BLW Beginner! Top tips please!

[Somersaults]

DD is 6mo and we're heading down the BLW route , hopefully in a nice, relaxed manner!

Any top tips/advice/ideas greatly appreciated.

What can I give her that's healthy but piss easy to prepare?! Also any advice about when to introduce the dreaded wheat/dairy/eggs etc. we have no known food allergies in the family so do I really need to be so careful? Or can I just charge full steam ahead and five her anything? What about strawberries and tomatoes too? When should I start giving her meat and fish?

Sorry for so many questions! I've read a fair bit online and short snippets in books but nothing I've read answers all my questions. I walked down to the library last week and they had not one book about BLW. All the weaning books that referred to it (and most didn't!) suggested it was a new crazy fad and then said nothing more about it!

So to the combined wisdom of MN I turn. C'mon, share your best tips and advice with me!

Just cook nice, healthy food that the rest of the family enjoy, and bung her some. You can give her anything but honey and whole nuts, so try a variety of things - some will be tossed aside, but just keep offering whatever you are eating at the time

Hiya, I am three months into BLW with my DS and it is great .. The first meals were just steamed broccoli, carrot, sweet potato, pear, cucumber etc. Fairly quickly moved onto to chunks of cheese, mashed potato, pitta breads, crumpets etc I gave tomato and strawberries quite early on, watched him carefully but he loved them.

My favourites are crumpet pizza, very studentesque with crumpets, tomato puree, cheese and sliced tomato grill and serve, or pitta and hummus, or veg nuggets which is basically 8 oz of defrosted broccoli or mixed veg, 8 oz of grated cheese, 4 oz of bread crumbs, 1.5 tsp of baking soda, 1.5 tbsp of olive oil and water. then mix, form into nuggets and oven bake for 20 mins turning once. This recipe could do 2 or 3 meals, hard to be exact as I end up eating them :)

The worst thing about BLW is the mess! I say that with a labrador who really helps with the clean up process. At first I was so worried about salt that I worried about giving DS anything that wasnt home made, now I give pre made tortellini and low salt fishcakes without worrying too much. Hope that helps :)

I have been doing a blend of blw and purees for two months now and my standard options are banana, cucumber sticks, steamed broccoli florets, and steamed or roasted sweet potato and butternut squash sticks. I then add something new each day to give some variety. Steamed fish is good, and hummus was very popular too. I try no more than one new thing a day in case of allergies.

I recommend the book 'Baby led weaning' by gill rapley and Tracey murkett. It covers everything you need to know.

One thing I have found is that if ds is too hungry he gets very frustrated by blw, so if he gets too agitated I give him some puree first and then he can take his time on the finger foods.

Good luck!

Best advice I was given was "food is for fun until they're one"
It prevented me getting too hung up on how much DS was eating. There were days when I really didn't think he'd had anything but you'd be surprised the difference a little bit makes - his poos soon showed he was ingesting some.

We started with sticks of fruit (mango, strawberry, pear) and vegetables (broccoli, carrot, roasted parsnip, potato, butternut squash). I introduced small strips of meat after about 4 weeks. I didn't try eggs for quite a few months.

Just treat it like play to begin with and be prepared for the mess and you'll be surprised that it's not as messy as you imagine

Its amazing what can be eaten with your hands.
Don't worry about how much went in. Most will be on the floor / walls / baby.
Eat what baby eats - if you eat it, offer them some.
Go with your normal meals (assuming your fairly healthy!), and modify shapes to suit if you want to aid grabbing in the early days - we cut roast potatoes into chip shapes rather than roast-y shapes, iyswim.
We did a few days of the veg from our plates, and then did everything other than honey and whole nuts, and didn't add salt to anything. Its amazing to watch them chew all the goodness out of meat, and reject the rest.
Enjoy it!

I'm excited about it all tbh. We've tried a couple of things so far. Banana unfortunately just gets mushed in her hands so very little makes it into her mouth! She loves cucumber, chews a lot of the flesh off then spits out the skin! Apple and pear are both just gnawed like a tether at the moment. She doesn't seem to be able to get anything off them yet!

I will have a go at mango and a few more veg in addition to the carrot and broccoli we've already tried. I'll try her with toast/pitta/crumpets too.

I love the idea of the veg nuggets. What temperature do you bake them on? If I can get her to have a nap tomorrow I'll make some then!

We have a splash mat under the highchair (and we've been feeding her outside in the nice weather the last couple of days) and the walls in our dining room could do with a lick of paint do lets hope she smears something all over them!

*gnawed like a teether

Be careful with raw apple and pear initially - it's just a bit too hard for little ones and bits could break off. Try pan-frying apple or pear wedges in butter with cinnamon for a tasty snack or dessert.

Sticks of mango and pineapple were very popular.

If you're worried about allergies then wait 3 days before introducing new foods but personally I just went full steam ahead with root veg initially, then added lots of fruit. It took a few months before DD would accept meat though.

She's now a right little piglet at 16 MO and it's mentioned at nursery how well she eats. Have fun - it's a great time.

Great, was just about to post a near identical thread so thanks all for the tips! You've reassured me about types of food, but any tips about time of day, and how often to start with would also be appreciated here (sorry OP!)

For the nuggets its 190 degrees, only takes ten minutes to prepare so perfect for nap time :)

I started with one meal each day at around 4 - 5 ish. Then about two weeks later it was 12pm lunch, and 6pm dinner, and a few weeks after that I added a breakfast. Just go with whatever fits your life and routine. To echo SESthebrave "food is for fun" is a very reassuring mantra and I didnt worry about how much DS was eating, and even on days it felt like he hardly had any food the evidence was there in the nappies!

My tips:

Offer food when you eat but don't worry too much about religiously sitting down 3x a day in the beginning.

If you haven't got round to dinner one night and she's tired, bed is more important. I'm not a rountine'y type of person so breakfast, lunch and dinner does vary day to day and that's fine too (DD is now 9.5 months old and started BLW at 6 months and we're now at 3x a day meals sometime 2 sometimes 4, it varies depending on when I'm hungry which is often as I graze and I'm still bf'ing! But it is only now she is more aware if we miss a meal)

Nutrition will be from milk until they're one, anything they do eat will be a bonus. Therefore don't cut milk down.

Milk feed before meal times. Some say an hour before, again that means timing things and dd doesn't do time! So I just make sure she's been on boob before we sit down to eat. This is so they dont get frustrated when learning to eat.

Don't intervene with them learning hand coordination. It's hard, but they will drop and pick up and perservere- it's amazing to watch but hard not to help so sit on your hands (or eat your own food)

Expect to see a bit more eating rather than playing at about 8 months. At 8 months dd just seemed to get it.

Offer loaded spoons. We haven't spoon fed at all. It is only recently she's allowed me to spoon feed her yoghurt because she's realised she gets it quicker if I do it. But i like that she can take a loaded spoon and put it in her own mouth, she s learnt that herself and i find that amazing.

Cut salt out of cooking and be mindful of hidden salt in foods such as crumpets, bread, processed ham etc. it's not that they cant have it but I'm just mindful that if she has toast/bread at breakfast, she won't have it at lunch. It's being aware that too much salt isn't good for them but I'm not a over obsessed with it (ie I still buy normal stock cubes and use them, for how much salt is in one and how much dd will actually eat the bollanise or chilli, is very minimal)

Offer every type of food even if you don't like something.

Don't give under 1's honey, even if cooked, it's a no no food. Cut nuts, grapes and cherry tomatoes in half to avoid choking.

Watch YouTube videos of gagging and choking- there is a difference and they may gag a lot at the beginning. Try and be relaxed around them.

Nuts, eggs, dairy - offer from 6 months; if no allergies in family you should be ok. Again, be aware when offering new foods and just look for any changes. I didn't go by a 3 day rule though she just tried it and if ok that day she had it again!

Try not to praise when they do eat or scold when they don't. You have to trust your little one that they know when they've had enough and don't want any more

Foods i offered and when:
Vegetables (carrot, parsnip, broccoli etc, -6m
Fruit - 6m
Potato - 6m
Egg - 6.5m
Bread - 6.5m
Cheese - 7m
Meat -7m
Wheat based cereal - 7m
Greek yoghurt - 7.5m

Favourite meals for dd are spicy and flavoursome like chilli con carne, chicken curry, lasagne, roasted veg with garlic - all 'normal' healthy dinners you probably cook anyway.

I've rambled enough. Hope BLW works for you both like it has for us. It's the easiest way to wean, I was dreading this stage and I've grown to love it. The way they learn to eat is amazing to watch.

GodisaDJ thank you, super helpful post!

No probs Luvilee! I think we should all share tips and ideas with everyone!!

And great ideas/advice/reassurance from all you lovely ladies. I'm genuinely looking forward to giving her lots of different things to try and watch how she manages :)

My DD is 14mo now, and she was BLW from 6mo. My best advice is try to relax if they don't eat anything. Mine is a very good baby with food, eats loads from day 1, never gags. But still she has days where she just throws everything on the floor. They can't say why they are off their food, so there is no need to assume she didn't like what you offer. (Especially you'll soon notice they sometimes even reject yesterday's favourite).

Normally DD eats what we have. But I know there are things she doesn't like so much. Now she is over one, I try to make sure she has something she normally likes everyday. She goes to nursery FT, but she has tea when she gets home at around 5.30. In the weekend she has lunch and breakfast with us, but tea on her own. So what we do is lunch will be whatever we are eating, whether she likes it or not. Tea will be either yesterday's leftover or one of her comfort food, but it's something she normally likes. However she doesn't get an alternative if she rejects what we offer.

As for easy food. DD likes pasta and omelette. (That's what she gets for tea if it's not leftover. I also serve pasta with even leftover curries). So I have home made pesto frozen in mini muffin size. (Silicon bakewares are great). I've just made some tomato ones in the weekend, hopefully she'll like it too. I also have frozen peas, sweetcorn and spinach that I can use to make omelette. I usually add grated cheese to her omelette as well. In the early days of weaning, I froze lots of homemade mini burger patties because she has no teeth and can't actually chew down the meat.

Toast fingers and a prune went down very well today :)

She just mushed all the toast up against the roof of her mouth and sucked it until it dissolved. And I gave her the prune because we've had no poo for three days and she sucked the hell out of it until there was very little left. Still no poo though!

Also a quick question about water/sippy cups... I know I should be offering water at every meal and we've probably got every type of cup on the market but she just doesn't seem to know how to suck. She just chews on the spouts. Even the free flow ones don't work very well because they have to be practically vertical to get the water to drip out. Will she just learn to suck in time? She's still bf on demand so I'm not worried about her fluid intake, I'd just like her to be able to drink water too!!!

They just eventually learn to suck. Just keep offering. Dd now is still inconsistent with taking a cup (she's 9.5 months), she has sucked it tonight but wouldn't yesterday I just offer with every meal and encourage her to 'play' with the cup too.

We also have loads of different ones and she has no preference really.

Even in this hot weather, if you are bf'ing on demand then she won't need water as your milk changes to accommodate thirst (was told this by bf consultant on my bf peer support course last week)

Have you tried her without the top on and given it to her like a cup? Dd always takes it like that if i offer like and she holds it like a proper cup looking all grown up

She will sort of take it without the top. I'll keep persevering!

Oh and I've ordered the book by Gill Rapley too. More for DH than me, I've had great advice I can read on here but I don't think DH would be caught dead reading MN! I can also let my mum and the childminder read it too as they will have her when I go back to work.

The book is a good read, will reassure you that BLW is a good route to follow

I also had to keep reading snippets to DP so he understood why and what we were doing, he eventually read a couple of chapters under duress

DH was like that with the pregnancy books and refused to read a 'dad' book about patenting but he has picked up a couple that I've left round the house since DD arrived and read chunks of them. I'm hopeful he'll read at least the important parts!

Um which free flow are you using? I have the tommee tippee first cup and you definitely don't need to raise it much for water to drip out. It's a fairly small cup so I think it's way it's easier. They are flip tops, not soft spouts, so will save you money too as they last way longer! DD has left a l

Silly phone!

She left a lot of bite marks on the cup. I helped her initially by tilting the cup up a bit whenever she puts the spout into her mouth. Iirc she was definitely drinking from the cup properly at 10mo.

I bought a Tommee Tippee cup, but went for the one that said 7-10 months as the first one said 4-7 months, am so confused still about bloody cups, andDS didn't havethe faintest clue what to do with it and got really frustrated.

Is the BLW way just to use a small plastic beaker with no lid, or a doidy slanted cup, and let them figure it out themselves? My cup has a valve and seems to present new andunnecessary problems, doesn't seem in keeping with BLW somehow.

I don't think there is one true way with cups. And as for the age on them, I think it's a con to get parents to buy more cups.

DD has this first cup from 6mo. Still uses this at home and in nursery.

Then I bought her this beaker when she turns 1. She started drinking a lot of water and the first cup doesn't hold enough water for when we go out.

Both the cup and the beaker are free flow and have the same flip top. So there are no learning curve when I give her the beaker.

BTW I think bf babies usually have problems with valved cups. Is yours bf? She might not know how to suck a plastic spout. Free flow or no lid will be easier in that case. You can skip the whole suck on test phase.