Self-weaning?

[3cherubs]

I was intriuged when a friend told me she had just attened a talk on "self-weaning." Apparently, the idea is that you wait until baby is 6 months old then start introducing proper (i.e. not pureed) food to them and allow them to play with it, taste it etc... As time goes by they eat more and more of it. Therefore no pureeing, spoon feeding, jars etc they go straight onto "grown up" food.

I am not sure what to make of this as all 3 of my kids did the standard spoon feeding thing. Has anyone actually done this and how did it work?

Yes, could be. He has no problem with rusks but that is probably cos they dissolve in the mouth and he can just suck them back.

The theory is, if they have purees on spoons, they suck it to the back of their throats. Which works fine with purees, but with lumps, causes choking.

If they put the food in their mouths themselves, they know it's lumpy, they move it around themselves, and it should stay under control. Obviously there are no guarantees.

It's worth noting, they often gag, rather than choke, which you can generally ignore. Well, not ignore, but fail to intervene in. If they're gagging, rather than choking, they're still breathing.

If it's choking, you need to proceed cautiously, give him things that are harder to choke on. Somewhat mashed banana, maybe?

If it's gagging, you can just carry on, let him have food when he wants, and he'll stop gagging.

Ds stuffs as much in as he can. Then he thinks "hmm, this is uncomfortable. What shall I do? I know, I'll stuff a bit more in - that'll help". Or something like that. The hamster impression.

NQC is right though - I often think he is choking but actually he is realising the food is right at the back of his mouth and he is kind of coughing it forward again. I have to keep telling dd to be quiet a moment so I can listen and make sure ds is breathing! I've only had to fish him out of his highchair and whack him on the back once. The other thing he does is get food stuck to the roof of his mouth. He was making uncomfortable noises and it looked as though his mouth was empty - but I put my finger in his mouth and he had a whole slice of pepper mushed up and stuck up behind his gum. Ick. If he'd only start swallowing the stuff he wouldn't have this problem!

3cherubs, I have bumped the other thread on baby-led weaning for you, it has some good links courtesy of the lovely Psychobabble

My ds is doing well sucking on rice cakes and taking big bites of banana, pear and pasta. Likes throwing toast on the floor and looks at brocolli very suspiciously, shuddering before it even reaches his mouth! I have not been confident enough to go 100% finger foods (can't quite cope with the idea of letting him feed himself the really messy stuff but I'm sure I will get there eventually), but ds seems a bit more happy to be spoon fed for 1 meal a day if he has finger foods as well.

Have to say, it is so much more satisfying to see ds get better and better at feeding himself than me feeding him purees all the time.

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