Not sure I'm doing this correctly, reassurance needed

[BalaRua]

I'm starting to try blw with my 6 month old ds. Trying one food at a time as to make sure he doesn't have a reaction. He doesn't 'eat' much but obviously it's very early days.

My mum keeps saying blw is stupid and I should give him a 'proper dinner' ie blend a load of stuff together. She thinks this will help him sleep too. But I think this isn't a proper dinner as grown ups don't eat blended/mushed up food. This is the same woman who wanted me to ff rather than bf to make him sleep but he's still bf now with no ff.

But he did choke, probably just gagged really, yesterday which has put me off blw a lot as it's frightening.

I really need some advice or reassurance from somebody better versed in blw please.

Also can anyone recommend a good blw book? Been using info from the internet but think I need a real book now.

Thank you

Hi
I did blw with my two. It is a bit scary the first couple of times they gag but you soon see its just them manipulating the food around - honestly it's amazing how they just get how to eat. My dc2 was demolishing wedges of jacket potato at barely over 6 months and just leaving the skin.

The Baby Led Weaning Cookbook is good, I also like the River Cottage one, and the intro to that is really useful too.

Tbh with dc2, I did (and do) spoon feed some things to try and keep at least a lid on the mess now I have two, but I still don't purée anything. He is still bf but hardly takes any milk in the day, and was still waking in the night so I wasn't quite as patient as with dc1 and was quite keen to make sure he was getting some food in. So in a normal day I might spoon feed weetabix or porridge for breakfast, but give banana slices and toast to chew on. If he has a mainly finger food meal like sandwich, pasta, potato, veg, meat chunks, etc I'll just let him eat and play around, if it's mashed potato or rice or mince, shepherds pie etc I might feed it to him, and I usually feed yoghurt. He gets frustrated when he can't get the food in quickly enough so doesn't mind me feeding him! Dc1 was not keen on being fed so I did loaded spoons and lots of rice cakes with toppings (before they were bad!)

But I don't purée or mash anything that i wouldn't normally eat like that. He is 9 months now and eats the same as (or more than!) my 3 year old....

Good luck - I really recommend it and have two good eaters now. No clue whether it's because I did blw (suspect not!) but I found it much easier for me, and what it definitely did do was make meal times fun and relaxing, which they have stayed.

Don't worry about gagging, their gag reflex is a lot further forward than ours, it doesn't mean they're on the verge of choking.

If you blend everything up you're just creating a new stage where you have to transition them to lumps, my Mum seemed to understand a lot better when I explained it like this.

Are you spoon feeding at all? DD2 has zero coordination, she waves her arms around at random, so there's no way she would ever get anything in her mouth. I'm intending to spoon feed her our food, so she gets the lumps etc but I'm not relying on her to get it in her mouth!

You don't need to worry about only offering 1 new food per meal (unless you really want to). Think how much more exciting an experience it would be to have a variety of different food with different colours, tastes & textures to explore & taste! My hubby is allergic to fish & nuts so I introduced these foods only with food my children had already tried but other than that they both had 3 or 4 new things at each of the 3 meals a day they were usually awake for (the same meals as us, just larger pieces).

With the gagging I would definitely advise googling videos to see the difference between gagging & choking as gagging is actually how they learn to eat properly whilst the gag reflex is so much further forward. Also an infant first aid course could be very helpful.

My daughter gagged quite a lot at the beginning of weaning but the more practice she got at handling different food the more in control of it she became.

If you haven't already read it yet I would really recommend reading the Gill Rapley book on BLW. I borrowed a copy from my local library & scanned some of the pages to share with both sets of grandparents who were very nervous at the beginning but who are now huge advocates.

Good luck & try to have fun

Hi.

I suppose I did a mix of finger foods&purees with my first, and more baby led weaning with my second.

Firstly, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to their sleep!

The gagging thing is a bit scary at first but they seem to know how to manage it.

Don't worry about giving individual foods. Perhaps just trial key allergens like eggs, peanut butter etc if you're bothered.

I really just chuck whatever we're having on my almost seven month olds tray - sandwiches, roast dinner, curry, scrambled egg, pasta etc. Yes, it's very messy but she has a fair crack at it all.

Giving a mix of 'proper food' and stuff on a spoon is totally fine too. Doesn't really matter what you do.

Food is fun until one so they say, so at six months it's just about a taste of this and that, and testing out holding stuff.

Thanks all. Feel a bit better now. Especially that their gag reflex is farther forwards :). I shall continue with confidence