blw, am I missing something?

[Rachog]

I am planning to try blw because it sounds so much easier. Baby just has what we are having and picks it up to eat?
Am I missing something here? My friend seems to think it will be harder than puree weaning and asked if the child minded will carry it on when I go back to work at 10 months. I just assumed they would?

Our nursery did it when Ds was 10 months.

The downside of Blw is the mess. Long sleeved bibs and a plastic floor covering are god sends.

I can't imagine doing purees now. What a total waste of time having to cook something different and blend or mash it for every meal. Also, I prefer to eat when I'm at the table rather than spend my time spoon feeding while my meal goes cold.

It only works if you home cook food though. Which we always did anyway so not a big change for us.

I think it depends on the baby, some babies get on really well with it, and others seem to do better with purees and spoonfeeding with some fingerfoods thrown in. See how your baby gets on with it.

Both the nursery and the childminder for my two were fine with letting them feed themselves - with the occasional bit of help for the all-important yogurt if necessary. I found BLW easy because I am basically lazy and didn't want to spend hours making up purees. It's also good for if you are out and about to eat, or at someone's house, because your DC can just have some of yours, so you don't have to bring a bag full of bits with you.

Prepare yourself for the gagging bit at the beginning, which actually doesn't happen that often once they get the hang of food - and obviously the initial mess. Also don't worry too much if nothing gets eaten. My DD didn't really eat anything until she was about 10 months, whereas my DS ate huge amounts from the word go....

We're doing a combination of finger food and spoon feeding and have been talking to childminders this week. All but one were more than happy to do it our way because it means that the baby can just eat with any other mindees and although its messy its easier than preparing separate food.

Thanks for all the replies. I am glad you have all had positive experiences with nurseries and child minders carrying it on. Have awhile to go yet before we start but am watching the boards with interest.

There is a bit of an assumption that if you're not doing BLW you must be 'doing' purées which is not accurate! Before BLW was 'invented' plenty of parents were doing a combination of whole foods, mashed family foods, spoon AND finger feeding and soft food like yoghurt/porridge/soups. Thats as well as maybe making some specific meals or puree to freeze for convenience to have on days when maybe the family meal was too spicy or salty etc.

It's way, way more mess than spoon feeding. A bib doesn't cover it, even the long sleeved ones. Think changes of clothes for each meal and endless baths to get food out of hair and on every possible body part.

I only found the first few months messy, now shes got the hang of it (11 months) she is neater than my 2 year old!

I did start off cooking some stuff seperatly for her, especially is we were having soemthign with little pieces, not because of choking but because it wasnt easy for her to pick up. I just bought lots of frozen veg and steamed as much as I needed and gave that to her, along with a good dollop of whatever we were having.

My childminder loves it, because she doesnt need to have 15 hands whilst supervising lunch, she can just sit them down and let them get on with it (supervised of course!)

My only problem is now the little madam wont take a spoon!

I do a combination. I give baby something like steamed veg, bread, something as finger food, then spoon feed him at the same time. He is 6.5 months.

I'm teaching him to 'dip' at the moment. Grab a rice cake, dip in yoghurt and suck! Very messy. But because he takes a spoon means that it's very easy to feed him while we're on the move. We recently did an 8 hour train journey, so it was great that I could just pop him on the seat next to me and spoon feed him without making a mess.

Thanks for replying!

Are you allowed to do a mix of both? I do think that a mix is probably going to be easiest.

Of course you can do a mix! I think it's the best option to be honest. I would like my baby to be able to feed himself, as well as take stuff from a spoon, so it works well for us.

I do a mix, it suits us really well. We can have relaxed family meals where ds feeds himself and then if we're in a hurry or out and about we spoon feed. It seems a natural way to do it and is very easy. I don't bother pureeing when I spoon feed but just make soft food or mash it with a fork. Today is a fairly good example of how we eat:

Breakfast - Spoon fed Porridge
Lunch - Spoon fed scrambled egg, fed himself half a banana and apple slices
Snack - fed himself a rice cake
Dinner - will be having crumpet fingers with hummus and cucumber sticks, will feed himself.

He has what we have most nights for dinner but dp is working late so I'll be doing a quick junk meal - last night he had pasta with chicken and spinach as thats what we were having.

Go for it, its soooooo easy :)

a mix isn't really blw, it's just weaning!

You need to watch hidden salt in things like cheese, bread, ham etc. I tended to give no more than one high salt thing a day to start with.

Some of them take a really long time to get food, ds was 15 months before he started actually eating not just playing and experimenting. So try and be chilled about it.

Plastic tablecloth or newspaper under the chair, for sure.

Thanks again everyone.

If you were doing strict blw how would baby eat porridge, soup, mash etc?

We will go with the motto, food is for fun till they're one and relax about it.

was thinking of a cheap shower curtain under the chiair.

I got a tablecloth from Poundland, job done!

I blw dd2, she she scoop soup with her fingers thenwould pour it in her lap, but eventually got the idea of dipping bread in! Any food like porridge, mash she just scooped it or picked at it with her fingers until she became a bit more adept at spoon use. I would load the spoon for her, and she would shove it in her mouth. But she just took to it really well, and because I had dd1 who was only a year younger, it made sense to sit and eat our lunch together and all kind of muck in.

For porridge, put it in a bowl, give them a spoon (or two) and let them at it. Same with mash. Don't be surprised if nothing gets eaten to start with and half of it is over their face.
For soup I tended to do toast fingers soaked in soup as soup was just too runny!
I still ended up doing slightly different foods for ds. Ie most lunchtimes I would chop an apple and slightly cook it in the microwave to soften it. I found we weren't necessarily eating the same foods as a family.
For dd I did a mixture of things. Basically I saw purée ing as a huge faff and would try not to, but occasionally it was actually easier!

Just do what suits you. It will be a mix-adults eat purees too! A friend was saying only yesterday that it was so easy with her DS's baby because you could just relax and serve what was convenient whereas her DD's baby was a nightmare because she was insisting on following some BLW book to the letter.

I started blw till 10 mobg

Stupid phone. Did it till 10 months. Found it a faff with all the mess and DD not eating a single thing and not gaining weight. So now i just give her what we have chopped up but feed her with a spoon or fork. She eats and much prefers this. Just teaching her to dip her spoon at the moment.

All her snacks are finger foods to play with.

just make the porridge thick

DS didn't take a spoon and missed having that as a option, especially when out and about.

DD wasn't messy at all, I didn't understand what everybody used to go on about and it seemed like all the spoon fed puree babies were far far messier, then DS came along.

Regarding mess after breakfast, we fed him in his nightclothes, then lay him on the bottom of the bath with the shower running. Took no time and certainly no longer than other methods. Lunch was a tricky one, but after dinner was straight into bed clothes so no extra change of clothes there. Lunch times I just generally replaced his top so also no biggie.

I've never pureed anything, but of course there are normal foods which are effectively puree's so a bit of spoon feeding, if they accept is great.

To be fair to other people saying that most people do a mix of finger and puree foods, most literature does only seem to have puree's in it and present the whole thing as some complicated scientific experiment.

Also I didn't start of with breakfast, just lunch and dinner and introduced breakfast later.

We load up spoons for dd sometimes and pop them on her tray or she will grab them off us. It took her a bit of practice to get the right end in her mouth the right way up but she is pretty good at it now. Either that or we will dip something or put something lumpy in the gloopy food, so soup usually gets some bits of bread put in and she will then use the bread to soak up the soup.

As far as mess goes, yes she does make a mess but we have a wipe down table cloth under her chair and plenty of paper towels on standby and this usually does the job. We got some amazing long sleaved terry bibs from the pound shop which are super and then usually just need to brush her down after each meal. Though to be fair we are slatterns when it comes to cleanliness so a bit of soup on her trousers doesn't really bother us to be honest.

All my friends who used purees have told me how much they hated weaning whereas me and DP have loved it! It has ment we could actually sit down and eat lunch without a bored baby screaming at us as she is occupied eating her own food.

I started with lunch for a couple of weeks, then added dinner, then breakfast.