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!

Super helpful thread! :)

We have just started on this journey and tonight DD demolished some broccoli and strawberries!

Last week I got: River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook and I've found it really useful and packed with info, more so than the Gill Rapley book.

We have that same Tommee Tippee so I'll just keep offering it. I'll tip it up for her and let her play with it and hopefully she'll get the hang of it eventually. Might put some ebm in it actually. If that drips from it into her mouth it might encourage her to suck, then can move onto water.

The contents of her nappy this morning (and unfortunately the contents that had escaped from her nappy and were spread all over the cot too) proved that there is definitely food going in! Prunes most definitely went in. And came out.

Sorry if that last post was tmi. I think I'm suffering from post traumatic stress after dealing with it.

Ive just started this, and these are what we have offered, and DD has enjoyed:
*Brocoli floret
*Chicken breast
*A Yorkshire pudding
*Toast fingers
*The centre core of a pineapple - LOVED sucking it
*Big slices of Galia melon
*Tried pear but was not good
*Banana - to help it stay firm, keep the skin on, chop the banana in half across the middle and then cut away about an inch of skin from the middle, so the rest of he bnana is still in the skin for her to hold, iyswim.

I think the best thing to keep in mind is that the aim is not to get them to eat 3 solid meals by a certain date, but to introduce them to lots of flavours and textures and enable them to eat what they want. They will be messy but will grow out of it

My ds only really liked finger food, my dd would rather eat sqodgy food (like cottage pie, beans, weetabix) by the handful. So try different things

there's also www.babyledweaning.com to look at as well... i'll be looking for more recipes shortly, we're having a bit of an overhaul, so am noting names here.

oh and my best BLW advice is 'don't sweat it'. it's easy and fun. and if it isn't, jack it in for a while, leave the baby be, there's no rush.

Yes, I just give DD stuff if we have appropriate things. She gets her calories from her milk. Thankfully, she packs a punch, so I don't have people saying "aren't you feeding her 'properly' yet??"

I have to say, I never thought i'd do BLW, but I am loving it, and DD seems to really love it too. She has always had a bit of a strong gag reflex - when she's finished a bottle, if the teat is still in her mouth it makes her gag, for example. Her being able to choose to put food into her mouth then makes her NOT gag. I've tried spoon feeding and she just takes the spoon off me

Glad I found this. I'm doing BLw with dd, after going all Annabel with DS. Lots of it ends up on the floor, but some of it's going in. Ds was eating loads of puree by this stage, so I do wonder how much she's getting although SHe's only 6.5, so I'm not too worried. Breakfast is a problem though, as she wants to eat porridge off the spoon herself, but can't really do it, so gets frustrated.

However, Ds used to eat fish pies and curries etc, and I can't for the life of me, figure out how to do that as BLW.

I suppose it's difficult for me to go with the flow, as I'm constantly comparing the two babies. Mind you, after eating like a horse as a baby, ds is a very finicky toddler, so maybe I need to chill.

My suggestion with the porridge problem is to not give porridge . You can start off with very large breakfast items, like toast or weetabix. Then slowly move towards smaller ones like shredded wheat, then cornflakes. If are you are against processed breakfast food, there's always toasts, eggs, beans (probably around 8-9mo), sausages, ham. The possibility is endless!

Was just about to link to Aitch's blog and she's already done it.

My advice would be to have a) patience and b) a dog with catholic tastes

Yeah, toast was a winner. Porridge is, well, that's just what you give babies, isn't it?

To be honest, I don't care what they eat for breakfast as long as we can get through it with only one person having the screaming ab dabs.

How do we feel on wet wipes as a pudding? Dd is currently attempting to eat her way through the packet.

You can load a spoon for them when they can manage one.

14mo DD is still bad with preloaded spoons. Unless the food in question sticks to the spoon surface even when tipped upside down. (BTW yoghurt and porridge have gravity defying properties ). At least she aren't catapulting food towards the dining room wall anymore.

Enjoy it!
I put my girls in those bibs with sleeves like back to front shirts, so that there was some chance of us being able to carry on the day with the same clothes.
They can eat things like porridge, they will dip and lick their hands - not really messier than the whole thing is anyway.
I regret not getting dd1 eating with a spoon sooner (as we weren't really doing the parent-does-spoonfeeding thing) because I think it has made her more suspicious about things like soups. I wish I had said to hell with the mess, and let her had a go with a spoon even if not much had gone in, just to get things like that on her repertoire of familiar things.
It's great fun. Those lovely cheezy grins over something they are finding hilarious and delicious - gorgeous. For a while it's a bit of a circus, but soon you are just serving dinners at the table to everyone including the baby in the high chair and you have forgotten that baby food is supposed to be a Thing. And the baby is eating most of it.
Astr0naut, the fish pies and the curries: I would pick bits out (pieces of fish or vegetable or meat) and put them in front of the baby to pick up. Fish is lovely soft food for babies, so you are just giving the baby bits of fish in sauce and not wasting so much as if you try to get them to eat a helping of fish pie. Little nuggets of mash crust should be pickupable too.

Aitch that website has some great ideas. I didn't realise it was your blog but some very useful stuff on there so thank you!

I think we're going to try avocado today if it's ripe. Perhaps a chunk and also mashed and spread on toast. I'm loving it all so far!

Avocado goes down really well with dd. Now that is something you can see she's eaten - especially the next day.

glad you like it! do 'like' the fb page as well, lots of people put clips of their babies eating away on there.
there was a particularly lovely one recently, hang on and i'll pin it to the top for you so you don't miss it. www.facebook.com/babyledweaning

Liked :)

We're loving the toast at the moment. Avocado wasn't soft enough to mash with a fork and I'm too lazy it's too hot to bother faffing with the blender so she's on chunks of avocado and toast.

Have 'liked'. That video is soo sweet.

I'm a big fan of Aitch's Facebook BLW page. Always some interesting posts and discussions

Aitch is queen of BLW - it was her that told me to come on here though, so all that lost time is Her Fault

BTW, I think sharing off your plate has a lot to recommend itself for. DS ate like that from the start (colleague has never got over him eating steak at 6.5 months) and its meant he'll give anything a try that dh or I is eating. He's just turned 6yo now, and will eat just about anything (doesn't like chilli or wasabi) and is never happier than when at Yo Sushi or our local chinese noodle bar.

Have liked on FB too! :)

2nd time BLW-er here - DS is 3 1/2 and eats pretty much anything now. DD is almost 8 months and has thoroughly embraced it! Current favourites include - blueberries, halved red grapes (sucks out all the inside and spits out the skin!), cheese on toast fingers, roast chicken, baked beans (gets really cross when she runs out!)

Casseroles are great for them as they have lots of chunks of things - lovely tender meat that they can eat even without teeth, potato, veg etc.

Breakfast wise, she loves toast, rusks, mini weetabix, cheerios, pre-loaded spoons of baby breakfasts - I buy the Heinz ones you add water to and make to whatever consistency you want, so can make a bit thicker to stay on the spoon for a bit longer! :)

are you sure that's us, Godisadj? there's another BLW fb page that has gerzillions of members, and loads of people think it's affiliated to my site. we were unsearchable-for for such a long time, we're miles behind in terms of fb numbers and twitter stuff also. twitter.com/#!/blwdotcom

or if you're talking about the roundup...