6 months finger food- just tastes?

[squizita]

Being a bit pfb. .. my mum says this is normal.

Just started weaning at 6 months using roughly mashed and "finger" foods. Literally first week!

DD takes the food and chews it up, bit only swallows a bit. She drools out or spits out some then reaches for more.

Part of me thinks it's learning through play/senses. But I'm checking it's "normal"! She is eating some, I saw broccoli in her poo tmi for example.

Totally normal. She's getting most of her "food" from her milk, you're just getting her used to the idea of food

Totally normal - think of all the motor skills it takes to chew, move the food to the back of her mouth, swallow etc

Super! I thought as much but my pfb worry button is 'on' most of the time. :)

Purée learn to swallow, chewing comes later. Finger food lesrn to chew, swallowing comes later.

There is a baby led weaning website I found useful.

My DS didn't swallow a thing for 2 weeks, but was practicing chewing and holding the food and getting it in his mouth! 5 weeks later he's eating great. Seeing 'evidence' this early is fantastic, she's doing well to swallow any! Milk is more than enough for a bit, this is practice eating. Now at 7 months DS is on two meaks a day, they come on fast.

Littlef00t that's a great way of putting it and encapsulates why I've been giving DS 'real' food, I'd rather he learned the mechanics of eating and ate less now, when it's less important to his nutrition, then have him guzzle loads of purée (and he would, he drinks so much milk!) now, but have to learn to eat in a few months time when he really needs the food. It just makes sense to me.