BLW fear!

[ccj2011]

Hi there

Sorry if this has come up before...

I have been BLW my DS2 for the last few weeks. He seems to really enjoy it and explores everything I give him and makes a real mess! However, I am having 'the fear' about giving him meat!

I gave him some chicken and sausage the other day. He seems to love it but I keep going into panic mode! I am so scared he is going to choke on it I practically wrench it out of his mouth as soon as it goes in. He managed to swallow some sausage when I was trying to be brave and he loved it despite a bit of gagging. How can I get over this? Not going to be much good if I can only give him rice cakes/bread sticks and veg... Anyone else found a way to rationalize this in their mind? Somehow, purees seems safer...

A quick aside, how do you serve up apple? Do you soften it first or just give it as is...? I guess this is related to the above fears too :-)

Thanks so much.

We gave DS a strip of steak two weeks into BLW. It was his first meat. He sucked and sucked until it was a little rag. He lived it! Make sure the piece if meat is big enough for him to grab and suck -you're not expecting him to bite chunks out. There is no reason why he is more likely to choke on a strip of meat than on a spoon of puree. Have you read Gill Rapley's book? She explains it all in there. Regarding apple I soften it for a few minutes with a tiny splash or water, so the pieces are still whole but soft enough to collapse once in the mouth.

Good luck!

Of course that should be 'loved it' not 'lived it'!

Thanks. I have read the book and love and understand it all in principle but my fearful mum side kicks in and I get jittery. Thanks for your reassurance.

We're doing BLW too, but I feel the same as you about meat. We've decided to start with not to give chunks of solid meat until she's a bit bigger - she has had bolognese sauce, blended meat stew etc. off a spoon with no probs. We hold the preloaded spoon up, if she wants it she grabs it and feeds it to herself, so she's still in control, and this keeps us all happy. I'm sure plenty will disagree but this is just how we're choosing to do it while dd's very little. She has everything else as finger food including fish (as chunks and in fishcakes etc - just check v carefully for bones), which breaks down in the mouth a lot easier. We soften apples a bit too.