DS 6 months today still undecided on how to start this BLW

[archiesmummy]

Hiya all,
You'd think I would have looked into this a bit better, but I just feel totally confused now. Decided ages ago to go for BLW and have bought in loads of organic veg, pasta, rusks and cheese so got all the ingredients.. But where do I start?
People say he can eat more or less the same as what we eat!?
But I want to know if I should introduce one thing at the time or several things in one go???
Is he more likely to eat it if we eat something similar? Like we eat chicken stir fry and he has steamed veg? Perhaps a small bit of chicken?
Or we eat macaroni n cheese and offer him pasta shapes??
Please help!!!
We also have organic baby yogurts and bananas if you think that would be better to start with??
We don't have any great allergy concerns. DH has excma (? spelling) and I have hayfever. I'm BF and DS used to get a rash on his back and tummy, DR said it was food allergy, something I ate and I stopped eating chocolate (which I must admit I ate in excess ) the rash faded away...
Sorry about this long post. Hope you can help me.
Thanx

sorry NotQuiteCockney sil ds is 2.5 years now was just 2 at the time but sil is very strict on no e numbers or additives

AM, I hate that "oh, isn't your mummy being cruel" talk.

I've been told I was torturing DS2 for changing his nappy - he was crying, but he was tired.

And I also get "oh, is Mummy torturing your brother, isn't she unkind" said to DS1 which makes me furious.

I probably would give pasta, but watch out for any reaction. (e.g. don't give wheat for the first time on the same day as egg for the first time)

We don't have allergies in the family per se, but I have (mild) excema and (mild) asthma.

yes hunkermunker it drives me mad. undermines you, doesnt it? ok NotQuiteCockney will try pasta in a few days perhaps. gotto go, ds bored

Archiesmummy, you might want to have a look at this thread which I started quite a while back when I was just getting started on BLW. There are some links to Gill Rapley's paper and the Yahoo group.

It is so much easier just to offer a bit of what you are eating, but don't worry about being a fingerfood purist! For example I don't think it's a crime to offer the odd bit of yogurt or porridge from a spoon

Seriously though, it is great to see your child learning how to eat real food, and you never have to worry about graduating them from purees to lumps. We did it because ds didn't take to well to being spoonfed, so really I think it is all about what works for you and finding a way of getting your child to eat without forcing anything on them.

Good luck with it

Thank you Tatties, we will give it a go later tonight then. I have bought some yogurts aswell, so we'll see what we go for.

hello archiesmummy,
if you can bear to do it i suggest you search for my messages. i've only posted a few times, god knows, but i seem to be yabbering on about BLW all the time, how we started, what's been successful, how on earth to slice cheese so that it doesn't fall apart etc.
we've been doing it for three weeks and today we went out for my husband's birthday lunch and the baby had some bread crusts (she had melon for breakfast) and later some victoria sponge cake. i did make it myself, ahem.
good luck, it's really good fun i reckon.

Thanx aitch71, I'll have a look

I did BLW by accident - i.e. ds refused all purees and would only eat what he could pick up himself! At 6 month they are definately ready to eat everything you do - I just used to give ds bits of whatever we were having, and add cheese, bread and butter, fruit etc if he wasn't keen on the meal. as he got a bit older and would accept a spoon I would mash up our food - so he was able to eat stews and rice, pasta bakes, shpherds pies etc.

1 thing that was really good was mashed potato iwth lots of butter and cheese rolled up into little balls fo him to pick up.

I don't understand why you have to chose one way or the other purees or BLW, why can't the two coexist? With DD1 we started off with purees but very rapidly progressed to finger foods as she was another one who hated being spoonfed. I did spoonfeed her some things like yoghurt and cereal but most of her meals she ate herself. With DD2 who is nearly 6 months I will do the same sort of thing start off with a few purees then rapidly onto fingerfoods.

Well obviously you can give finger foods alongside purees, but by the very definition of BLW it means not taking control of what they are eating by putting things in their mouth, so has to be all at the baby's own pace. You could do a different approach that combined elements of the two, but it wouldn't then be BLW.

archiesmummy - my ds is 8.5 months and we started BLW the day he hit 6 months and we haven't spoon fed him a single thing. There is a history of allergy in the family so I have gone down the ultra cautious route with regards to new foods.

I started with the following: rice cakes, banana, potatoes and sweet potatoes (microwaved in their skins then peeled and cut into wedges), avocado, chicken, beef, pork, peaches, pears, melon, broccolli, cauli, carrot, sprouts, turnips, cucumber etc.

At 8 months I introduced wheat therefore he could have pasta, bread, crackers, breadsticks etc

I haven't introduced dairy yet but will do so in the next few weeks and I will hold off until after a year for eggs.

He has almost mastered the pincer grip, so that will enable him to eat small stuff like rice (grain by grain), sweetcorn and peas.

So, it's not true in our case to say that ds eats the same as us as in he doesn't sit down to a mini portion of our dinner IYSWIM. I did have to cook seperately for him, but a few veggies and a tattie in the microwave really isn't a big deal. A couple of times we have unexpectedly stayed for tea at MILs house and there is always something that he can eat which makes life so much easier.

With regards to water, I offer him water at every meal. I just use an ordinary glass (used plastic for a while as he was biting it, but have changed back) rather than a sippy cup of any sort. This is basically laziness on my part. Again, it means that he is able to have a drink anywhere and I don't have to stress about remembering his cup.

When he first started, I wasn't convinced that there was much going in, but there were always flecks of carrot etc in his nappy and then within a few days, his poo became solid which showed that he was digesting whatever he managed to swallow. It took him forever to eat, sometimes sitting in his highchair for up to 45 mins. I had his highchair in the kitchen so that I could potter whilst he ate but still watch him. He now finishes in around 20 mins and I know he's done when he starts banging his hands on the tray. Talking of trays, has your highchair got a deep tray on it? The ones with flat trays are hopeless as the food plops over the side as the baby tries his hardest to pick it up. Ours was like this (was given it, would never have chosen one with a flat tray) and I modified it by getting a greengrocers display tray and drilling a couple of holes to attach it to the highchair.

Blimey this is a novel. Hope it helps!

MB

Hmm, I see your point, F&Z, but quite soon after 6 months, a baby can understand what they're being offered and say "yes" or "no", in their way.

DS2 has generally always been strongly opposed to being spoon-fed, but he's made an exception for yogurt.

(NB: yogurts for babies are generally gross and a rip-off. You can just buy a pot of plain yogurt and add fruit, or even add flavoured yogurt, to get a smooth, but less sweet, result.)

(I say, generally, because I gather there's a brand with no added sugar? Not sure if they're using apple juice etc to sweeten, or really just doing pureed fruit and yogurt ...)

There are 2 brands without sugar, NQC (Mumsown and Rachel's) but both use apple juice

I am not really sure we are in agreement or disagreement on the other thing and don't know enough about it / care enough to debate it tbh

Oh, I think you're right about the whole "yogurt etc not being BLW" thing. Well, unless you let them use yogurt as a finger food. (Don't laugh, my 4-homebirths-no-ultrasounds-ever friend has done this.)

How do we feel about "no sugar added" things that use apple juice? I'm not convinced apple juice is significantly better than regular sugar, and am offended about the (sortof) lying.

Thank you so much for the indepth reply mawbroon. This helps a lot.
I do have a flat tray on high chair. Only just bought it, and it was expensive aswell. Typical!!
I worry that ds would hurt himself on the edge of glass or cup, but i suppose i'm just being silly. Got a doidy cup, but have only tried once and he didn't even try to hold the handles so glass makes a lot of since to me. How early could he hold it?

I buy them. I also buy stuff with short ingredient lists that have small amounts of sugar in.

Neither seem to affect ds's health or behaviour.

I don't think it's 'lying' in the same way "no added sugar" squashes are misleading. My mum tried to pass off a no added sugar drink to us at the weekend - [shudder]

The only time ds has had a really totally uncontrollable reaction to food was to an artificially sweetened drink

Agree with you about the lying.. but must admit i love Rachel's organic yogs.. mmmm

Oh, yes, apple-juice sweetened is much much much better than fake-sugar. Absolutely.

I have read that fructose is better than sucrose/glucose. But also that it's not. It's certainly not even a long-chain molecule (like white carbs), it's just two sugars stuck together or something unimpressive like that.

Oh, and one of the reasons I found it useful to get the apple juice sweetened stuff when he was younger, NQC, was that they tend to have short ingredient lists and not anything too undesirable in them. my Mum / friends etc could easily understand "Franny doesn't give ds anything with sugar in" and could go for the apple juice stuff instead. It's harder to explain "well I don't give anything with a lot of sugar in, or a little bit of sugar but lots of additives" etc etc.

"No sugar thanks, but apple juice is fine" was a good way to please everyone and avoid the real nasties.

Yeah, I see your point. Even if the apple juice is absolutely the same as sugar, at least they're (in theory) trying. (Or lying to us. One of those. Have you had my "they can add sugar to plain fruit juice" argument?)

No, I do see it, it's shorthand for "not gross". "No sugar added" is a tricky one, anyway. I get annoyed by the "no cholesterol" things, too, most notably on things that have no animal fats in them, and hence no cholesterol by definition, but loads of saturated veg fats, and hence loads of cholesterol-producing fats ...

DS doesn't hold the glass yet archiesmummy, I do it for him. He can drink out of any glass, but prefers any one that I am drinking out of too!! Given that he is glugging my breastmilk all day, I don't think a shared glass should present any probs! I've never used a doidy cup, but I have heard that they are very good, so it might be worth another try.

I see mawbroon. I bought 2 doidy cups, so will give them a go tomorrow when i start introducing water with his fingerfood.
I'm just one of these neurotic mums who is always paranoid about ds hurting himself.. When it looks like he might possibly hurt himself even just a little I intervene... must get over it. You should see me when there are bigger kids around my ds...!

DS1, my ultra-clean, tidy can-eat-black-cherries-in-a-white-top-and-not-get-a-mark-on-him child used to eat yoghurt as finger food. And porridge.