Weaning stories please!

[Roobear23]

I've started giving my baby tastes of food as he's 6 months this week. He's been ebf until now. I am just wondering how long babies tend to take to stop gagging! I've heard breastfed babies sometimes push food out of their mouths more? I'm in no rush, I will go at his pace of course, just wanted to hear other people's experiences.

Are you doing the traditional purée route or baby led weaning? Baby led weaning is not for everybody but it does allow the baby to set the pace.

More baby led but not strictly. He's having soup and yoghurt etc which we feed with a spoon and he has his own spoon too. What was your experience of weaning like?

We've just started weening, baby gagged at the first couple of times but doesn't seem to now. She does push food out with her tongue but I read that's an automatic reaction as it what she knows from being EBF.

We've given her food to hold and gum / chew as well as mashed veg and a baby jar. We're not doing strictly puree or baby led as we want her to try a range of textures and flavours.

Seems to be going well so far and she's definitely eating plenty of it, we've stuck to beg so far though (in various forms) and not introduced fruit, yoghurt or bread

We are doing blw. Baby mostly eats the same as us but in large chunks. We have being doing it for 6 weeks now and she is just getting the hang of eating and now makes mmmmm noises when put in her high chair. I was giving her breakfast and lunch as she was too tired for dinner but we have just introduced dinner. She has gagged a few times but never choked.

That must be lovely! Thank you both for your responses. Baby seemed to enjoy his broccoli tonight!

Which method are you going for?

I'm not pureeing anything for him but I have a spoon as well as him to assist with yoghurt etc. Just being led by him really with an aim to him tasting as many flavours as we can think of!

I started fully baby led but as my dd can't get the yoghurt in her mouth quick enough I do spoon feed her (as well as giving loaded spoons). She's had the odd baby food pouch when what we've had isn't suitable.
I tend to do fruit and something else for breakfast (toast/rice cakes/pancakes/omelette) then veg (carrot sticks/roasted veg chips/steamed broccoli etc) and something else for lunch and tea (pasta/potatoes/wraps)
She definitely has a preference for bread though 😂
I can't really help with the gagging - dd doesn't gag often - maybe once a fortnight - I just leave her to it and offer water once she's fully done.
It took about a month of offering food about 2 times a day for her to eat much but now (about 2.5 months in) she eats plenty.

Oh I also found for hard to pick up stuff (avocado/banana) I put it on toast/wraps etc

We did blw with my son and it was fantastic. For yogurt we gave him fruit slices or berries or even cereal in yogurt so he could pick it up. We also used yogurt pouches (the collective dairy ones) and he fed himself the pouches.

I think just keep giving them whatever you're having and let them explore and also embrace the mess. My son didn't eat properly until 7.5m, he spent the time playing exploring and learning to chew. Since then he has been a fab eater. He is 14m and can use his fork and eats everything from burritos to curry to tagine.

Have fun x

Just to tell you that it's already going much better for you than it did for us - we tried a mixed approach (eventually we were willing to try anything!) - DD didn't want to touch food for the first two weeks, and didn't want it anywhere near her mouth after that (this is finger food). She reacted violently if I tried to get a spoon in her mouth, and would spit/gag/vomit (full vomit of the previous milk feed) to get food out of her mouth. She stopped the actual vomiting at a year, and still occasionally gags, and has to get food out of her mouth (she's now 4). But she's at the extreme end of weaning experiences!

It's still very early days for us. Dd is 7 months and we started blw a month ago. In the last week or so she's really started to get the hang of it and she's eating pretty well now. She really loves her food. We've just been giving her some of what we've been having whenever she's awake at a mealtime. She seems to eat the most at dinner time, and usually misses lunch because she's having her long nap. Enjoy it!

Thank you for all your responses! Wait4nothing the idea of using wraps is good, especially when out I imagine.
SheepyFun that must have been hard! Thanks for sharing.
MyCatLikes - I envy the long nap!! Glad it's going so well.

Gagging is perfectly normal. A baby's gag reflect is much further forward than an adult to prevent them from choking.