BLW - but mum, everything's so slippery!

[blushingmare]

Started BLW this weekend and DD seems pretty keen on food She reaches out for it and brings it to her mouth, but she's finding it really hard to keep it there long enough to give it a good munch! It either slips out (banana, avocado etc) or crumbles into a mush under her tight little grip (carrot, brocolli, weetabix). I find myself holding it for her at her mouth while she gnaws it so the food is stabilised, but this is starting to feel a bit like spoon feeding without the spoon. I really subscribe to the idea of her choosing what she eats and selecting what is safe to eat by whether she can pick it up and obviously if I'm picking it up and holding it for her then that's not really happening is it? The only thing she's been remotely successful with feeding herself is rice cakes, but they're so boring and she obviously is enjoying flavour so don't want to have to just feed her rice cakes for the next few weeks!

I know it's early days, but I'm just wondering if her hand eye coordination isn't ready for this yet. What have your babies been like when starting self feeding at 6 months?

It's early days so she's just finding out about touch and texture and that everything squishes rather than it being her 'meal' that's what her milks for ATM. But to give her a hand we half peeled stuff. So chopped a banana in half and took the skin off the top 3/4 then she has the skin in the bottom half to give some sort of 'handle' but it won't take her long to suss it out!

Banana - dont peel the skin, cut it into thirds along the length, the skin gives a bit of grip for long enough.

Carrot - Roast it rather than boil. Gives a dry outside but a lovely soft mushy inside. Same with parsnip.

Weetabix - mix it with some yoghurt to bind it and just let her get stuck in.

Having said all that, DS basically just threw everything until about 9.5 months.

Try mash potato, shepherds pie, chili that sort of gloopy consistency. If she can grab and get it to her mouth she'll maybe get on well with that and be able to eat more? It'll stick to the hand fingers and she can suck it off.

The top tip with banana is not to actually cut it into thirds along the length, but just separate the thirds along the length with your fingers. Somehow that magically makes it much easier for a baby to grip! Learnt this from a thread here.