BLW is all very well if....

[babybore]

1. Your baby has very good gross motor skills
2. You are not concerned about their weight gain
3. You have the time and money to prepare a wide variety of foods, most of which end up on the floor.

My dd is 7 months, weaned at 6. I was looking forward to weaning her as she was under her growth curve and I thought it might help her get back on it (it has). I have been trying finger foods but have mainly relied on home-cooked mashed or pureed food as she does not yet have the dexterity or the brain development to understand that the stick of brocolli put in front of her is her lunch, no matter how long I leave her with it.

If I had done BLW, my baby would be unhappy and underweight (she loves her solids) and I would be miserable and worried. So while it works for some babies I really think a degree of caution needs to be exercised in believing that all babies can eat finger foods from 6 months.

Lock, I can understand your confusion, but if you give solids at 6 months or later, then you don't need to avoid anything.

The honey thing is massively over-played....most commercial honey is pasteurised so no risk of the botulism spores that are (supposedly) a risk with untreated honey in babies under a year.

I personally would not give raw egg as a first food ;) but most healthy babies shd be able to cope with the tiny risk of finding infective salmonella in soft boiled eggs.

Wheat is not an issue after 6 mths.

(this all assumes your baby has no known allergies to anything specific).

hi locksikas, i know it all seems a bit daunting but it's not so bad as all that. why don't you start a thread (cos this one's getting a bit long) and we'll come and find you. the puree feeders and the BLWers can do battle to win your fair hand...

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you sound like you've been lucky to come out relatively unscathed. there's a programme coming up called 'freaky eaters' on BBC3 and it's about all these people who only eat crisps and whatnot. i've seen a couple of them already and there's generally an emotional issue at the heart of it...

have you looked here ? it's a blog i started when i began. there is a wee section on allergies (not written by me, i don't have a clue, but by a very smart friend of mine) and there's a woman called moomin who has been most gracious in thinking up wheat-free and egg-free recipes. if you search for her name you'll find her recipes.

i'll come and find you, i promise.

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Aitch - you haven't studied the recipes on your blog enough you know. Courgette fritters are on there as a separate recipe from sweetcorn patties. Both are yummy.

i just post 'em up...
did someone not say on the sweetcorn recipe that she'd tried them with courgette, or am i imagining that? we're having pals round for a takeaway tonight anyway so dd is being put to bed early. she had leftover canneloni for lunch and it will be defrosted lamb stew (ENID's RECIPE!!) for tea.

sorry blundering inn again , as everyine in here ! ok so Im sqeeuzin me grated courgttes , says to add salt in the recipe ?????????????????????????? See I always salt my courgettes , as these are bitter, hmmmm. Im thinking add an egg yolk may be for binding ???

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eloooooo codddy

Melsy - are you not using the recipe from Aitch's blog? No salt needed at all. If you're not using it then do - posted 8th Nov in recipes section. I posted a comment re the coriander and egg too which you may want to read.

hi cant sleep , can only find a NOv one and theres taljk of salt at the end of ingredients, cant find your bit.

doh > !!! see it now !

Just realised my post didn't make sense. What I meant to say was that I am pretty sure our ancestors would mash food and then feed their babies. And I'm sure the babies would also be grabbing at the nearest bone to chew. Spoon feeding and finger foods makes the most sense to me.

kels, I think you are probably right, that there would be some parental assistance in making the texture easier and more enjoyable for the baby, and probably some hand-feeding, too, popping bits in the baby's mouth, alongside letting the baby have access to other stuff....no one would be making a big deal of the precise age of the baby, that's for sure, and parents would be responding to what the baby seemed to want.

They would not be puree-ing sabre-tooth tiger cutlets into gloop, on the day their baby hit x weeks, either, or worrying because the baby was waking at night!

In times of scarcity, food would be shared round adults and older children first, and babies and toddlers would be mainly breastmilk fed for much longer than we would do now.

Aitch - I do rather think your blog lacks recipes for sabre-tooth tiger and pterodactyl......

tiktok

thing is kels666, in ancient times people were just grateful not to be starving... it's only now that we talk of appetite control with a straight face.

yes, appetite control is really a very new phenomenon because for the majority of human history there was no such thing as excess food or obesity. and things like junk food hae a real potential for fooling the appetite in a way that our ancestors' diets did not
but it's a very real concern nevertheless given rates of obesity

Tell that to the Greeks.

ANCIENT Greeks.

are you saying the greeks are fat QV

Yeah, ancient greeks were a bit puddeny.

Gluttons they were.