BLW combined with traditional - doable?

[brideofelmo]

Just curious, I'm considering BLW, but for several reasons, I'd like to use it in combination with traditional weaning. Any downside? I'd like to hear from anybody who has tried this. Tips and advice are also welcome.

For many tens of thousands of years, women have been successfully weaning children without access to the interweb. A combination of spoon-fed purees and lumps of banana/bits of toast/ whatever your dc nicks off your plate will be perfectly Ok, I promise you.

Sorry if this sounds patronising, it really isn't meant, I do understand the pressure that women are under to "get it right". Do what feels right for you, it'll be right for your baby too. :)

I weaned DTs exactly like this - but I thought everyone did! I had never heard of BLW, so was feeding with spoons but it just felt natural to give them some food to try themselves too. It can really calm them I found, having some food or a spoon of their own.

Ignore the labels, just do what feels right.

Yes, we have done combined with dd2- works well for us as she has reflux so we wanted to take it pretty slow and test both out to see which (if either) upset her reflux further. No downsides that we can see :)

We did it here and I agree with previous posters, we just did what suited us (and it made me feel a bit better about the whole thing 'cos getting children to eat can be tough). Our DD is not a bad little eater these days

That's just 'normal' or traditional weaning isn't it, and that seems to have worked well enough for many families

BLW is better termed as exclusive self feeding (thanks Aitch!) so you can't really 'do a mix' (what with the point being you let baby do the plate-to-mouth bit unaided all of the time) - ideal for people like me

Do what's best for you.
At home our DD feeds herself and 3 days a week at Mums she is spoon feed and it works really well for us. Sometimes at home she looks at the food then at me with her mouth open waiting and at Mums she steals the spoon and try's to do it herself.

I think this is the way most babies are weaned.I fed DS purees and also gave him finger foods at every meal. He is now 1 and it's all going very well, when he is tired or teething he prefers to be spoon fed, other times he feeds himself. I would say that as long as you take your baby's lead it's ok. Oh, and I know that spoon fed babies are supposed to be over fed, well I'm pretty sure I've never overfed DS, he just refuses to open his mouth when he's had enugh and that's it. Some days he will eat like a trooper, some others hardly anything. Just go with your instinct and take your cues from your baby.

As others have already said, what you are proposing is simply traditional weaning. You are supposed to give purees with finger foods.

BLW means specifically self feeding only. It does not mean I will give LO some finger foods. If you use a spoon a BLW, you give the spoon to the baby for them to put into their mouths themselves.

Yes, I did a bit of both ie purees and finger foods.

It worked out fine.

DS now almost 3 eats everything in sight.

I did BLW to a T with DS but took the more relaxed mixed approach to DD. The only downside was I realised was that it is possible to overfeed a baby purée but hey they vomit up the excess anyway

There's a book I found helpful called Weaning Made Easy by Dr Rana Conway which is a guide for people wanting to mix between the two philosophies. It is nice and down to earth and has some tasty recipes. I've ended up using a spoon most of the time but have never blended, only mashed. DS likes to take the spoon himself but I load it for him. I also give him finger food. He seems to be enjoying his food whatever we do.

Yep, purees plus finger foods is traditional weaning and is probably the way 90% of babies are weaned.

You can't really "mix the philosophies" since the philosophy of BLW is that the baby feeds itself proper food. That doesn't really combine with spoon feeding mush.

No! You must never cross the streams or you will rip a hole in the space/time continuum.

Ahem I mean yeah do what works for you. They all get there in the end.

I've been doing the same as the others, finger foods and spoon feeding. I think it works really well - I make all my DD's food and she gets a huge variety of things this way, lots of different flavours and textures. I didn't puree for long and now her food is pretty lumpy (just coming up to 8 months) and can things like rice, small pasta shapes etc). She's really getting the hang of finger food now too and appears to be consuming most of it rather than just sucking it and spitting it out.

I actually had alot of criticism from my health visitor who really was pushing exclusive blw on me, but we're very happy doing things this way as it's right for us.

by the comment about overfeeding purees. All 3 babies have been very clear on when they've had enough - perhaps I'm just lucky. I considered blw but dtd2 likes everything to be done for her whereas her sister is a bit more independent. dtd1 likes to do finger food, dtd2 stares at it and looks at me like I'm mad then drops it.

We do BLW with stuff DS can pick up, and spoonfeed stuff he can't (yoghurt, soup, risotto). As time goes on (10 months now) he can handle stuff by himself that we used to have to put on a spoon. We started weaning at 6 months and never pureed (just cut stuff up small if there was a choking hazard).

We started at 5 months with mashed food - never needed to puree, and soft finger foods from the start.

If you exclusively follow someone like Annabel Karmel - you will puree everything for months and months. If you read the Gina Rapley book, you MUST wait till six months and you are damaging your baby if you give it puree or spoon feed it - both books are fairly black and white. So in that way yes, you can combine philosophies.

vj32 As an avid BLWer and someone who read the Gill Rapley book, I never, ever got the impression that you MUST wait until 6 months (it was a case of wait until baby shows the signs of readiness, which is at about 6mo), nor did it come across that you would damage your baby if you gave him or her puree or spoon feed it.

The Gill Rapley book does say you have to wait until 6 months regardless of readiness - she says that no babies are ready before then. That is one of the big things that I disagreed with. I also thought the book was patronizing - she insisted there is nothing but anecdotal evidence for traditional weaning and then started ever page with a anecdote, all of which say "Weaning little Jimmy by spoon feeding was such hard work. Now he has a younger sister I did BLW and it is so much better. I wish I had done it before."

We did the same thing as rrreow, seems to be going fine.

Read the Gill Rapley book too, but can't check how patronised I should've felt as I've lent it to someone else

I was maybe oversensitive as my son showed all the NHS signs of readiness at 5 months - but I could find no help on how to wean other than to puree, and kept being told I was imagining it as babies couldn't really be ready that young. I wasn't sure what he could eat because all the lists were either for smooth purees or for 'After 6 months...'

Its hard when you are a first time Mum and all the information tells you that you are wrong. You agonise and over-think things, especially as everyone has an opinion! In the end we went to mashed food and finger food straight away, because he didn't need purees.

I would say read all the books, and pick out the bits you like, ignore the bits you don't.

amen. big fan of BLW here but basically anything with a 'baby-led' head on has got to be good, imo. vj32, on my fb page www.facebook.com/babyledweaning i've been running a bit of a poll for the last couple of days as to when babies actually ate. vast majority are 'around six months' but there are significant numbers from four-ish months onwards and equally significant after the six months date. it's always seemed to me silly to dictate when a child is developmentally ready for something, i mean obv stick to fruit and veg prior to six mos so that if it comes up with a GP or someone you can say yes, but if the baby is doing it the baby is doing it.