BLW ?!?

[Soyouare2faced]

Am I the only parent to wonder what this new age BLW is ?? (Ok maybe not THAT new)
Just seems like one messy choking hazard to me !!

What about different tastes? So say purée can have flavours combined as the weaning progresses how do you work that into BLW?

You just give them food. Food tastes of different things.
For example if you're cooking lasagne, you give them it. That's what people mean when they say it's less faff, because you give them a portion of your food. So if you make a cheese sandwich for yourself, you give them some. You just have to cut down on salt which isn't difficult.

How was your comment taken out of context? It seems pretty obvious what you meant

Ok - I'd not spotted that before I posted. But really, if it's not for you then don't do it and don't waste energy thinking about it.

NHS advice is that they do have finger foods after six months, though. If you're really nervous, just choose finger foods carefully - soft stuff like buttery toast, banana, avocado, etc.

Splendid tbf I miss understood as I felt like the way it came across at first they would keep gagging if that makes sense?

Ah yeah never thought of falafel type foods.

Do you think this helped with motor skills then? As on a separate note I've been concerned about DD in that sense

I think it's all good practice on the motor skill side and DS had an early pincer grip which might be attributable to his love of peas.

Do I think a 5 year old who was weaned on puree would have worse motor skills than a BLW'd one? I doubt it, I wouldn't think it makes any long or even medium term difference to motor skills.

Lasagne without salt = shudders

I do blw but find it v faffy

Jump what's faffy ? The mess?

DD doesn't pick things up and god knows I've tried

I've gotten used to cooking without salt tbh. If salt is needed later I just add it to my plate.
DS is 2 now and I still don't put salt in anything I cook.

Mess, no salt, endlessly picking up food and watching him like a hawk

I'm a chef though so the idea of eating food without salt is sacrilegious to me.

It's quite easy for most meals to add salt though. If you do spaghetti bolognaise for example you can spoon out a portion for the DC then add some salt while the rest is still on the hob if you really want to.

I don't use salt. We don't even have it in the cuboard.

I may try if I'm brave enough. But like I say I doubt she will pick anything up.

Some things yes it's easy enough

But like a pp said you can't do it with croquettes, lasagne, dumplings, burgers, patties

Soyouare, how old is your DD? Could you try loading a spoon with some of her normal food and see what she does with it, just as a starting point?

She's 6 and a half months. She doesn't pick up toys or anything. She puts her hands in her mouth like most babies. Ill see what happens

BLW vs purees is turning into the new Breast vs Bottle! Why does everything you do with babies have to be labelled to make you join a bloody tribe?!

Who really cares as long as the baby is fed and it's not a load of junk.

Agree with a pp up thread who said Spon feeding doesn't need to involve hours with a steamer and blender - just mash up some of your own veg, fruit whatever with a fork!

Am starting to wean DC3 soon and will just do mashing and finger foods.

Out ofor interest, how the hell do you feed things like yogurt if you BLW?!

'Spoon' obvs!

You let them eat it with their hands :-) maximum mess :-) thick yoghurt like full fat Greek works best. Or, if that doesn't appeal, you can load a spoon and let them have a go themselves. If you give them a spoon at each meal they can quite quickly get to grips with dunking.

My mum wet herself laughing when I told her about blw

Maybe she should see her GP about her continence issues.

If she won't pick anything up then she's probably not ready for it, and that's fine. One of the key messages of BLW is that you wait until they're ready. It's baby led after all. A big no-no of it is the parent putting any food in their mouth - the baby must do it themselves and it really doesn't matter if they can't.

There's no need to do BLW if you don't feel comfortable either. It's just a matter of choice as a parent. There's no right or wrong. Perhaps the best route for you would be purees if you're worrying about her lack of eating, but also offering a few bits she can try to pick up herself if you're worrying about motor skills. So for example if you were eating broccoli with your dinner, give her a piece on her highchair. Doesn't really matter whether she eats it or not then but encourages her to think about picking it up.

I personally think one of the most important things about weaning is trying to be relaxed about it so they don't associate food with worry and fear.

Speak- really? I just thought she maybe a slow learner. You know what it's like with milestones,

She didn't laugh at blw, just at the name. When I told her what it was she looked at me like this and said "but that's what I did with you!!"

I told her she should have written a book, made millions off the revolutionary advice of "let baby feed themselves"

Seriously people just do what you want. I only do blw because my son won't entertain the idea of a spoon.

I did BLW. When I told my HV that I intended to she got very excited and gave me a bunch of information about BLW, and told me she'd done it with her second child.

At 6 months, my son sat in his high chair at the table with us and got various bits of food that he could hold to try eating. Overcooked broccoli was a favourite. There was a fair bit of gagging as he learned but he was TOTALLY unphased by it. For soft food like yoghurt, I loaded the spoon and passed it to him to eat from.

He did choke once, at about 8 months old. On a leaf that he picked up indoors and tried to eat. He wasn't that upset by that, either, it was dislodged and he kept playing.

He is now 14 months and by far the best eater of any similar aged babies I know. He'll try anything, and likes loads of stuff.

I don't really see why you WOULDN'T do baby led weaning now that you don't give any food except breastmilk or formula until 6 months. Babies are ready for finger food at that stage, and it's not like we need to rush them off of milk by getting other food in instead. Letting them enjoy exploring food just seems natural.

Perhaps my comment about you being clueless was harsh but so was your 'sad' comment.
You do seem unaware of the importance of finger food which is the same however you wean and also of the readiness to wean signs, one of which is
They can co-ordinate their eyes, hands and mouth so they can look at the food, pick it up and put it in their mouth, all by themselves. taken from the NHS website.
The other signs are sitting unaided and not having tongue thrust.
Following these signs generally means you don't need any purée, and it means you are being led by your baby not the magic 6 month mark, your Mum, packets of baby food or anything else.Three of mine didn't show the signs until somewhere between 7 and 8 months.
The purée and gradually increasing texture was done for babies who were started on food at around 4 months. This was what the advice was when my DD was a baby. You needed the food to be runny because really they weren't ready for food. By around 6 or 7 months then you were giving chopped food or finger food, because they were ready for 'normal' food by then. I wish I had been more confident back then because I knew DD wasn't ready but felt the HV knew best.

Notso DD is a very sicky baby so I was advised to move on to food and now she doesn't bring that up, although even though she was sick she was still full