Big vote for BLW

[lucamom]

My DD has been BLW'ing/ed(?) since the day before her 6th month b/day (10 days ago) and I just wanted to add a thumbs up for BLW. I did the Annabel Karmel thing with my 2 boys (now 5 and 3), which was great at the time and in fairness I loved weaning them and generally (moods permitting!) they are good eaters.

However, I read the BLW book and it made such sense I decided to do this with my daughter. For the last ten days she's sat with us and had a variety of foods placed on the highchair tray in large chunks to help herself to, nothing cooked separately for her (we're in the habit of adding salt at the table anyway since cooking for the eldest kids). Yesterday she was chewing (I use the word 'chewing' loosely, as she has no teeth) on a chunk of roast lamb/potatoes/brocolli etc and it was a joy to watch!

If you're thinking of trying it I'd urge you to give it a go. Essentially you're just missing out the puree stage so it's nothing to be fearful of (and the mess is actually less than with puree'd food, as the 'splatter' factor is greatly reduced. I just throw a beach towel or old tablecloth on the floor & scoop up after)

Give it a go, it'll make your life easier (no more pots in the freezer for me!)

Cuppa mine is the opposite - everything goes in his mouth, except food. The baby wipe after food? Yum yum.

Wierd child!

The beef thing is true actually. Meat as a first food is recommended is gabrielle palmers most recent book about complimentary feeding. It has good bioavailabilty of iron. Sake author as politic of Breastfeeding. She also covers how bloody bad for babies baby rice and wheat products are.
I'm a big blw fan as it worked well with dd and I can't bear purée. But.....what I think is more important is giving food and not processed baby crap. I couldn't be arsed with anabel karmel but her recipes are really healthy and introduce really sophisticated foods early on which IMO gives the same result as blw but with more prep.
Only thing I would do differently with subsequent dc is not give risks. Exp was obsessed with them and dd had them. Now i know better I feel v guilty that she had wheat so early :-(

Meanwhile those t shirts are made by Lactivist. They are not my taste either but I prefer them to twee mummy's little princess garbage

I absolutely don't understand the extreme reactions to this sort of thing (on both sides of the argument). What's the difference between BLW (hideous term I agree) and giving finger foods? There isn't one!

I purée weaned DS and have gone down the BLW route with DD. The bottom line is that BLWing is easier! It was less faff, easier to clean up, and far easier to plan for. And ultimately I'd rather have a chunk of steak than puréed chicken (bleurgh).

Personally I think it's all about attitude. I gave DS purees, mashes, finger foods, and milk... and worried incessantly about how much he was eating. Dinnertime was a combative experience! I gave DD finger foods, whatever the rest of us were eating, and milk... and went into it knowing that this was all practice eating and that she was getting much of what she needed from milk. Now at 15 months she's completely weaned and my stress levels are much lower.

But these choices aren't right or wrong, your DC aren't going to be good or bad eaters because of this. They're all different and we should all do what makes sense in our family contexts. And what's clear to me is the difference in experiences between my two DC was about ME and my attitude rather than them.

WhippingGirl If a baby was getting any meaningful nutrition from their first foods meat is a better complimentary food than fruit or vegetables (babies need few carbs and lots of fat and protein) but it's irrelevant really since first foods are poorly digested and they eat such small amounts of them that it doesn't matter. My comment was purely against the suggestion that "pureed beef" is the best way to get a particular nutrient in.

crazyday I wasn't mocking you, the doctor advice was simply wrong, not dangerous or anything just not "the best" - more likely it was simply taken out of context. Babies can also eat minced beef just as early as puree'd beef so puree'ing doesn't make it better, just different.

I don't mock anyone for how they feed their child as long as it's safe, just feed your baby, however you want, personally I would never spoonfeed as I'm too lazy.

Cuppa do what's best for your baby. You as a mother knows your LOs best. Mine is a mouther and puts everything in her mouth, since as young as 3mo. (She still does it now at 13mo). There isn't a chance she wouldn't put the food on her high chair tray and chew it. (She chewed and tore bits of paper before we started weaning). If your DS didn't like putting things in his mouth, obviously you need to feed him.

My objection is mainly to crazy's assertion that 1) best way to get iron is pureed beef, and 2) 50% incorporated purees at 9mo coz they don't eat enough.

Firstly, it's only a good way if your baby will eat pureed food. Mine never would. She wouldn't even touch the butternut squash mush that all the other mums in my group swears by. I've tried baby rice, carrots, sweet potatoes, butternut squashes, apples, pears and bananas in the two weeks I started weaning. It's not as if I didn't try. She wouldn't open her mouth at all. All she did was intercepted the spoon and flicked the food as projectile.

Secondly, the 50% is pure random statistics that isn't based on any concrete facts at all. From the mums in my group, most did Annabel Karmel. Another has a spoon refuser just like mine, and she did BLW with him. He didn't get food until 10mo. (Mine was stuffing her face already at 7mo, as long as the food is large and soft). Another who started with Annabel Karmel stopped at around 8-9mo because her baby turned into a spoon refuser. Is my group less representative as yours?

And like FredGeorge I gave my DD minced beef. She's very good at swallowing little beef burgers I made her.

Limelight you asked "What's the difference between BLW (hideous term I agree) and giving finger foods? There isn't one!"

BLW is most commonly defined as exclusive self feeding. I think the main difference is, some baby will reject purees outright. Especially if you get to the age of 6mo when they start to be a bit independent. Traditional wisdom is you persist with the purees/baby rice until they 'get it'. You will not give finger food until they are comfortable with lumpy purees. (All the mums in my group followed Annabel Karmel, and she didn't do finger foods until stage 3 in her book).

I didn't know BLW when I started. I wanted to do Annabel Karmel. I bought weaning spoons, made little ice cubes etc. I only knew about the alternative when I took DD for a weigh in at the HV. I told her about how I couldn't get her to eat anything out of the spoon. She told me to try finger food versions of the same thing I was pureeing and see how that goes. My DD loved it. She has such a happy face picking up and touching the food, and putting them in her mouth. I can immediately see the result from the nappy that she's actually eating too. Without the knowledge that there's actually an alternative to spooning purees, I'd think my DD didn't get food at 6mo.

I like how everyone is saying 'oh BLW is just a term' I don't call it that in real life to people. Yet you all keep refering to the alternative as 'puree' feeding. My DS has a mix of mashes, soups, finger foods, eetc ettc. i've never blended anything so it's a puree, what a stupid thing to call traditional weaning.

what did people do before blenders? Erm use their mouths maybe? What an utterly ridiculous question!!!

me and DS co-sleep, I breastfeed him and carry him in a sling. don't know why BLW is always chucked together with those natural things when i don't see it as natural.

I LOVE cooking for DS and letting him experience new things and giving him sticks of veg to throw about the kitchen and choke on is not the way to do it IMO. Agree that 'BLW' is a fad!

bought the book and planning to BLW with DD2 as DD1 was started on purees etc and she's the fussiest eater i've come across now

and if anyone hasn't started yet, here's the book (by Jill Rapley)

I hate those lactivist teeshirts - I wouldn't be proud that my baby wasn't vaccinated.

that book says that BLW isn't a new thing (therefore it's not a fad) it's just that people didn't use to talk about it. (or call it that)

there's no reason why a BLWd baby can't have spoons of purees etc, but they're supposed to feed themselves. ie: you give them the spoon and let them at it.

booomchikkawowow, you asked "what did people do before blenders? Erm use their mouths maybe? What an utterly ridiculous question!!!"

We are chinese and we don't use blenders in normal home cooking. My mum therefore didn't (and still doesn't) have a blender. I asked her what she did to wean us. She started us off with rice porridge. (That's congee if you are up with chinese food). For anything else, she simply cut the food up very small, then spoon feed us. She certainly didn't use her mouth and spit out food for us to eat.

So yes, according to my mum who has weaned two of us in the 70s, we went from slightly lumpy rice porridge, to very lumpy mush. There isn't a stage of very smooth purees like the ones you get in commercial jars, or out from a blender.

Actually 'very lumpy mush' is the wrong term if she's cutting the stuff up very small. It'd be more like spoon feeding chilli con carne or dhal.

I have a jar of apple and pear smoosh in the fridge (think it's Hipp) just to try and while DD does eat it off the spoon, she prefers to take the spoon off me and suck the stuff off the spoon herself. It's a very odd product as there's just nothing to it....as soon as it goes in her mouth it's gone. All she gets is the flavour...no texture, nothing. And the two spoonfulls of that she gets may well be the equivalent in intake as half a yorkshire, a brocoli floret and a bit of roast chicken, all of which were sucked avidly by her at lunchtime. At least she had more fun though.

And my mum isn't a lentil weaver. My brother and I were both ff from day 1 according to the best tradition of the 70s.

This thread is the perfect example of the fact that there is no one 'right way' of weaning (or anything to do with parenting for that matter!).

Some people say that BLW was right for their baby because they wouldnt eat puree etc, some people say that puree feeding was better because their child wouldnt eat anything at all with BLW and were only being sustained with breastmilk. It all just goes to show that the babies have not read either Gill Rapley or Annabel Karmel and they are just going to do what they want!

Personally for us, I wanted to do BLW before DS was weaned because I had read about it and liked the sound of not having to puree stuff. It worked brilliantly for him, and in the early days I would sit in awe watching him put stuff in his mouth and chew away on it (these days at 8 months old I just take his utter brilliance at eating for granted !)

I am the only person in my NCT group who has done BLW as for various reasons (mess, worried about choking, weaning earlier) none of the others wanted to do it. Fine, why would I give a crap about how they feed their kids, and why would they care about mine?

It is the most important lesson I have learnt as a parent so far - dont worry about what everyone else is doing with their children, you get on with doing what is right for yours!

I recall my mum saying she used to feed us with purees done in the kenwood chef (i was also a 70s FF baby). I might have to grill her further to see what her exact methods were.

I think BLW will be a lot easier for me here at the shop, as I'll be able to stick DD in a chair with a tray of stuff and leave her to it (watching her out of the corner of my eye)
I definitely do not want loads of baby puree flying across the shop and all over the books.

my DD might read the books and decide which she likes best Yah-boo to the reporter who thinks she's not a genius who was reading at birth

nickelhasababy I think a 70s british kitchen would have a kitchenaid or kenwood chef. Or a blender. My MIL has a chef. Maybe you'll need to ask someone from your grandma generation to know what they do pre-blender days.

A chinese kitchen is very different. You still won't commonly found ovens, food processors, or blenders. It's a whole different set of gadgets. We had a very fancy japanese fridge growing up, with 5 doors, including a compartment for meat. We had kettle that supply continuous hot water (for tea), like the ones in an office kitchen. We had multiple slow cookers for stews and soups. We had fuzzy logic rice cookers. And a microwave seems to be the universal norm!