BLW - 7 months+ and still hardly swallowing... suggestions?

[pupuce]

Am all for BLW... BF is going really well but my DD still doesn't appear to swallow much though today I think we saw her actually swallow! She is good at putting in mouth, spitting out.
Have tried brocoli, asparagus (it's in season!), bread, pasta (chunky ones), baby biscuits (Peter Rabbit ones - got given a packet!), red pepper, a couple of home made chips and babana.... what should i try? We've been at it for about 1 mont, we started after 6 months as she didn't appear that interested. She is happily BF.
Thanks

hey pupuce

i think at this stage, babies don;t swallow a whole lot..it is more about discovering tastes and textures, and the odd bit goes in...obviously, she is still getting lots of excellent nutrition from breast milk....

if she was on puree..she might be only having a spoon or two , so it always starts off with a little bit of solids, then builds from there

sweet potato seems to be a good one too

check out the blog, if you;ve not already done so

www.babyledweaning.com

My ds didn't swallow properly for a while either, at least 7 months... the first things he really started to get down were either crumbly or very soft. Stuff like omelette, or some of the broccoli patty things on the blog.

Hi Pupuce - my 6 mo is exactly the same and after a couple of weeks is showing no signs of increasing her swallowing! I believe that it's absolutely fine as breast milk provides the bulk of their nutrients for a good while yet. I think just throw as many different things at her and let her just play and explore. We've renamed meal times as 'messy play' in our house! It's just the start of a process - they explore and then learn to move food around in the mouth and reject things they don't want and then not be phased by 'harmless' 'bits' etc and then the swallowing by design rather than by accident. It will all come good!

thanks
We're not worried just wondering how it happens for others !
Our DD is starting to have more wakings... she just woke now !!! and I expect another 1 or 2 times before 7AM. Her siblings slept through the night at 9 and 6 weeks.... so I guess I'm paying for it now LOL (she has never slept through the night).

it may be that her tongue thrust reflex is taking a while to move back in her mouth. i think it happens at different rates for different children, from what i've read, so that might explain the spitting out. the more she puts in her mouth, the further back it will go.

there is a very disgusting example i can give of how people train their gag reflex to go right down their throat in order to further their professions... just use your imagination.

Oh god LOL

I went onto your site last night and had a look at all the pics... am now going to try magoes and pears...

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i had similar probs with my dd, until at 8 months i tried giving her purée for the first part of the meal, and finish of blw style. that worked better. then i slowly cut down on the purée and now she's chomping happily away.

i had similar probs with my dd, until at 8 months i tried giving her purée for the first part of the meal, and finish of blw style. that worked better. then i slowly cut down on the purée and now she's chomping happily away.

oops don't know what happened there...

i think that your HV's suggestion isn't a great one, tbh. the bottom line is that milk should be the main source of nutrition for the first year, so cutting feeds runs contrary to that. what happens if you use a spoon? nothing heavy or tricksy, just hold a spoon out for him to try? personally i'm of the opinion that getting stressed and unhappy about BLW completely defeats the poiint of doing it, so if like warty you think the baby (and you, more to the point) might feel better with a bit of spoonfeeding then go for it.

Might be worth reposting and asking for the opinion of speech and language therapists (SALTS) who work with children, just in case they have any sage advice about swallowing which you can then tell your HV...

Coming v late to this thread but have had exactly the same probs as Locksikas. One month on - any progress Locks? And, if so, what helped? My DS (8.5ms and two months into BL weaning) is keen but still gagging violently on pretty much everything. Oh, except cheese.

when you say you tried at 6 months then 7 months then 8 months...what was happening in between? and i'm not sure you can be detrmined with blw really. you just put the food in front of them to play with and expect nothing more than that. lots of babies don't get into food until they're 8 or 9 months old, especially bf babies. please don't reduce his bf like your HV says. just keep presenting food to him in lots of different shapes, textures, colours and let him play with it and keep up the bf.

I think what helped weaning with ds was that, because he had really bad colic early on, we used colief at every feed. As I was bf, this meant that when he wanted a feed I had to express a small amount of milk, mix with the colief and then try to get this down him before letting him have a feed. We used a spoon to do this.

This meant that he was used to having a spoon used for food, and connected it with something good - so that anything that I put on the spoon for him was at least thrust into his mouth quite happily, with the anticipation that it was going to be food.

Early on we found purees the best option, and he loved mashed banana - very well mashed initially, almost smoothie consistency. He also liked avacado and pear mixed, plums and apple, apple with other things etc. But to start with these were all quite a liquid puree, only getting more substantial after a little while. You can even use ebm to make the purees more liquid - which will be keeping up the milk content of the diet as well as encouraging dc to try other foods - they will at least be slightly familiar that way.

I ended up doing BLW as my little independent DD will not let me feed her. Its only now at nearly 9 months is the variety of food she is prepared to eat is going up. She loves pitta bread and cream cheese or home made homous and survived on that for a couple of weeks at least. She doesn't like brocolli or carrots - looks good in the BLW photos but DD sucks and never eats them. She loves the organic frozen peas and sweetcorn - played for them for a month now loves them. I spoon feed yoghurt though - she tends to allow me but now favours whole fruit over yoghurt - hated banana until recently, loves grapes, strawberries and raspberries. I know how frustrating meal times can be. Read a brilliant book by the La Leche league entitled my child won't eat. Basically BF babies self regulate - if she was hungry she would eat more solids.

Not had time to read whole thread, but can relate. dd early on would gag and puke at just about anything...I thought it was partly due to extra issues she might have (floppy larynx) but now suspect its fairly normal.

We found things that dissolve in her mouth, like steamed pear/apple, Heinz Biscottis, very well steamed squash or sweet potato, seemed to work - and that encouraged her, which was a good start. I would'nt normally go for snacks at this age, but she couldn't cope with much else - so Organix carrot or corn snacks helped. She also liked sucking cheese, then moved on to toast at about 7.5 months (via pizza-dough garlic bread, that was a big hit) and rusks dipped in hummus or cream cheese.

This thread, and a couple of others, are really helpful - often feel stuck for ideas!