Baby-led weaning! 1st foods to give? etc.

[foundintranslation]

I've decided to gradually start baby-led weaning in about a week or so, when ds'll be 6.5 months. Just wanted to check my plan and knowledge with you all:

• he'll start off with one 'meal' a day around lunchtime. (He is demand fed and averages every couple of hours still).
• we avoid meat, wheat and dairy until 12 months. (I'm asthmatic and dust-mite allergic).
• Is it OK for them to have finger food even if they've hardly got teeth? ds's 2 front bottom teeth have come through, but currently no signs of any more. How small should pieces be cut to avoid choking risk?
• I wanted to start off giving steamed veg such as carrot and courgette, maybe with a little olive oil. What other foods are suitable, and which are definitely unsuitable? Should water be given (sippy cup?), and how much, and should it have been boiled first?
• To sterilise or not to sterilise? He's already very active and 'crawls' around backwards on the floor, putting toys etc. into his mouth - so is there a point to sterilisation? Thank you

Don't sterilise, don't worry too much about quantities (they don't eat much to start with - maybe for a couple of months).

You can boil his water if you like, but no need. Put the cup on his tray (or the table if using a highchair with no tray, obv!) for him to play with - he might drink from it, he might throw it on the floor. No worries if he's still bfeeding on demand.

Don't worry too much about mealtimes - let him sit at the table with you when you eat. Olive oil may well make it too slippy for him - I found steamed carrot and broc were the best things - broc's good because it is easy to pick up and munch on. DS also used to love celery (doesn't now though!).

Cut the bits into chip-shaped batons so that he can pick them up in his fist and munch what's sticking out - it takes a little while for them to learn to use the pincer grasp to pick up with thumb and forefinger.

As for choking - I personally believe there's less risk if he's putting the food in his mouth himself. He may gag and retch - that's fine. Don't panic if he does - it will scare him. It's just because there's an unexpected new taste and texture in his mouth. IME, they don't move the food far back enough in their mouths until they're able to deal with swallowing it - DS had a few unexpected episodes of coughing, but no proper choking. They can do this on purees, especially ones with lumps in, as the food gets put in on a spoon and they have no control over how far into their mouth it goes.

It's not about getting straight onto a nourishing three aquare meals a day, baby-led weaning. It's more about them learning about mealtimes and that there are more tastes and textures than milk (and as you're bfeeding, he'll already have been exposed to lots of different nuances of taste through that).

As for avoiding different foods - we didn't, and I have eczema and hayfever. But it's up to you. DS didn't have meat till he was about 8mo, but he was having breadsticks and cheese earlier than that. He only had his two bottom teeth when he started eating food.

The main thing is not to stress about it - I thought DS was never going to eat much, but there are days now (he's 19mo) when I wonder if he'll stop!

Enjoy it!

HTH a bit - think I've covered most of what you asked!

My ds is 13 mths and still only has bottom 2 teeth. Was weaned at 4 1/2 mths and will quite happily eat most foods except meat, I still have to puree that for him.

HM's said most of what I'd say, except to add that the easy way to tell whether they're choking or just gagging is to listen and watch, quickly, to check they're breathing.

My ds is 7.5 mths, has no teeth but manages to bite off and chew chunks of banana, steamed carrot, pear, pasta, toast, etc.. If your ds isn't used to water it will probably take a while for him to drink any. When I first started weaning at each meal I gave ds water in a cup to hold, chew on spout and shake about. Took a bit of exposure to get used to the idea of it but now he drinks quite a bit. This method of weaning is really lovely, you see your lo learning every time you give him something to eat

I know what you mean, Tatties.

I like how it makes me feel all stone-age - doing what hunter gatherers probably did, sharing bits and pieces of my food.

Also, it makes travel, and eating out, about a million times easier.

thanks
the organic carrots for the first meal are bought!

oooh how exciting!

he may not eat very much at all for the first couple of months, just to warn you.

I wish I'd done it this way from the start - we abandoned spoons after the first 3 or 4 weeks as ds really hated being spoon-fed.

We avoided wheat, dairy and eggs until 12mo (following the timetable in this book and then it turned out cow's milk brings him out in a nasty rash - so I wonder if we might as well have found that out earlier (e.g. by putting it on his skin to test).

IME chewing anything except tough meat, tomato skins etc can be done with bony gums once they get the jaw-motion sorted. So well-stewed beef, roast chicken etc are all fine without teeth.

I have been trying this the last few days (thanks for the pointer HM). Was v impressed with DS sucking on a cooked carrot baton for ages and ages. He did eventually manage to break it in half in his mouth (my mum was hovering and panicking about him choking etc but had to say he looked like he was really enjoying it).

I found evidence of him having swallowed some too this morning .

Am trying bananas too - its a rather messy meal time that one but he likes it.

Thanks everyone and update!
We put it off another week, but today ds had his first few pieces of carrot - of course most ended up being fingered and disposed with onto the floor, but he sucked on a couple and actually ate a couple of tiny bits . We'll probably carry on with the carrot for a bit, then maybe introduce potato/courgette/sweet potato, then fruit - we've also bought rice cakes.

fit, rice cakes are great! ds (10mo) loves tomato as finger food (skinned, deseeded), sometimes with hard boiled egg - would that be ok with allergy avoiding approach? he's older than your ds but likes picking up & eating (or squishing!) things like peas & beans (baked, kidney etc). i never really planned for baby-led weaning, but ds just won't have anything to do with spoons (well, unless there's dessert on them, but that's a different story!). he eats quite a lot of pasta, cheese on toast etc, as well as steamed veg, esp broc. as far as size of veg, bigger is prob better ime, eg broc, as ds can then nibble bits off as he fancies. tofu/beancurd sliced up is quite good too.

until recently he hardly seemed to eat anything tho, which stressed me out loads, but he does seem to be getting better - just mention this so you don't worry if maybe he's not that interested for a while?? ds would still mostly rather boobs to anything else...
hth

Update!
ds is still having lunchtime carrot - still more playing than eating, but some is going in - he's had cooked apple twice this week too and really seems to like that. TMI ALERT: Is it normal to see the bits of food in his poo, often more or less the same size as they went in?
We've ordered butternut squash in our veg box for next week.

Yes, completely normal - puree stays the same too, if you think about it [blee]

ta hunker