Baby led weaner needs a confidence boost.

[DeckthehallsLaDiDaDi]

Could someone just give me some reassurance about how much food their baby ate when doing blw?

DD is 7 months and have been doing blw for a month now but she still often eats very little. Once I gave her puree (spinach with carrots and basmati rice) as I couldn't bear to watch her struggle and make a huge mess with the spinach and she ate tons of it, grabbed the spoon and was stuffing it in herself. I just need someone to tell me that it's normal for los to still be eating only very small amounts when doing blw and to repeat my mantra of "milk should still provide almost all of their calories and nutrition".

Thanks .

absolutely normal and you sound as if you're doing everything right - some days babies willl eat a lot, other days if you deforst 2 ice cubes of puree, over 1/2 can go in the bin, if not more. Don't worry about it, give her loads of praise and keep doing what you're doing.

Get today's Independent - good article on it.

Article is here - it's very good!

fab article!

ladidadi- what you see as her struggling is really her learning. when she learns to read she will 'struggle' but i bet you won't read the whole book for her because you can't bear for her to not know the whole story straight away? does that make sense? let her play and just make sure she gets her milk.

Lovely analogy, DB!

My DDs,( twins born at 35 weeks ),are 7 months and entirely breastfed,(1/2 ' straight' from me,1/2 EBM from bottle ),they are still very happy and satisfied, though smaller than average though this is true of all my children,they were 4lbs 2ozs and 4lbs each at birth.I have three older children,4,5 and 6, and I BEGAN weaning them at between 8 and 12 months.I think children are weaned too early, it is not the norm in most of the world and I think contributes to our childhood obesity problem.The main thing is to try and breastfeed, at least partially for the first 2 years of life, it is good for mums too ! I never ever give 'gloopy' stuff as weaning food either but rather chunks of banana,potato etc. Stuff they can hold, look at and explore before hopefully trying it !

We went through a stage of thinking, what have we done? Should we have done purees?I'm so glad we stuck with it as Alfie eats so well now (see my post on this list about how glad I am we did it). Keep up the good work!

DS ate hardly anything until he was 8 months. He didn't eat much even then, but at least it was a bit more. When he was 11 months he really took off and now, at nearly 18 months, he is a simply brilliant eater. Will tackle anything and everything! Despite the huge amount he now eats, he still isn't fat, and he knows exactly when he's full. I think that's the good thing about BLW - I'm inclined to eat until the plate is empty, and will eat when bored/upset, so I'm thrilled that DS hasn't yet replicated my crap attitude to food.

It is fine LaDiDaDi! At 7mo my ds ate practically nothing, and to be honest I don't think he really developed much of an appetite for solids until after 12mo (even then it was really variable)

I know it is hard but you just have to sit back and let her get on with it - and it is a wonderful way of weaning because you really see your lo learning how to eat real food. I remember feeling so chuffed when ds first manged to pick up a pea by himself

I always found this page on kellymom very reassuring if I was having a momentary panic about ds eating next to nothing.

That Independent article is brilliant, btw.

Thankyou all so much for your replies.

Blackalice, it makes me feel much better to hear that you had moments of doubt too, especially when I read how happy you and Alfie are now .

Mozhe, my dd was born at 32weeks and weighed 3lb 3oz so your post is particularly relevant to me and I really appreciate it .

I've read the linked article and think it's great.

You've all given me the confidence boost that I needed.

All together now: "Give me a B, give me an L, give me a W..."

I'm on a BLW yahoo group (directed there by Aitch i think?) and one of the mums on there has a good mantra which i shall plagiarise for you.. "Food is for fun, until they are one". I personally am bumbling along doing a mixture of purees and finger foods and 8 month dd varies from day to day in eating quite a bit or literally 2 bites. I was stressing but have just learned (from other kind mnetters advice!) to relax and not count what she's eating too much, mealtimes are much more fun for me now too!