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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Original poster

BLW experiences please

26 replies

ItsAboutToGetMessy · 05/01/2013 21:31

First time poster here... Looking for some shared BLW stories/advice my DD is coming up to the 5 1/2 months and desperate to get eating, holding off for the 6th month. How is BLW treating people.

OP posts:
ElphabaTheGreen · 06/01/2013 10:52

Hyper, hyper, hyperactive gagger/vomiter here. A little bit of normal gagging would have been a shock (one of those things that 'nobody ever tells you about') but DS takes the gagging to extreme lengths. After 6 weeks of weaning (started at a week short of 6 calendar months) he is slowly getting better but a) it jangles my nerves and b) he'll sometimes gag through an entire decent amount in a meal, only to take too big a chunk in the last bit, it'll hit the sweet spot and he'll throw up absolutely everything his struggled to get down his gullet. For these reasons, I've backed off on pure BLW because I'm (probably irrationally) worried about him getting an aversion to eating. He's happier about taking a spoon than he was in the beginning, so I'll let him have a play/nibble of the food in its 'whole' state, see what he can manage, then texturise/mash up with a fork the remainder and spoon feed it to him. I hate myself for it, but I've resorted to pouches on occasion, but I'll spread the stuff on toast and let him feed himself for a bit, in combination with spooning some in. Would love to have stuck to pure BLW, but I think it's a bit much for Mr Gag-monster.

JiltedJohnsJulie · 07/01/2013 08:45

Our dd did it herself. She grabbed a sandwich and ate it and then screamed if we tried to spoon feed her. It was so, so much easier than purees as we could just give her what we were having.

Have you read the Mn info on weaning and seen the babyledweaning website?

JezzaJ9 · 07/01/2013 10:39

Doing a bit of a mix here DS2 just shy of 6 months but all signs were there. He could sit up and put his hands to his mouth. So we started at 24 weeks. Feeding all food that I can with fingers, pasta, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, toast etc, but plain yoghurt and ready break I give with pureed fruit on a spoon, he has a spoon to play with too. The food defo going as his poo is turning more compact xx

JiltedJohnsJulie · 07/01/2013 18:30

Jezza if you are offering purees and finger foods isn't that just called weaning Smile

flipflopson5thavenue · 07/01/2013 19:48

marking my spot as I put a banana infront of my DS yesterday to see what he'd do with it. He's coming up to 5.5 months but over christmas he picked a piece of clementine up and put it in his mouth (came straight back out again) so I figured I'd give it a start.

pickledparsnip · 07/01/2013 19:49

Did blw with my 3 year old son at 6 months. Was fun but horrendously messy and at times wasteful. Would definitely do it again though .

pickledparsnip · 07/01/2013 19:52

Broccoli was a big hit as a first food, as were strawberries. He just sort of gummed at food for a while until he got teeth. Was fun to watch,and he really enjoyed it.

At around 2 years old he got all funny though, and wanted me to feed him at every meal. Reverse blw!

blushingmare · 07/01/2013 19:58

My experience so far (been at it 5 weeks):

Started off thinking "yeah this BLW is really for us, going to do it all by the book blah blah blah" and was really disappointed to find how hard I found it. DD not terribly interested to begin with. I found it much harder than I thought to sit back and watch so much food go to waste especially when I'd prepared it especially for her as also found it really hard to do the "they eat what you eat" thing because of nap times and the fact that I tend to just grab stuff on the go for myself that isn't very baby friendly. DD didn't seem to have the motor skills to get food to her mouth successfully and would therefore give up without trying - she just didn't "get" the eating thing.

So tried to go to a mix of purees and finger foods so that I felt I was getting some food into her and not just having it all thrown in the floor and smeared into my clothes. This had mixed success as it turned out DD hates to be spoon fed and we had complete melt downs when I tried to. So went to making purees and spreading it on suitable finger foods, aka the worst of both worlds as have the hassle of making purees and the mess and waste of BLW! But I do think this gave her the taste for a few more things and she gradually started to get a bit more interested in food.

Just this week, at 7 months old, she seems to be starting to get it and today we've done "pure" BLW for the first time all day and it's been brilliant. Her fine motor skills and coordination are just far more up to it now and she's much more motivated. It absolutely amazing to watch her handling all these different foods and coping so well with "real" food Smile

Not sure what my advice would be from this experience, but just that it might not work out how you thought so don't worry too much about following the BLW "rules", just do what feels right for your baby.

Oh and don't worry about mixing up your courses - dd quite often appears to lose interest in her "main course", then I'll give her a piece of fruit or some yoghurt and after a couple of mouthfuls of that she'll get really interested in her main again!

blushingmare · 07/01/2013 20:25

Oh dear - sorry for the essay Blush

Welovecouscous · 07/01/2013 20:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

gwenniebee · 07/01/2013 21:59

I'm interested to hear responses too as we have just started weaning dd and I had intended to do BLW. However - now it comes to it I find I am terrified of her choking. (I shook through lunch yesterday, it's that bad...) At the moment she is sometimes having something to play with at lunch and some purée for tea, but I would like to feel more confident with letting her actually have stuff to swallow without me spooning it in.

CabbageLooking · 08/01/2013 17:02

I don't know if what I'm doing is proper BLW but basically DS started a week ago on soft veg, toast with unsalted butter and the odd piece of chicken. The gagging on the first try was terrifying but he seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly (he's chomping on sweet potato as I type). At the moment I'm cooking up veg specifically for him as mealtimes just don't fit with ours and there are specific things I want to give him to build upon. It seems to be working though. I've decided that doing one particular method or programme never works for us so we just make it up as we go along and see what works for us! Grin

JiltedJohnsJulie · 08/01/2013 18:08

gwen feeding purses doesn't mean they won't choke, in fact all the babies I've known to choke were being spoon fed at the time,

If you really are worried about choking I'd advise seeking out a local Paed first aid course. Try your local children's centre, set johns ambulance or British Red Cross.

JiltedJohnsJulie · 08/01/2013 18:09

Purees. Obviously feeding a baby purses isn't recommended by anyone BlushGrin

mrscog · 08/01/2013 21:30

Didn't work at all for us - tried at 6MO and DS just didn't get it but was gagging to be spoon fed.

I really wanted to BLW after reading the book but DS just didn't want to feed himself despite having an enormous appetite immediately.

I didn't puree as I'd waited till 6MO - I went straight to small very soft lumps and offered finger foods 2-3 times a week. Finger foods were not successful really until 8-9 months when he suddenly 'got' them and also started chewing things properly with his gums.

At 10Mo he's a fab eater - and I don't want to be negative about BLW at all as I have friends who've done it really successfully, but I just wanted to give an alternative as I wanted to do it but DS wasn't playing ball!

LadyWidmerpool · 08/01/2013 23:28

Brilliant. We just let our daughter get on with it. If she's hungry she eats, if not she leaves it. It makes a terrible mess but frees us to enjoy our own meal. I spoon fed her one day when we were out because I really didn't want a mess and it was so dull! Much more fun to watch her investigate her own food. She is 16 months old now.

Original poster
ItsAboutToGetMessy · 09/01/2013 03:34

Thank you for all your stories guys. Today my DD took matters into her own hands and snaffled a bit of toast of my plate. We let her keep it to see what she would do. She loved gumming on it and smoothing it round her face. It was quite an achievement to make as much
Mess as she did with a finger of toast. So it looks like its onwards and upwards. Going to have to alter our day slightly as I usually eat when she sleeps. Will let you all know how it progresses.

OP posts:
mummybare · 09/01/2013 06:28

We also did BLW and loved it. DD is 8 months now and living her food. I'm so glad we went down that route. My mum's so impressed, she insists on having us round for lunch once a week because she enjoys watching DD eat! Grin

Good luck, OP, enjoy it!

JiltedJohnsJulie · 09/01/2013 11:29

Well done messy's LO! What's she having today then?

Alligatorpie · 09/01/2013 13:51

We started about 4 weeks ago, when dd was 24 weeks, with banana, avocado, cooked carrots, yams, the usual stuff.
Yesterday dd had scrambled eggs, yogurt and toast for breakfast, salmon chowder, avocado and sliced apple for lunch and chicken curry and rice for dinner ( all homemade - I am very nervous about salt) she also had grated carrot, cheerios and raspberries for snacks.

She is going through a growth spurt as she oesnt nirmally eat that much, and it nursing on demand.

Blw is working for us!

Alligatorpie · 09/01/2013 13:53

Arrrggghhh - too many typos to count!

HearMyRoar · 09/01/2013 21:39

I love blw. It allowed me to be able to actually sit down and eat a meal while she amused herself with food, rather then having to entertain a baby while trying to eat lunch. I think one of the keys to baby led weaning is to not stress about whether they are actually eating or not. Most of the people I know who found it difficult did so because they felt that their DC weren't eating enough and so believed they need to spoon feed to ensure they were getting some solids. I found it helped to remember that bm or formula has more calories then any solid food so as long as you continue to bf or ff as required they won't go hungry.

Dd loved gumming and playing with food from the start but I don't think she actually ate anything really until about 7 months. I remember going to do the usual clear up after giving her something only to find nothing there to clean up. Took me a while to work out where it had got to :o

Clembobita · 30/01/2013 13:07

Hiya can I steal some advice,

I thought BLW sounded ridiculous after pureeing my now 7 year old.

But little lady had different ideas and after seeing her devour a tangerine segment with ease and confidence decided to give it a whirl. She is 6 months, sitting up and has excellent hand eye co-ordination.

The whole eat what we eat thing has worked amazingly because I have a healthy diet and dont use salt in anything but I just need some advice on if she is getting what she needs?

An example of her day is yesterday, we had a grilled breakfast (I am on slimming world) so she had some grilled cherry tomatoes and mushrooms along with a bit of toast,

For lunch we had rice and green beans, she just had the green beans with some cherry tomatoes cut up in half.

For dinner we had bacon pasta with garlic and onion in, she had around 5 pasta swirls followed by 2 segments of tangerine.

I'd say she swallows maybe a third of this, with a little bit of gagging.

Does this sound like a good varied diet for her?

mamapants · 02/02/2013 19:09

I have just started out recently. Little one grabbed my hand and pulled banana straight to his mouth and started sucking it down a few weeks ago and have let him suck on apple segments and other items since then. Now he's 6.5 months I give him some food 3 times a day amount eaten varies a lot. He is keen on fruit and things that are easy to gum into mush so breads, rice cakes, quiche etc but not sure he is getting enough veg type things any suggestions on good meals to get him eating veg appreciated.
He had some beef today and seemed to enjoy it. No gagging really so far- DP was very nervous but DS taking it all in his stride so far and has very definite ideas about what he considers 'food' cabbage dit go any near his mouth sniffed and dropped straight on floor.
Echo everyone else- its super messy but fun. Attempted purees far too stressful!

Loislane78 · 05/02/2013 15:25

We started about 10 days ago just shy of 6 months. I want to get food into her so I spoon feed whatever it is and have a finger version available for gumming as well ie. fork a banana/papaya/avocado so it still has lumps and spoon feed that then leave some slices of the same thing on the tray for her to pick up and have a suck on. Seems to be working and I can see by the poop.

Next week will start giving whatever we're having, again a mixture of lumpy mushed up bits plus finger chunks. Don't know if that's right/best, or indeed if there is such a thing - just what I'm trying!

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