Combining purees and BLW - anyone been there, done that?

[CaringForPod]

As the title suggests, I'm thinking of chucking in a bit of BLW in addition to the spoon-feeding of purees I'm planning to do. Has anyone on here mixed and matched? Or if you want to do BLW, is it best to go the whole hog and do it exclusively? I'm not keen on just doing BLW, but thought I might give it a shot for some meals. Would be great to hear from others who've done similar.

I mix and match - for brekkie DD has Readybrek and toast so she gets some spoon fed and some to do herself. She also has finger fruit for snacks to practice! Some people will say that you can't BLW and spoon feed as 'real' BLW is self feeding all the time with no purees at all but I think most people end up mixing purees and finger food somewhere along the line.

I'm doing both at the mo with DD - it's easier than I thought it would be. I just offer finger food with every meal and initially spoon fed but now give loaded spoons of purée (or let her suck out of a pouch - i am that shamefully lazy not to make my own ) and she's slowly upping her intake on finger foods and i've almost stopped offering purée.

I did blw with DS with no purees at all (he refused to let me put a spoon anywhere near his mouth from day 1) and I'm finding this mixed approach a bit easier with DD. I don't have to think of inventive ways to get yogurt into her! On the downside, despite the hv promising me babies will always let you know when they've had enough purée, DD really didn't know when to stop when I fed her and it was very easy to over feed her (cue very unhappy baby later) which I never really had with DS.

I think this is what we used to do before the term BLW was invented!

I'd do a puree of some sort (nothing complex, maybe stewed apple or a squished avocado, just fork mashed texture really) and shovel a bit in every now and then in between the stuff they could manage themselves.

Ds2 was weaned late (really late, probably EBM for about 10 months) and he went straight on to finger food, but ds1 and dd2 had a bit of a mix.

They're all fine now, and are good eaters who love fruit and veg!

I mixed purees and finger foods from 6 months until about 9 months when DD started to refuse a spoon and would only finger feed. Now she is 13 months she is using a spoon again but feeding herself with it.

One of the most important things I took from the BLW is to let my DD decide how much to eat so if she only wanted to eat a few mouthfuls then that's all she had. This meant that on some days she hardly ate anything but it all balanced out in the end and now she will try anything and usually eats 3 meals a day without a fuss.

Thanks for all the replies - haven't had a chance to log back on until now. It's great to hear that you've all had positive experiences of combining the two methods. I'm currently reading a book on BLW and it's so righteous, makes me feel awful for wanting to do some spoonfeeding. So you lot have all made me feel better! I never thought the decisions I would have to make as a mother would wrack me with so much guilt.

I think most people combine spoonfeeding and finger foods - that's just traditional weaning! Not really the same as BLW as that is exclusive self-feeding rather than just giving finger foods sometimes.

You should wean in whatever way is right for you and your baby though, there is no reason to feel guilty for choosing not to BLW. I found the BLW book really useful and took loads of ideas from it, although I ended up spoonfeeding ds sometimes rather than just letting him feed himself.

Mixing finger food and purees is just normal weaning. As practised for centuries, I should think. Go for it.

There is no one textbook RIGHT answer to any parenting question -by all means take some ideas / advice from various sources, but you'll just tie yourself in knots looking for definitive solutions. You're aiming for a good process/outcome, not the one correct process/outcome.

i started blw with ds2 then moved onto spoon feeding. a friend did it the other way round. i've started my 3rd baby on purees and he gets a chunk of finger food with most meals so we're kindof doing both ways at the moment. depends how organised i am and what's available!

Although I am a firm fan of BLW, I do mix in tiny bit of spoon feeding here and there, particularly at breakfast. Mainly because I am lacking in inspiration for easy self feeding foods for this meal. I know toast is the obvious one, but as I don't like her to have too much bread I try to save this for lunch time.

We've not done purees as such, but I have spoon fed her foods such as yoghurts and porridge etc where it seemed natural to feed with a spoon.

At 9.5mo DD is a great self feeder and can give all foods a pretty good run for their money.

This has it's downsides... My DSIL gave her a Mr Kipling Cake Slice to munch on this weekend and she had downed most of it whilst I was still grimacing politely. I was secretly fuming!