Blw - despairing!

[BonaDea]

DS is 10 mo and ebf. He's down to about 4 feeds a day and has cruised along nicely somewhere between 50th and 75th centile since birth.

We've been blw since 6 months. He got off to a great start especially with things like fruit which he ate whole and enthusiastically straight away.

I've been waiting and waiting for things to 'fall into place' as they are supposed to. We have some good meals or even weeks.... But I feel I am still waiting because most of the time it doesn't feel like it's 'working'.

Many meal times all or most food is thrown on the floor, whether tasted first or not. I continue to offer a range of foods but worry I am drifting towards some 'favourites' because he throws them away less than other things whereas I wanted to blw to avoid fussiness! I'm starting to get annoyed that soooo much food is seemingly being wasted, the vast majority of which has been home cooked. One day he will love something, a week later the dish is entirely rejected. Even fruit which he seems to like a lot is sometimes just chewed or sucked and most of it spat out. Both veg and meat are largely miss rather than hit. His fine motor skills I think developed quickly because of blw but I don't think they are getting any better if that makes sense.

Am I doing something wrong? Should I just carry on? Any experience?

Do the off days/weeks in any way relate to teething or periods of illness? Could be a possible explanation.

If he is continuing to track his centile and he is otherwise well then in your position I would persevere. I would also make a conscious effort to offer a variety and try hard not to offer favourites all the time to try and avoid fussiness. I'm assuming that there is evidence in his nappies of food going in? My ds still goes through occasional periods of rejecting certain foods or not eating much, and he is now 18 months. So far he has come out of it after a little while, and I just offered the same food as I normally would have, trying my best to ignore any refusals.

However, if you are getting concerned about how much he eats and it is stressing you out, then I don't think it would be a problem to maybe try offering one meal as a spoon-fed meal. Maybe breakfast, or perhaps dinner?

Don't think it's a BLW thing. My son was same at 12 months. (He was spoon fed and now has sone finger foods himself. ) Refused to eat most food. Still does some days and he is now 15months. A month a go it seemed he hardly ate all week.

Usually caused by his teeth. Keep going with it. Get him weighed if he is still tracking weight don't worry.

Thanks both. He is definitely continuing to gain weight at the same level, had him weighed last week. There is also evidence in his nappies of him eating foods, but sometimes I honestly can't believe (having watched him apparently reject it!) that he's eaten what he appears to.

Guess I will keep on trucking with it and just hope things get better. I haven't made the link between teething nd eating but will watch more carefully for it.

I used to call blw- baby led food waste!

Sounds about right to me, my ds seemed to eat nothing and was bf till he was 2, but he is 5 now and eats a variety of foods (curry, spicey things, fish, as well as more bland things) dd was the same. Hang in there.

This sounds normal to me! DD was hit and miss at that age (also BLW) and still got a lot of her nutrition from bm. It's really fallen into place now though - she is an excellent eater at 17 months.

My tip is to think of a list of blw foods that don't require too much effort to make, so you don't get too upset if much if it is wasted. The BLW cookbook is good for this. Also pre-chopped veg that can be steamed quickly, plain pasta (which DD seems to love still ), toast of course, hard boiled eggs and cubed cheese, very thick porridge which they can pick up..