Can I start BLW? General advice please!

[gemmeg]

Hello all,

My DS is 6 months old and I started weaning him onto solids about a month ago as he seemed dissatisfied after feeds...I began with various fruit and veg purees which went down a treat. I live in Austria and here the guidelines state that we should give our babies a puree of seasonal veg + potato + meat (and a little bit of oil) at midday- this hasn't gone down so well and meal times are becoming less fun which I find sad. Anyway, I ended up winding myself up into a tizz, convinced my baby isn't getting what he needs and worrying about not following the rules - I know, bonkers! I have thus decided to throw away my rule book and have a bash at the baby led way. I'd still like to feed him porridge with fruit which I started giving him a couple of days ago as he seems to really enjoy this. Is it possible to mix the two methods of weaning? Will it be difficult for me to start BLW now that he is used to eating purees? He has hated lumps of any kind in his puree until now....will he take to BLW?

Any tips or advice will be very welcome!!

He's six months it's fine whether he eats solids or not.

I did @ can I start BLW. No you can't. He can.

Don't get hung up. Just muddle through, see what he likes doing, one of mine liked being fed, the other one was so stubborn she would only feed herself.

Food is not important yet, just see what works, please try not to worry about it :)

Solid food is completely unimportant at 6 months, it's all about learning to eat, so how to swallow, how to chew, how not to swallow something that won't go down. etc. And getting the gut mature - basically introducing all the bacteria that need to live in it, and generally preparing it for solids. Actual calories from the solid food is really just a bonus, milk would be fine.

There is no correct way, just relax and try giving him food - if that's pureed stuff on a spoon that's good, if it's handing him a pile of stuff on a tray for him to figure out then that's good too. I actually think whatever you can relax with most, get least stressed, and just proceed as a natural thing will work best. For me, a BLW approach works best - 'cos I'm lazy, and would rather get on with eating my own food, working, talking to DP or anything rather than pureeing food or spoon feeding a baby.

As you say fun, or at least completely not stressful for anyone, is likely to be most successful. Babies are extremely adaptable so he may well take to it, the fact you've tried something else isn't going to make a difference.

Try it!

You can change to baby led weaning at anytime. You can mix the two methods, but it's not fully "baby-led" that way. However, we did a combination of finger foods and us offering shovelling food in with a spoon, since my son is teeny (due to medical issues) and it's worked well for us. I would say tho if you can go "truly" baby led, it might be better because then you can just let go, and let the baby eat as little or as much as they need to and not worry about it. With true BLW you pretty much offer them food when you're eating, but if they don't want it - no biggie, because they get all the nutrients they need from their milk at that age.

with regards to the lumps in the puree question. My son HATED lumps, so the HV suggested we try more finger foods and he LOVED them, and tolerated lumpy purees etc after that too

Hope it all goes well for you - I found weaning stressful, but it really does get easier so hang in there and try to relax (which I know is easier said than done!!)

Thank you all so much for your help! I am honestly the biggest stress head! I seem to get hung up on every aspect of raising my son then whittle on about it for days (I'm even aware that I'm doing it. My poor husband has to hear it all) then a week or two later I wonder what I was worrying about! I'm going to chill out, offer him some tasty morsels for lunch & see what happens. The very first day he tried solids it was because he was sitting on my mum's lap while she was eating a satsuma & was trying to shove it in his mouth but I was so convinced I was going to wean "properly" that I went all military about purees. You've put my mind at ease so thanks again :-)