Is BLW actually safe? (*not* about choking!)

[caughtintheact]

I am currently in the early stages of BLW my DD, she's a week off 7 months and I've been having major doubts. I'm hoping people can help me work out whether my concerns are valid or just first time mum paranoia!!
So, who first said "food is just for fun until they're one"? Where does this come from? It seems to me to be extrapolated from "milk should provide the majority of a babies nutritional needs until the age of one". But- that is not saying that complementary foods are not important, just that they do not form the majority of the baby's diet...
It seems that most BLW babies (from what I've heard and read and IME) eat much less than spoon fed babies for about the first couple of months. Even though it's hopefully a relatively short time until they start feeding themselves significant amounts could it be that babies actually need adult help (i.e. spoons) to get enough food into them for this period? From the point of view of the critical vits and mins if not calories?
Also, might they actually need food to be mashed, minced or pureed to enable them to actually digest enough of it to get the goodies out?
I do realise there are lots of people on here who have done BLW and their babies haven't faded away or anything, but I was not very reassured when I found out that Gill Rapley's study was only on 5 babies...

swede - FYI the 6 months recommendations have been around in this country since 2003.

Really interested to know where Gill Rapley recommends purees at 4-6 months...never heard that before...do you have link/book I could look up?

swede, do you have any scientific references or links for what you're saying?
Gill Rapley emphatically Does Not recommend purees before 6 months, she just doesn't. she has been wildly mis-quoted recently, perhaps you've picked that up wrongly?
i don't dispute that mothers pre-chewed food for babies, but why on earth would they pre-chew something that the baby can already eat? Meat, if it was tough, makes sense but the rest of it just doesn't.
i'd also aver that mothers for whom food is a scarce commodity might prefer to spoon feed mush as there is, it seems to me, less waste involved. But at this point in history as never before, and in this part of the world, it's teaching children how to cope with an excess of food that's important and BLW may be relevant to that.

we pick and choose, at first ds2 was as happy being spoon fed mush at dinner time mostly sue to tiredness, he will always be spoonfed yoghurt, he adores it.
but he eats everything else himself, when I can sit with him I offer him things off my fingers too which he appreciates if he is tired.
He is quite good with his own spoon, if I load it up he can get it in quite skillfully.

If I tried to spoonfeed him most of the time though he would simply clamp his gorgeous little mouth closed and turn away
It's good for him, in not just gastronomic/nutrition terms, but socially, emotionally his relationship with food is his, not mine.
It's also bloody great you can get on with other things while he is eating instead of siting there enslaved to pushing in many spoonfuls...

And the mess... well we sweep it up 4 x a day and clean it properly once a day with detergent.
He stays remarkably clean

this doesn't give ages but it does indicate that weaning off the breast did not have health benefits for children, for example.

and I will pre chew some of our food if the situation dictates... spesh for meat

i did too, funnily enough. just to soften things up a bit in the beginning. not chew so much as 'bite a couple of times', though. they say that kissing came from the mummy bird action of chewing and placing purees in the mouth. i can totally imagine people doing that if food was scarce, the priority would be to get it straight into their mouths and waste zero.

'they say', lol, not exactly referenced. i've read it a few times, deffo.

just caught this thread and it's been fascinating reading. I was determined to BLW, but caved ever so slightly due to a combination of HV and family pressure, an "it was ok for DS" line of thought, and a once sleepoing now three times a night wakeful baby and gave her some baby rice at 19 weeks. Only a few tbsp twice a day and the sleeping improved....for about a week. When we tried to step up a gear with fruit and veg purees, she made it clear that she wasn't interested. So, at 21 weeks, she is back to being exclusively BF, and is sleeping well once more. I'm now a big bit disappointed that I caved and that I didn't listen to those who said it was just a growth spurt and we would get through it.

She is starting to grab at food though so not sure she'll go till 26 weeks, but I am definately going to sit back and let her take the lead from now on.

My one concern over the whole BLW thing is regarding iron. I've read that the iron store babies are born with is pretty much depleted by 6 months and to get iron rich and/or fortified foods into them as quickly as possible after that. My question, and rather an ignorant one at that, is how much iron is in BM? surely if it were that much of an issue, there'd be anaemic babies everywhere?

sorry that was a bit garbled. I've got a head cold and my brain feels like pureed baby mush.

the iron thing, imho, is something spouted by formula and baby food manufacturers. iron stores START to deplet at 6 months, they don't run out all together at that point. there is some stuff on kellymom.com about iron and bf babies, very reassuring.

also, whatever iron rich foods you would be giving a puree fed baby can still be eaten by a blw baby anyway..apricots, fortified cereals, green leafy veg etc. there is research (see babyledweaning.com) showing that if left to their own devices babies will go for the food their body requires. so if you give them a bowl of spinach and potato, but they need more iron that carbs and vit c, then baby will eat more spinach and less potato.

thanks ruddynorah. I'll have a look on kellymom and at the blw.com. Feeling more re-assured thanks

Article re the benefits of gentle intro of veg/fruit purees before 6 months but still within BLW framework women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article1961406.ece
WitchTwoOh was right, no direct ref to Gill Rapley so my sincerest apologies

In Sweden - which has one of the highest levels of uptake of breastfeeding - the general advice is usually to offer babies some fruit/veg purees between 4/5-6 months (they call them taster portions) with the aim to introduce a wide variety of flavours although in now way with the intention to fill the baby up!

I guess no baby is the same in that some are ready earlier than six months...I let my LO guide me on this.

Interestingly, although official rec was not to wean b4 6 mo from 2003, my sis-in-law was recommended to wean her now 6.5-year-old at 12 weeks and her 3.5-yr-old at 16 weeks! Seems that some health pros have not taken up the official guidelines..in fact as recently as 1.5 years ago my friends with toddlers (8 kids, aged 1.5-2.5 yrs) were recommended to wean between 4-5 months!

Re how weaning was done in the distant past, this was not a recommendation on my part but more an observation and in response to previous queries on how weaning has been done... Of course I don't subscribe to introducing pulp/solids at 12 weeks!!

I'm actually pro BLW but use a mixed approach. My LO likes to feed himself with a spoon (we usually have 4 spoons on the go, with most at some point ending up on the floor!) and if trying new foods will usually want to explore with his fingers only first...

I also give plenty of finger foods but also give him mush at least once a day. When he's full, he just shuts his mouth or turns away so I gather that it is still babyled in a way..

There's quite a useful Dutch website - which is referenced on the BLW website - on when to introduce what women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article1961406.ece

Oops, the BLW when to intro what web link is: www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/weaning_food_introduction_schedule.html

I'll have a look at that later swede70

I think that the vast majority of HPs seem pretty oblivious to the 6 month recommendation swede! Certainly from what my ex-HV friend says, a great deal of HPs simply don't believe that a baby will be able to 'last' until 6 months on milk alone ...and not helped by so much written material still in circulation that states the older recommendations or the lack of proper training for HPs when things like this change. My DS was born in 2004 & yet his red book (which had to be ordered specially as they had ran out at our clinic) still had the weaning age at 4 months in it ...I'm just thankful I had access to the internet & an LLL group so I was more up to date!

i know i put that up on the site, dingdong, and i do really respect stefan kleintjes work... but i think that weaning schedule is REALLY hard core, don't expect to use it as gospel.

I'd like to add to the iron thing that all the iron in a mothers milk can be absorbed whereas only a small % of it from formula or solid food can be. I also agree with everything ruddynorah said.

I know of places where weaning is done at 2 years and I really don't accept that their babies are all anemic!

I think babies differ hugely. I tried the conventional baby rice thing with dd when she was 6 months and she just wasnt interested. I kept trying and she remained uninterested and so was exclusively breast fed until she was 8 months, when she signalled that she was ready to move on by grabbing roast potato off my plate and sucking it to death! From that day she didn't look back (well, until she hit 2 and wouldn't eat anything except smoked salmon and pasta, obviously).

Ds on the other hand was desperate for solid food from about 4.5 months, and it was SO hard to stick to exclusively bf til 6 months, what with him watching every mouthful anyone took in a reproachful way. On his 6 month birthday, we gave him a token spoonful or two of pureed apple, but then just let him get on with it. I did spoon feed him his morning porage -partly because I liked doing it, but also because he liked it so much and was so hungry that he found it hard to shovel it in fast enough by himself, but apart from that, he jsut had selected element of our meals.