How do I start BLW?

[PixieFlying]

I want to do BLW (nearly 6m/o but was prem), but I'm not really sure what to start her with, or how to cook the things?

Is steamed carrot/steamed brocolli ok? Or will she not be able to eat it yet

What other foods can she feed herself?

Can she feed using "puree" with her hands, or will that be equivilent to spoon feeding and get her into the habit of not chewing?

Just any advice or experiences at all would be greatly appreciated!

Cover the flor and nearby surfaces with a plastic sheet.

Put some soft (cook and cool) veg or fruit on a tray or table and let them play with it.

Kiwis, bananas, avocado, soft carrot sticks were all great starter foods for my LO.

agree with pp.
cover up everything in a 10meter radius :o
then give dc a few bits from whatever you are having directly onto tay.

My DS started BLW by taking food off us and stuffing it in his mouth. We pretty much let him get on with it except where we were worried about choking (whole grapes/ nuts). I didn't do food separately for him but we were quite slow to 'progress' in that he was pretty much milk fed until 14 or 15 months. I did sort of worry about it at the time because all the babies around us seemed to be on three meals and two snacks a day by then where we were quite a lot more haphazard.

Actually, I spent the whole 6mo to 18mo worrying in some way or other about his food and really had to sit on my hands and trust that he would not starve himself or become nutritionally deficient in a nutritionally good and plentiful environment. But I'm really glad that we did, he's very adventurous now and eats a wide variety of food, sometimes loads and sometimes not so much.

I'm saying this because what I learned most of all in the whole BLW thing was that I didn't have to plan and strategise, the baby would just get on with it at his own pace. So my answer to your question would be, it might be just possible to wait til your baby initiates the process - have her on your knee at mealtimes and let her 'play' with food like fruit/ dried fruit/ bread or whatever. She'll probably just help herself and you'll be off. Our baby didn't have purees because we don't eat them, but we did help him with the spoon when there was porridge/ yoghurt or whatever, because he wanted to eat them but struggled with cutlery. I have been told that that can't be BLW but to us it was, because the baby initiated the process and was simply helped where he couldn't manage himself. I think that is baby led and it is different to sitting down with a bowl of food that you try to feed the baby.

There is an excellent book by Gill Rapley and Tracy Murkett, it will answer all of your questions and any concerns you might have. We did BLW with dd and it was amazing, she just eats what we eat and I never had to purée anything.

TBVH, the best thing to do is think about cooking healthy food for you, and just giving her some of that. If you feel like being nice to her, you can make sure that her portion is in easy to grab sizes (so if I was having pasta with chicken and avocado, I'd give ds strips of chicken and slices of avocado with his pasta while he was getting the hang of it).

Your baby will amaze you with her ability to eat real food - my ds was 5 weeks prem, but at 27 weeks actual age was stripping a corn on the cob!

I just sat DD/DS at the table with me one day, dished up a tiny portion of what we were having and let them get on with it.

I didn't do the boiling up special veg etc for them - I don't do boiled or steamed veg with a meal unless we're having a Sunday roast.