Baby led weaning- to continue or just do purée?

[Cleanqueennot]

My baby turned 6 months old last Thursday. We want to do baby led weaning so have been giving him one new food per day. So far he’s tried broccoli, cauliflower, parsnip, pasta, potato, natural yogurt and today was chicken. We are first time parents and don’t really know what to expect but it seems very slow. I know with BLW you are supposed to just put the food in front of them and let them feed themselves but if we did this the food would just sit there or end up on the floor. So we have tried to help him eat and taste the food.

Mostly he licks it and scrunches up his face and then that’s it! Anyone here done the BLW route? Should we just stick at it? I don’t want it to be so slow that baby eventually loses interest in food and prefers to just stick to breastfeeding. I’ve read that there is a window of opportunity when they are more likely to try new foods. I don’t want to waste the opportunity window by being too slow or is this just normal? If I preserve will we reap the rewards later on?

How come you are only doing 1 thing a day?

We juat startwx giving baby what we were eating at meal timea, mashed up a bir if needed. They don't really eat any of it to start with, or not enough to count as food, ita about tastes/textures and learning how to handle food in their mouth

not a great fan of BLW. You could always do both .

Sounds normal to me.

As pp, it's about them learning to put to their mouths, exploring the food.

I did both, the purée so he would get a proper taste and experience food in his mouth and finger food to play with.

I would fine just BLW slow as you say.

Find

Weaning is a slow process. If you were doing puree you'd be doing a spoon or two a day at a week in. They've got very small tummies, they're still having loads of milk and it's a brand new skill they're trying to master.

The best method is to do a bit of both. Don't sign up to some sort of eating theory, just go with the flow. Try a bit of puree alongside giving him tastes of everything you eat (checking first which foods should be introduced early and which ones you need to be more cautious with obviously).

The worst thing you can do is get upright/anxious or make food any kind of issue. It will come. He won't be breast feeding at 18, he will eat no matter how you introduce food.

You can do a mix. My DS is 7 months and today he has had broccoli which he’d fed himself, I think he ate some, and a some blended butternut squash with pasta. He seems to like both. He likes to feed himself with the spoon as well so I let him do that sometimes for porridge or yoghurt.

I did full BLW with my first DS as he wouldn’t touch purées. He won’t be drinking milk forever, it’s quite gradual that they start taking enough nutrition in from food to drop milk.

Honestly only on MN do people do solely blw -
in reality most people do a mix of both.

Baby led weaning was the worst thing i did. There was a big gap between my two eldest and two youngest. Oldest we just blended what we were eating, they both will eat anything. Advice changed by the time my two youngest arrive and i now have two very picky eaters. Nightmare

i read that it’s good to give one thing at a time in case they have a reaction then you can pinpoint the cause. I guess that would be more relevant with allergens. Tbh he wouldn’t be able to eat everything we eat anyway. Like today we had red Thai style chicken with rice. So we just gave him the chicken without any of the seasoning and sauces we had. Would be quite difficult to feed him the rice I reckon

Definitely try both, there's absolutely no harm in doing a combination.

My friend's DD wouldn't eat off a spoon at all, she wanted to pick everything up and eat it herself. My own DD wouldn't pick anything up and would only eat from a spoon.

And then my DS didn't care how it happened, he just wanted the food in his mouth as quickly as possible He'd let me feed him with a spoon, try to grab it off me, and be trying to shove bits into his mouth with his hands as well, all at the same time!

Weaning can be fun, and it can also be a pain at times. Just keep trying him on different bits and don't feel any guilt about what you give him or how you do it!

Do a mix of both OP and once he’s comfortable with exploring foods don’t be afraid of giving him tasty food (just not salty). As long as it’s not hot they can handle some spices and herbs. DS has always eaten what we’ve eaten and he eats everything. Let them explore with no pressure. If they don’t eat it, don’t force it down them.

If you use instagram, this is quite useful

instagram.com/solidstarts?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Just offer what you are eating at each meal. No stress.

Another one saying do a bit of both but weaning was really slow for both of mine. I wouldn't say they reliably ate anything til 8 months or so... just keep plodding on!

We did one thing at a time too.

I started working through veg then fruit then mixing and slowly introducing allergens one at a time. I did a bit of purée and finger food alongside to start with, though in our case DD far preferred the finger food so we stuck with that.

SR Nutrition is worth looking up - lots of info on her Instagram and she has a helpful blog too.

Just do both. We adapted our meals so that they could have whatever we ate. If it had sauce we would offer to spoon feed, if not we would put it on their tray and they'd have what they wanted. They always had a mix of things on their plate from the start. I think you're right re. allergens... but the chance of being allergic to, for example, broccoli or potato is very low, so I'd give both of those. I probably just wouldn't introduce big allergens like eggs and peanuts at the same time.

Slow is fine, it’s not until 9 months you’d expect them to be eating any significant amounts - it’s more about introducing different flavours and textures as them learning to chew. Have you read the Gill Rapley book? She came up with the term baby led weaning so explains it all there.
Eat as a family, eat the same foods as them, keep offering, no pressure, exaggerate your chewing so they learn to do the same. It’s a new skill and they take time to learn it!

Do whatever suits you!

Nothing wrong with doing both methods. Don't be discouraged if it's slow process - they have to learn an entire new skill set and they don't know what you expect from them.

I think you should be making meals that he can also try and you all eat together. He will see you eating and copy. I’m of the purée era so did new veg everyday plus lots of finger food and quickly moved on to bland versions of what we had.

I think the one thing at a time refers to introducing new things one thing at a time.

We did BLW and gave toast fingers, fruit fingers (especially ripe almost overripe soft fruits or slightly stewed) and just placed a selection of a few bits on the high chair tray. We then introduced pasta (cooked soft) and meals that we were eating. Before we knew it they were eating.

My two are both fab eaters now. I would defo recommend.

No I haven’t read Gill Rapleys book. I don’t have instagram either. I bought a book called Littles and beyond but a lot of the recipes seem way too sophisticated for him at this stage but do look good for when he’s at the stage where we are all eating the same things together. My husband is obsessed with spicy and really rich foods unfortunately so a lot of what we eat will be unsuitable for him right now. Happy to start adapting and changing our cooking once he actually does stat eating though.

We just started BLW with our 6mo at the weekend and I think that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be! I find solid starts (as pp mentioned on insta) very useful and we are following their first 100 day plan, means I don’t have to think too hard about what I’m feeding him/allergen introduction and continued exposure. We just have a variation on whatever he’s having. He seems to be enjoying it and the dog definitely is!

I’ve also been doing 1 thing a day because at the moment it would be a waste of time and money to be putting an array of fruits and veg in front of him that he barely even touches. Money is tight at the moment so I tend to just buy exactly the amount of veg or meat we need each day

I would just take the baby’s portion out before adding salt or really hot spices - mild/medium spices are fine, mine had curries from 6 months. There’s not much I found you can’t adapt. Flavour is good!
Porridge is good for practicing using a spoon - load it for them and let them pick it up themselves.
I used the what mummy makes book too, all from 6 months too.