Someone explain baby led weaning to me

[lexyloub]

Ds is 20 weeks he's only just gone onto hungry baby milk he has 5 6oz bottles a day and sleeps through the night. Hes always followed the 9th centile growth line. He's a very content baby and I don't think he's ready for food just yet.

When I had my older dc it was all baby rice leading to purees then introducing lumps around 7m. This worked very well with my older dc although they were hungrier babies and we're on the baby rice well before now.

I'm happy to do it this way again but I'm interested to know more about blw. At the moment ds is not stable sat up in a highchair, I used to feed older dcs in a bouncer chair to begin with.

How will I know when he's ready and how do I start? Hv said I need to start this at 6m but what if he's not ready. At the moment he's very content with his milk I can't see that in only 4 weeks time he'll be ready for food or can it change that quickly?

Any advice welcome
Thanks

But I don't use the term BLW. I tell people they don't like to be fed. They also look at me strange when I say they don't eat yoghurt. DD2 try picking the yoghurt up with her pincer grip. All mess and hardly any went in.

I have never heard anyone in RL say the words Baby Led Weaning.

When they eat finger foods do they actually eat much or is it mainly mushed about and spat out? With my older 2 I spent ages pureeing different things putting them into ice cube trays I quite enjoyed it I only really used jars if I was out and about. I'd be wary letting him eat off my plate if we're out as you don't know how much salt has been used to cook with.

You don't know that til it's nappy change time

they eat tbh mine never really did the squish and throw about thing. or the spit back out thing. They pretty much ate the lot.

lexy mine didn't eat that much I think. I don't measure actually. She eats until she is full. If I go out, I'm ok with her having same food as her sister. She has home cooked meals for rest of the day anyway.

Out of curiosity, why is your baby on hungry baby milk?

I have a 4 yo, but I have completely forgotten all about weaning for DD2. I might need to read a book.

And no not really squishing. Both put food in mouth and eat.

Well dd1 did. dd2 only tried stuff at first. but she ate what she did try. She just wasn't a whole meal eater til 8/9 months. so shed just get a strawberry or a carrot stick or a couple of bits of pasta or a few spoonfuls of soup to drink.

but it wasn't played with it was eaten just not much of that makes sense.

dd1 however...

Mine didn't eat lots for the first couple of months, mostly just gummed and tasted things and rubbed them in her hair

You don't have to wean this way though! It's just a possibility. If you like purees and that suits you then go for it.

I don't get why people plonk food straight on the tray. That's like feeding a dog! Put in in a bowl or on a plate fgs

He's on hungry baby because he was starting to wake in the night for a feed I upped his oz on aptamil 1 but it seemed to make him suffer with wind because he was having so much within a short space of time. I put him on the hungry baby and decreased the oz this seems to suit him better.

No point Art. Plate would be immediately upended and onto the floor/on head.

It's not like feeding a dog as they have bowls.

He's back to sleeping 12 hours and not suffering with wind anymore

I don't mind how people feed the kids (as long as they feed them), but I'm a but by the 'science' some people attribute to blw.

It is very messy and very wasteful. Plus generally starts later than purees (baby definitely needs to be sitting up in a highchair).

I have weaned on organic Annabel karmel style purees, jars and whatever the child will deign to eat. I guess its what suits you and your child. But would say make sure your baby is ready to deal with solids (not just pureed) and you know what to do if they choke.

I find blw purists can be a bit evangelical about it; fine if it works, but its not for everyone. Plus a blw baby at a year who eats everything may well be as fussy as the puree weaned baby by the time they are three.

Arf @ spark

i think it can be safely said that however you choose to wean that DC get the hang of eating eventually and it's not something you ever give another though to afterwards. Until you read a thread on MN.

I love BLW threads because it reminds me of how much stuff can change and how unsettling that can be for parents. My DS is 10 and was weaned on purees, because that's what you did. I bought the books and everything. And now, guess what, yep, more books to be bought, a new way of doing things...

Ask yourself who is making money out of each parenting 'thing' OP, before you stress yourself out about whether you should follow it or not. Then do what feels right for you and your baby.

art because they will throw away all bowls, plates and spoons. i looked at DD1 baby photo with her the other day. the first one she has a spoon is over 1yo with yoghurt.

A lot of people give me face for BLW. I didn't choose neither of them to not take a spoon. They never ate anything off it. What can I do if they stubbornly want to pick up the food themselves?

And high chair trays are just a giant platter

I didn't find BLW anymore wasteful than spoon feeding tilder I would go as far as to say it was less wasteful as rather than a whole dish of food being swiped over the side of the highchair (accidentally or on purpose) it was a carrot stick or a blob of mashed potato. Also because we were all eating the same foods there were more options for any leftovers, where as when I made Annabel Karmel purees for DD they ended up binned or eternally frozen in icecubes if she didn't like them as DH and I didn't really want to eat them.

OP I think the NHS guidelines for readiness to wean are sensible and as far as I'm aware haven't changed for years. I remember reading them when I weaned DC2 over 10 years ago.
They can stay in a sitting position and hold their heads steady.
They can coordinate eyes, hands and mouth. So they can look at food, pick it up and put it in their mouths by themselves.
They can swallow food. Babies who are not ready push the food back out and get more on their faces than in their mouths.

I would also add but obviously this is just my own opinion, that they are interested in food. Two of my four were not interested until 7.5-8 months. I offered them tastes and finger foods from time to time before then but they weren't bothered and just played with it or cried. My HV was bothered by this but apart from force feeding I don't know what I could have done to get them to eat before then.
When they were ready they went straight onto very roughly mashed food and had plenty of finger food.

We never had high chairs with trays (not enough room round our table) so we used bowls and plates, you had to sit close by poised to catch any that were picked up but you would anyway, on the whole it worked fine.

I did BLW with my second, not because I wanted to but because she adamantly refused to let me anywhere near her mouth with food until well over one year.

It was sllooooowwww progress and she still had way more milk to make up for it compared to babies months younger than her.

But it was also incredibly easy and faff-free compared to the puree business of my first time round (especially with an older toddler under foot - just bung some food down and they get on with it), and we got there in the end. She learned to use a spoon way quicker than her older puree-fed sibling as a result.

I don't understand how people can be so passionately opposed to mush on a spoon as a matter of principle, it's just food!

notso I found food ended on the floor whether puree or finger food. Just that with puree it was generally a spoonful and with finger foods, the whole lot (often one bit at a time, without taking his eyes off me...).

I guess each child drops food at a different rate

My dd is 10 months so I've been through this very recently.
I started with baby led. I started at 6 months giving her sticks or pieces of soft fruit and veg, such as cucumber, tomatoes, strawberries and cooked carrot or parsnip. I started adding in purees and yoghurt as I thought it would be easier to get more calories in her (with the hope it would stop the night feeds - it didn't ) and giving her pureed and mashed food meant I could give her more variety of things that couldn't be eaten as finger foods such as beans and eggs as her pincer grip wasn't good enough.

Now at 10 months she does a mixture of finger foods and spooned. Most of the finger foods gets dropped on the floor as she tends to nibble then throw it. She seems to enjoy feeding herself. But I continue with the spooned food to ensure she gets decent portion sizes.

We did traditional weaning I think! Waited till ds was 6 months then gave him normal foods, anything I'd eat with a spoon was spoonfed, everything else he fed himself. BLW seemed like a bit of a pita for stuff like porridge. Also you might not get a choice, I know of two children who just wouldn't put food into their mouths themselves until they were one so if they hadn't been spoonfed they wouldn't really have been weaned until then.