Sorry Gill didn't notice you'd asked about BLW. Basically instead of spoonfeeding babies pureed food, you give them pieces of solid food as big as their fist in easy to hold or chip shapes, and then they pretty much just feed themselves! Apparently at first they just sniff the food or wave it about and strangle it, but eventually they try putting it in their mouths. Not much gets eaten at first in most cases but then they start to swallow little bits and learn quickly from then onwards.
Obviously milk is still their main source of nutrition or the first year. Solids are introduced slowly and left up to the baby to decide what they want and how much, so it's like demand feeding but with food, really.
Most people who do this start their babies off on lightly steamed or raw veg like broccoli (natural handle) sweet potato or carrot, and then move on to fruit, bread, ricecakes, pasta, lumps of cheese, and eventually eggs, meat, fish, tomatoes etc. What's really interesting about blw is that they say you shouldn't give babies small foods like raisins/grapes/peas etc to eat until they can pick them up between finger and thumb because this development of the pincer grip coincides with them being able to handle small things like that in their mouths without choking.
I think it sounds like a good approach because it gives babies their independence (no grabbing the spoon) so they're in control of what they eat and how much. Less chance of overfeeding them so less chance of them getting overweight. Plus as you're giving them single foods if there's a taste they don't like it's easy to identify rather than giving them a mashed up mulch of veg and wondering why it was rejected. Plus they can learn about flavours and smells and colours and textures, rather than just having the food shovelled in, smooth and "anonymous" iyswim.
Plus they learn about eating with the family, improve their manual dexterity, and best of all: you can just feed them from your plate, so you can still eat out in cafes etc without taking pots of special food or worrying that baby will get bored. Just pass them some bread and butter or some cucumber etc and let them happily feed themselves while you eat.
You need to wait until the baby can sit up unaided (usually at 6 months old) so that any food they take in can come back out if they gag. If they are in a reclining chair the food wouldn't come back out as easily so it would be more dangerous. Apparently they gag a bit at first as they get used to putting solid lumps in their mouths but it's not the same as choking- they're just learning how far they can put something into their mouth. And their gag reflex gets further and further back as time goes on until it's where ours is and they're fine.
Apparently it's really messy but the babies love it. There's a lady called Aitch on MN who has a website all about it called babyledweaning.com There's some brilliant pictures on there of babies tucking into all sorts of food and drinking from real glasses/using spoons/forks at absurdly young ages.
Hope this long ramble helps, Gill.
I'm off to bathe my big fat eyes.