blw too good to be true?

[mum2twoloudbabies]

the books make it sound oh so wonderful and I find it all a bit too good to be true (like most of these parenting books) cynical me? noooo

I weaned dd with puree and finger food at 6mo it went well no real stresses and she certainly doesn't have a problem with food now. However, for ease I'm thinking of just blw with ds.

So come and tell me the pitfalls of BLW so that I can be prepared, did it not work for you? if it did work whats the hard bit?

Only down side here was mess -although that has got better
I did purees with my DS1 - and he then got into not eating lumps/generally fussy eater - with BLW with DS2 just so different - I was a lot more relaxed too - but it really helped not have spent time cooking and purreing -
sloppy food - he would have pre-loaded spoons until about 11 months - he is nearly 14 - he eat spag boll and mash and things like that with hands -
meal times - as we have an older one he eats with him - if happens just to be him he has tea at 5pm and I would have a little snack with him

In my experience amount of food eaten and sleep not really related

On another parent website I go on- there are load of FF babies being sucessfully BLW- and most BLW babies start eating quite alot by 10 months or so - it just takes the stress off a bit if you are BF but its not necessary at all

We stopped bf at 10 months and did BLW with our Dts and has been fab. They eat really well and will try anything.

It is messy though.

mess - not good with that either although that said I found it messy either way because with dd whatever I had in the bowl she had some on her tray anyway.

I didn't mean to imply it required bf past a year - it really doesn't :) I was just saying in the (unlikely) event you have a food-refuser that you can carry on bf even if HVs etc are telling you to stop, stopping doesn't seem to make much difference anyway. In the case of my friend who did purees but had a food-refuser, she became pregnant when her DS was eleven months and he self-weaned, also refusing any bottles or milk in a cup at all, but he's also 2.5 now and always has loads of energy. He's still a small eater but healthy with it. Her second Dc loves food so she's finally relaxed and realised it's nothing she had done.

The mess is the main disadvantage IMO.

Oats, quinoa flakes and millet flakes are good for thickening up sloppy foods - add at the last minute & cook briefly.

I think fussiness isn't to do with method of weaning - DS ate everything we gave him (except chilli) for the first 6 months and now (at 15 m.o.) usually won't eat potatoes, fish, or most veg.

Angeldog, our DCs were the same with sleep and food as well, it seems! Mine won't entertain the idea of potato in any form and I look back wistfully at the days she'd gobble up any veg in sight. Will only eat fish if it's dangerously full of bones (i.e. off my plate in restaurants).

I've never found the mess to be an BLW problem really. My purée weaned nieces always made an impressive mess if they grabbed and waved a spoon around! I do remember using up many outfits in a day, but that was when she still had loads of clothes given to her.

I always did/ do a floor clean up under the high tray in restaurants.

bertiebotts thanks for that leaflet - very interesting and useful.

The mess is a bore, fed up of cleaning after every meal!

DD doesn't seem to understand loaded spoons, so we're doing some spoonfeeding (only of things that are already sloppy ISYWIM, we're not pureeing anything).

Also, are you a good cook? My own diet is too full of processed crap to give to DD , so I've found it's really challenging my cooking abilities. I'm sure I'm the sort of mummy that baby food in jars was invented for!

Sorry I disappeared been on my hols.

FanjoFTMusic I'm a good cook and I need to be as ds is allergic to cow's milk and so we will need to very much be taking our food with us everywhere for a while, another reason why spoon feeding isn't such a big issue.

As for grabbing and feeding himself well he decided all by himself last week that he wanted to join in and was grabbing food off my plate and out of my hands so I guess he's ready to do it his way!

Have found weaning easy so far - at first she didn't eat much (we started at 5.5 months) but at 7.5 months she's doing really well, has 3 meals a day and 2 snacks, will eat just about anything put in front of her (except aubergine) at this stage. Has no problems with loaded spoons of yogurt, risotto etc but with soups I usually make a broth type soup with big chunks of meat and veg in which she can pick up, then I soak her bread in the broth or put some of the broth in her doidy cup for her to drink. Lentil soup is great - the lentils stick to the bread. She's getting really good at picking up and eating small things like sultanas, berries etc and also eating any type of fish and meat now too - any roast, stewed, curried or braised meat she manages fine now, even though she still has no teeth! Steak and chops are still a bit too tough for her to break down much at the moment, so it takes her ages to eat them but she does try! Mess doesn't bother me, but actually I don't find it that messy - not as bad as I'd feared anyway. The worst is porridge, but she eats that in her bodysuit/vest that she's worn overnight for sleeping, and afterwards that goes straight in the wash. Out and about is really easy, basically she can eat what i have, but I tend to not buy food out very often anyway. We always take bananas, other fruit and yogurt with us as well as water, doidy cup and bib so she (and I) can have a snack and a drink anywhere.

hi everyone!
I'm getting really frustrated with BLW at the moment. My little one is 8 months old and has excelled in BLW eating 3 meals a day, however sometimes he hardly wants to eat anything and I have no idea why?? It results in me not knowing when or how much milk to give him (He is bf) and i get stressed out because i think he is not getting enough food and i am rallt keen for him to cut down on his milk feeds.
Is anyone else having this problem?