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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

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Original poster

Anyone do a bit of BLW and a bit of spoon feeding?

53 replies

redandyellowandpinkandgreen · 28/04/2011 10:39

Ahh the things I thought I wouldn't do. DS is 23 weeks and I think ready for weaning now but he hasn't had anything yet, he is EBF. He sleeps pretty badly and was awake loads last night so I am on my knees a bit. In my old, more judgey days, I thought it was wrong to fill a baby with food to make them sleep, now I just want some sleep!

So, I was planning on BLW but it will take a while before he has any substantial food and I think he is hungry from the night waking. Do you think it would work to spoon feed him one meal before bed and keep the rest to finger food, just until he has the hang of eating more?

Thanks

OP posts:

Flisspaps · 28/04/2011 10:41

If that's what you're happy to do, then do it :)

Some don't spoon feed at all, some spoon feed just runny stuff, some do a 50/50 mix and others spoon feed only, and NONE of it is the wrong thing to do. It's just about what you want to do.

Beware though, weaning won't necessarily make DS sleep any better at all (otherwise there'd be no-one moaning about lack of sleep after 6mo!) [cwink]

Paschaelina · 28/04/2011 11:25

We spoonfeed if Boy can't get it to his mouth (a lot of the time). If I left Boy to BLW he would just live on milk. Its not wrong, just a method of transferring food.

Meglet · 28/04/2011 11:30

Yes. I did it both times. I used to give them either finger food or spoon feed for their 'main' meal then do the opposite for pudding. That way I knew the spoon fed food had got into them and I could leave them to it with the finger food.

The dc's are champion eaters and can use knives and forks properly these days (4.5 and 2.6). One part of parenting I haven't ballsed up.

Pancakeflipper · 28/04/2011 11:35

Do as you wish, you can see your child and how they interact with food and how they are progressing with it. You might have weeks where you focus on finger foods, weeks where it's more spoon type foods.

We did finger foods and mushed up foods with spoons. It was a mix. Because that's what life is like - I use a spoon, knife, fork for some foods, I use my fingers for others. I think people over-complicate it and I am not sure why...

RitaMorgan · 28/04/2011 13:40

A mix of spoonfeeding and self-feeding is what most people do.

mamsnet · 28/04/2011 13:46

I agree that a mix is what most people do.. And have done since long before it was called BLW..

RitaMorgan · 28/04/2011 14:00

Well a mix isn't really BLW

mamsnet · 28/04/2011 14:41

What i mean is that people have always given their children pieces of fruit, bread or whatever (whilst mainly spoon-feeding them) long before this offering of pieces was known as BLW.

AitchTwoOh · 28/04/2011 14:43

blw isn't a mix, though, mamsnet. so you're barking up the wrong tree there, i''m afraid.

ChippingInLovesEasterEggs · 28/04/2011 14:52

There are two issues here though aren't there - one being how you plan to wean your DS and the other one being you need more sleep!

1 - Getting food into him. It really doesn't matter how you do it. Neither way is bad (puree & BLW), both have advantages and disadvantages. Frankly, I don't see the need to choose a 'method' - and just feed the baby what suits at the time - but am very laid back as to whether they want it or not.

- Eating solids doesn't mean he's going to sleep more. Breast or formula milk is full of calories - it's the most calorie dense thing they can eat. Are you giving him a dream feed?

RitaMorgan · 28/04/2011 14:55

BLW isn't "offering bits of finger food" though - it isn't just spoon-feeding plus finger foods given a new name.

Original poster

redandyellowandpinkandgreen · 28/04/2011 18:46

I just feel a bit too lazy to puree but I guess I don't need to bother with that now anyway. I think we will mix, I like the idea of BLW but would also like to get some actual food in him and perhaps spoon feed the messier stuff.

I do sort of dream feed. He goes to bed at 7pm and so when I go to bed about 10.30pm it normally disturbs him and he isn't wide awake but it moving about so I do feed him then. He will then wake about 2am and last night it was also at 3am and at 4am I gave up and brought him in to bed with us and it was a big blur of feeding and napping. Ugh.

OP posts:

AitchTwoOh · 28/04/2011 18:54

wait and see how it goes... you have no idea whether he will love food or take a while to love it. both of mine were raring to go and just never needed anything spooned (soft stuff i gave them on loaded spoons) . if anything, however, their sleep was disrupted by food, so i wouldn't be too confident of the food=sleep thing.

mamsnet · 29/04/2011 14:49

I only meant that there has always been an element of finger foods.. That those who now use this as the sole way of feeding a child have not really invented anything new.
A bit defensive, some of you, eh?

RitaMorgan · 29/04/2011 14:56

I didn't do BLW really so have nothing to be defensive about I don't think it's necessarily a new thing, just not the same as offering a bit of finger food.

AitchTwoOh · 29/04/2011 14:57

no, honestly, you're just incorrect. of course there has always been an element of finger foods in weaning (until annabel karmel came along and postponed it), what is different about blw is that in the context of starting at six months, you can skip puree altogether. the six months thing is key, tbh, if you are weaning a baby at four months they won't be eating finger food, for the most part.

a 'mix' of blw and spooning puree is an oxymoron, tbh. that's not to say that people should blindly stick to some book or method, it's just that a 'mix' IS just ordinary weaning at six months. which is fine, for loads of people. but blw is about leaving babies to their own devices, and not interfering because you perceive, rightly or wrongly, that it will result in their sleeping better etc.

Paschaelina · 29/04/2011 15:25

I did just that after getting a bit too fed up of non-responsiveness with the spoon in the weetabix. Yoghurt, weetabix and banana mashed up into a thick sticky mess, dumped onto tray, baby ignored while I blitzed the kitchen.

Most of it disappeared, some of it may have even made it into his mouth.

The thing about weaning is that you can't force them to eat anything, if they want it they will eat it and if not, it gets thrown off.

PenguinArmy · 01/05/2011 01:04

DD had some food before 6 months but it wasn't purees. Soft fruits etc. so still BLW.

nailak · 01/05/2011 01:08

#most people do a mix, me included, mostly blw coz im lazy but if ds wants to eat from my plate and im eatin soup or somethin then i will obviously feed him....

ChippingInLovesEasterEggs · 01/05/2011 01:36

Aitch that is such an antagonising thing to say

a 'mix' IS just ordinary weaning at six months. which is fine, for loads of people. but blw is about leaving babies to their own devices, and not interfering because you perceive, rightly or wrongly, that it will result in their sleeping better etc

implying that people who in anyway spoon feed a child are 'interfering' and are only doing it to get a baby to sleep better.

BLW is no more or less interfering than spoon feeding or mix feeding. A baby will eat it if it wants to and not if it doesn't. A baby who is BLW has no more say over what it is given to eat than one who isn't.

AitchTwoOh · 01/05/2011 01:49

i made no such connection, chippingin, you are reading things that i haven't written tbh.

harverina · 01/05/2011 22:19

Hi redandyello,

Wont get into the BLW debate...

We waited until just under 6 months to wean my DD. We had decided to do BLW but soon after I decided it wasnt for me. I knew that my DD did not need huge quantities of food but I just felt better knowing that she was getting something. My DH and I did not want to go down the puree/mash route either so we chose to offer a combination of spoon fed mashed foods and finger foods from day one and tried to make sure that my DD had options of finger foods on her tray at every meal time - really, I think that I was selecting elements of the BLW approach which appealed to us...i.e. we wanted our DD to be able to taste individual foods and not for them all to be pureed together, we wanted our DD to be comfortable with chewing different textures from day 1 etc.

Agree with Aitch that introducing solids won't necessarily improve sleep - we found that my DD's sleeping habits got a bit worse for a while after we started weaning :( but TBH, every baby is different, so yours might be fine.

So, to answer your question, yes it is absolutely fine to mix spoon feeding with finger food. It has worked well for us.

BTW, at 6 months you shouldnt really need to puree foods anyway, mashing should be enough if you do want to spoon feed.

Bagpusstree · 02/05/2011 21:57

We're doing a mix. I like the idea of BLW but also felt for my own peace of mind that I would give her some puree too, so that I knew she was 'getting' something. So she has puree, and then some finger foods to play with. Or, for one meal I will give her finger foods and then a yoghurt or something.

Aitch is right though, with the clue being in the title... Baby Led Weaning. The baby leads, and eats at his/her own pace. Not like when they are spooned food, that is parent led.

AitchTwoOh · 02/05/2011 22:05

although i didn't say that, tbh, because i don't personally believe that parents spooning food in the direction of their children's mouths is a bad thing, esp if they are open to cues of 'no thanks, i'm full' and don't push beyond that. i mean, it's all parent-led in the sense that we are all putting the food on the table, in whatever form, and it's all baby-led if we are open to them saying 'no', isn't it? (although with blw one tends to put thought of 'have they had enough?' etc out of the window).

i don't like the name baby-led, tbh. i prefer 'self-feeding', as that's more what they do. i suppose even technically 'exclusive self-feeding' ie without any interference from the parent at all might be more accurate... and if it were called 'exclusive self-feeding' then it clarifies why when people say 'i'm doing a mix of exclusive self-feeding and puree' that it doesn't make sense.

RitaMorgan · 02/05/2011 22:19

Exclusive self-feeding vs. a mix of self-feeding and spoon-feeding makes much more sense.

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