BLW support thread anyone?

[MrsNPattz]

Just wondered if anyone wanted to join me on our BLW adventure, I could do with it (see my earlier thread)! We went to my uncles today, luckily my cousin did BLW with her two little ones so they were very accommodating and he tried carrot, sprout, broccoli, turkey and potato! It was very successful and it was lovely having my cousin to talk to! Unfortunately she doesn't live near us, but is at the end of the phone! What did your babies eat today?

[slightlysoupstained]

Forgetful Ouch - on days like that I chant "food is for fun till they're one" and tell myself it'll average out over the week...

I wonder about giving cheese too often too. I lovingly made lentil cakes as a tasty, convenient, easy to hold alternative, DS scoffed the first one with great enthusiasm and has since refused to have anything to do with them! (I end up eating them myself. I like them, but...). Bah.

[Forgetfulmog]

I know soup! You lovingly prepare food for them & then they do the cats bum mouth & look at you as if to say "what? You expect me to eat this shit?"

[Gurke]

I've been lurking for ages, may I please join you all?

I finally took the plunge and gave my DS solids a couple of weeks ago! He is coming up to 8 months, but was born 12 weeks early. The standard advice seems to be to wean them according to their actual age, rather than their 'corrected' age - but I didn't feel he was ready 2 months ago. But I've now given him some banana pieces to hold (& smear in his face, obv), and spoons of baby rice (made with bm) & mashed banana - and boy was he excited! Going by his delighted slurping I suppose he really is ready for solids...

BLW is still a bit of an aspiration at this stage, because his motor skills are those if a 5 month old rather than an 8 month baby, but I hope we'll get there soon.

Can I ask you what you do when your DC is choking on bits of food? I know gagging looks very different, and we've seen plenty of that - but today he seemed to be actually choking on a bit of oat-banana cookie (I didn't think he was swallowing anything, just licking the life out of that cookie, but then he suddenly seemed to choke. It terrified me!)

Anyway, onwards and upwards in the weaning adventures.

[Quak]

Gurke - Welcome! See if you can book yourself on a baby first-aid course or similar. That might give you some confidence to deal with minor and more serious choking incidents. In my region the NCT organise such courses with the Red Cross.
The blw book I read suggests that for the most part you should leave your baby alone as they can sort themselves out when something doesn't go down right, but if your ds is still developing the necessary motor skills then your situation is different and I would proceed more cautiously, as you have been already. With dd, we sit together and I make exaggerated chewing motions and encourage her to 'ba ba/da da' etc to encourage her to keep munching the food up. She watches and finds it funny a lot of the time but she copies me and merrily chews away!

[Gurke]

Thank you Quak Great idea to go on a first aid course, I've just looked for some local ones.

DS had some poached pear today. He tried (and failed) to hold some of the slippery pieces, but was delighted with rice cakes dipped into mashed pear and sucked much of it off. So far he's not been interested in avocado or carrot, but banana, pear, baby rice, melon and those oat cookies have all been great hits.

Hope you're all seeing some enthusiastic chomping and gumming today

[Gurke]

Morning all. Can I ask you all what you do about your LOs' red bottoms? Obviously things like metanium cream, frequent changing etc - but I'm wondering what to do about the foods that caused it, i.e do you stop giving it, or continue & hope your LO gets used to it?

I think in DS' case the culprit was pear

On a happier note, yesterday I've made those oat biscuits with stewed apple instead of banana, and they were a hit with baby & adults

[Quak]

I would perhaps reduce the amount of the suspect food but don't stop giving it. I think my dd had a bit of a reaction to yoghurt. I still let her have it but only very little at a time. I just dip the spoon so a thin coating sticks to it and let her feed herself. A sure way to minimise intake! So far, all has been fine.
Also, if you've time, nappy-free time is good. Whilst dd can't move about it's easy enough to leave her lying down with no nappy on. And no wipes, just cotton wool and water, and no bubble bath etc.

[Forgetfulmog]

Gurke - it's not likely to be the nappies is it? We used to have a bit of a problem with nappy rash but since we've started using cloth, no rash! I'm not suggesting you start using reusables btw!

[Gurke]

Thank you quak & forgetful! I'm pretty sure his sore bottom is food related (& it's not that bad) and was just wondering whether to treat this as a 'reaction' or to just hope he'll get used to whatever caused it.

One BLW question for everyone: do you offer your LOs drinks during meals, and if so from what kind if vessel? (I'm currently trying to teach my bf bottle-refusing DS to drink from a cup; variable results so far but the best has definitely been when I offered him a cup as part of a 'meal' on his highchair for him feed himself.)

[Forgetfulmog]

Gurke I offer water to dd when I can remember at her evening meal, in a doidy cup

[HabitualLurker]

Gurke I think the standard advice is to offer water at every meal from a free-flowing cup. I'm using one of those bog-standard tommee tippee spouted cups.

Things are progressing slowly but surely with weaning here. I still get slight pangs when I see my friends' babies scoff whole bowlfuls of (pureed) food from a spoon with minimal mess. They probably eat at least twice what LurkerBaby will get through. And his sleeping is terrible at the moment. I know it's really teething and that he's not waking up from hunger particularly, and so more food would probably make no difference, but still, I can't help but wonder...

Oh well, 'tis a moot point anyway, because he's pretty much a spoon refuser! The only thing he'll happily eat from a spoon is yoghurt. And of course he grabs it from me and wants to do it himself, so it's still incredibly messy! I've actually found that mixing yoghurt with other stuff (yesterday's pea and lettuce risotto for dinner just now, for instance) makes the other stuff acceptable to him. Would it be bad to bung yoghurt on everything to get him to take it from a spoon? I have a feeling the answer is yes.. Ach, maybe it's just that he needs a sloppy texture for spoon fed stuff?

Othewise, it's full steam ahead with food he can feed himself. I've realised roast dinner is a brilliant BLW meal. Every component can be picked up and it's pretty balanced nutritionally too! We don't tend to go in for roasts much, but maybe I'll start doing them more often now.

[Quak]

Thought I would share some of my success foods. Things are taking off for us here. Spaghetti Bolognese, falafals in pitta bread, apple and ginger cakes and fishfingers have been very well received. The trick with us seems to be the more unbaby-fied the food, the happier she is with it. I am not a fan of cooking at all so have simplified some recipes to suit!

Falafals: Blend can of chickpeas and mix with, 2 tbsp flour, tsp coriander and cumin, half an onion, bit of parsley, crushed clove of garlic and a bit of oil. Press into burger/ball shapes and fry for 5 mins. I serve with french dressing and spinach for myself and dh - Yum.

Apple and ginger 'cakes' - DD simply crushes and scatters any form of normal cake so these work well for us. It is my latest result from playing around with 4 basic ingredients - Almost (3/4ish) a cup of plain flour, a few tbsp golden caster sugar and 1 egg and a bit of milk. Remove the sugar and add grated veg for a savoury option...anyway:
Mix together and add a little milk until it's like thick custard. (If you cook and mash 2 apples you can mix them in and fry like normal pancakes) Or pour into some sort of cake tin and add slices of apple instead. Bake in oven for 20-30mins (in my oven anyway...!) I guess until they are golden brown - Voila - easy to hold and non-crumbly cakes.

These recipes are not going to win any awards, but they are easy and salt-free

[Gurke]

Quak that sounds delicious - will steal your falafel recipe for tomorrow.

Big day for us today: first time I gave him meat (poached chicken strips). He seemed quite interested, but not sure how much he actually ate.

I think our biggest problem right now (apart from DS' complete refusal to try any kind of cup/bottle/beaker/straw/other drinking vessel that is not a boob) is that he seems to find this eating solids business really hard work. After a few preloaded spoonfuls he often gets really tired and either zones out or wants to leave his chair.

[esmelovessqualor]

Hi everyone, hoping I can join the thread please, in need of some support! My DD is 28 weeks today and I started with BLW 10 days ago. Her first foods were banana, steamed sweet potato, broccoli and carrot. She didn't seem to take much in, a few bits here and there in her nappy but was having fun exploring all the different tastes and textures. I introduced baby muesli a couple of days later and since then she has had diarrhoea. I stopped the muesli as I thought it might be the culprit but she is still going through loads of nappies. Metanium is keeping the nappy rash under control and she doesn't seem unwell, dehydrated or unhappy. The doctor saw her last week and said to give her puréed veg one at a time but I really want to stick with BLW. Do you have any advice or wisdom to impart as I feel like everyone in RL thinks I'm making a bad choice. Thanks in advance!

[esmelovessqualor]

Wow really should have split that into paragraphs sorry!

[ExBrightonBell]

Hi Esme. The diarrhoea might just be a coincidence, but I was wondering what milk you used on the baby muesli? Maybe your dd had a slight reaction to cows milk?

Btw, I'm loving doing BLW with my DS, so I, at least, think you have made a good choice! Don't let anyone put you off :-)

[esmelovessqualor]

Hi Brighton, thanks for replying.

I used formula so that might be the culprit, she's only been breast fed prior to weaning. How long would you expect it would take her system to settle down? She's not had any formula for a week now.

[ExBrightonBell]

Oh gosh, I guess it depends! My ds has had reactions like this that lasted for 4 or 5 days. Usually when I try the food again a while later he's ok.

[leedy]

Hi, can I join in? Just started BLW with DS2 (6 months). So far he has been unconvinced by fruit but chewed enthusiastically on sweet potato wedges, cucumber, bagel, rice cakes, and, er, chips from my takeaway. One gagging incident resulting in spat-out chip, and I'm not sure how much is going in, but he seems quite interested and happy to be participating in what all the big people are doing. Oh, and quite a lot of farting after the sweet potato....

[esmelovessqualor]

Brighton that's good to know. Thanks again

Hi Leedy sounds like your DS is loving it! Look forward to hearing how he progresses

Esme currently smashing fistfuls of sweet potato into high chair and laughing. And chewing the inflatable insert to her Antilop.

[HabitualLurker]

Those Apple and ginger cakes look good Quak I may give them a go too.

Has anyone got recommendations for easy pasta shapes for baby hands to hold? We had conchiglie (shells) tonight and littlelurker hardly ate any. Except when I picked one up and put it under his mouth, and then he gave a good go. So I'm thinking he just had problems with the shape being difficult to hold rather than not wanting to eat it.

[leedy]

I remember fusilli being easy to hold for DS1

[slightlysoupstained]

Fusilli was good for DS too, also that stuff that looks like really big penne (rigatoni I think).

Spaghetti/linguine are also easy to pick up, but are such huge fun to wave around, rub all over your face, beat against the side of your highchair etc that you might find them a bit messier.

[leedy]

Total hit dinner this evening - we were having steak, steamed green beans, and bread, DS2 had a piece of steak to gum, some beans, a rice cake, and some peach. Steak was sucked to oblivion, beans and rice cake were gummed, only the peach seemed to be a problem - I gave him some peeled slices and he just didn't seem to be able to hold them. The one time he got a bit to his mouth he seemed fairly enthusiastic about it but otherwise he seemed to just find it frustrating. Tips for managing soft, slippy fruit, other than just "give him time"?

Oh, and another gagging incident (with a bean), but again managed to just spit the offending bit out.

[Dorisday13]

Hi, with the fruit I cut into segments then score the flesh with a fork, it's easier to grab/hold/manipulate and she sort of gums/sucks off the flesh very efficiently! Plums are a massive winner xx