Just curious, what is BLW?

[lucysmam]

I've come across the abbreviation on a few threads I've been lurking on, and come to the understanding that it's to do with weaning .

But what is it? Does that make sense?

Baby Led Weaning. Where you skip the purees stage of weaning and just give the baby (6 months plus) finger foods to feed themselves.

baby led weaning - letting them eat at their own developmental pace. So they have to be able to grab, hold, move food to their mouth, bite it, chew it and swallow it on their own.

so they get used to the food in it's normal state, whatever that may be, like bread & butter r a banana or mashed spuds, without the faffing around mushing them up?

Yep. And to be pedantic, its not finger foods, just food. You can eat a shepherds pie with no fork or spoon, and similarly yogurt.

In my interpretation it was 'chuck some of your food on the tray in front of them and see what happens'. What happened is that the little toad darling eats everything in sight, and at 2.8 has no idea that not everything that mummy eats is necessarily intended for him. Which is fine, but he always wants to share mine

Yes that's the idea Lucysmam. My DD hated it though....would cough, splutter and gag which is normal, the gag reflex stops the baby choking. But she used to vomit and then get really upset so I gave it up as a bad job. Loads of people rave about it but it wasnt for me.

lol cmot, you have to share you know

Sounds interesting, might have a go with our next one, a non fussy eater sounds great!!

Yes sorry, it is all foods.

We're trying it at the moment and DS (just 6 months) did start off gagging whenever he poked anything too far into his mouth. But he does that much less now. He also coughs out any lumps that are too big to swallow. In fact he pretty much started off spitting everything out, but that's ok because he's had the opportunity to explore different tastes and textures at his own pace.

He's just started swallowing the occasional mouthful (I'm very excited about this, pfb syndrome).

So, if I understand right, the natural gag reflex would prevent the lo from choking anyway, so therefore, really there is no need to bother with the puree stage to get the baby used to foods but rather it makes sense to let them use their own judgement in a way & rely on their bodies natural instincts to protect them from things like choking on lumps of unchewed food?

cmot that's exactly what I did with DD in 1997. Well she used to just sit with me and pick bits off my plate (I did worry a bit when she helped herself to takeaway curry I was eating with friends when she was 9mo and we were flying to the US the next day!)

I nearly choked when I saw someone making a presentation at an NCT conference and that it has grown into a huge new industry.

I perceive it as another wearisome parenting trend that doesn't mean anything but makes parents feel guilty and makes a godawful mess. But then I am quite grumpy.

Spot on lucysmam. The thoery is if you wait til 6 months to wean, they're ready to skip the purees anyway.

Some people follow it religiously as a philosophy and feel they have to stick to rules with no spoons and no puree, others see it as a more relaxed way of weaning where anything goes and if you feel like shovelling a bit of puree in as well, it's not the end of the world.

In general, it's Annabel Karmel out and Gill Rapley in.

Check out Aitch's blog blimey it's gone all fancy!

I can totally see the idea of the baby trying foods and not just being spoonfed purees. My DS was breastfed till 1 and has never even tried a jar of baby food. However, I did puree food for him from 5-6 months, he happily ate lots of different pureed things in the magical 'Babycook' we got. Yes, I fed him with a spoon, only what he wanted and was keen to eat! No persuading or whatever. Gradually, as he got more teeth and was able to chew more, around 7-8 months, I let the lumps get bigger. Gradually, he started having it just chopped roughly. Then he started feeding himself. Now he's a very good eater (2.5) and eats a massive range of foods. He was always allowed to grab finger foods if he wanted and try and eat them. The fact is that people have mashed up food for babies from time immemorial because they don't have proper blimming teeth! in Africa or whatever the mothers pre-chew the food a bit to make it possible to feed the baby without it choking. Of course there's nothing wrong with them having a go at things off your plate or having finger foods, and I am totally not of the old fashioned force feeding 'one more spoon for Mummy' camp, or of trying to somehow prevent the baby experiencing food and not developing its tastebuds, but I hate the militant tendency that suggests that it's somehow wrong and damaging to feed a baby some porridge off a spoon, but it's great for its development to try and eat that same porridge with its fingers, fail and then be in a bad mood because it's hungry... and then give it a fancy name and make you feel like a bad parent.

Thanks for th link mrsbabookaloo (wow that was confuddling to type!), will have a read of that as I think it's an interesting idea