should I stop 4month old stealing food?

[asur]

DS is 4 months old (18weeks) and exclusively BF. I have been planning on BLW. He is very alert and active and has started taking food off plates if he is allowed to get close enough. This morning, he took a piece of toast from DH's plate and promptly stuck it in his mouth. He didn't seem to actually eat it, just sucked it a bit.

Question is, should I stop him or just let him investigate when he gets a chance? I don't want to put him off food by telling him no but also don't want him to eat too early. All so complicated (to me anyway )

Also, with BLW when/how can you introduce foods that needs a spoon? eg. yoghurt, porridge etc?

TIA

god he sounds advanced (good eye hand coordination)

I would just keep his chair out of the way of food and give him something to play with

he has got amazing hand eye coordination which is good but can be a pain!

he seems to steal stuff when he sits on someone's lap at/near the table. Or when he is with DH when he's eating - DH can't eat and pay full attention to DS at the same time (multi-tasking) so DS gets a good chance to steal stuff... Maybe I should just keep more of an eye on DH and reduce his food intake

tricky... i don't really know the answer to this one. if you sit down and think about it, and look at the research, then you would probably come to the conclusion that he can eat now, therefore you could let him. (the six-months thing is really on the super-safe side, and the philosophy of BLW seems to me to say that the babies eat when they are ready so if that holds when they are still refusing to eat at 8 months then you would think it would also hold for a little artful dodger at 4 months.)

that said, i would try to stick it out for as long as possible, if only so that if he gets allergies when he's older it's not something you start second-guessing yourself about. not perhaps the most compelling reason to delay weaning, but it's what i'd do. well, and there's also the fact that as enjoyable as it is, weaning is a bit of a hassle that you might as well put off for as long as possible.

he does sound funny, though, what a clever lad. i'd go with the advice enid gave you and try to let him chew on a spatula or something for the next two months.

as regards your spoon question, I didn't spoon feed at all until DD got her pincer grip and suddenly started feeding herself quite well. left the spoons lying around for her to chew on, though. there was a danger that she might have thought they were a bath toy, though. So i didn't really give her yoghurt until she was about eight-and-a-half months and she eats her porridge in pancake form. good luck when the time comes.

Mine was like this

I would give her a peeled carrot to suck on

She'd suck on it for hours

thank you for all the advice

will see how it goes with the little monster. Hopefully I can put off the weaning as long as possible... I go back to work in 3 weeks and DH is going to be SAHD - think he might give in and let him eat but then it's down to him to deal with it and not me

ooooh, get him to come and post on my blog, will you to say how he's getting on? here it would be great to have a dad on board. and you shoudl join the yahoo group too, or have you done so already? here
good luck

I've added your blog to bookmarks for him - can't promise he'll post though. Not sure he's going to cope too well at home alone but I'll definately let him know

great, thanks. and of course you should get him to register on mumsnet and then you'll know that he will cope just fine...

Gave ds a baby spoon to play with as he started it at aroud 15 weeks, although no knowing what he was doing. he is 22 weeks and not started weaning as such, but let, his suck on fruit that i am eating for the past week.