will they suffer from wind/etc no matter what age you wean them? When does it get better?

Yes, they get better as time goes on. They get some/more teeth, so they can chew things (which helps with digestion) and the whole 'gastric emptying' system slows down a tad. But whole bits of something in the nappy continues for a while :)

Watch out for blueberries

Now those are interesting nappies!

All sounds great. You might want to consider cooking hard foods like apple, carrots and pear a bit before feeding them to your baby. There's a slight risk of chunks breaking off whereas if they're a bit softer, baby can munch on it better. DD used to love pears pan-fried in butter and cinnamon.

Aitch runs a fab website called www.babyledweaning.com if you want some ideas and support.

Enjoy! Weaning is fun.