The mechanic of swallowing food and and breast milk is very different. On the breast, the tongue will just the milk towards the palate at the top at the mouth, whereas in swallowing it needs to be pushed by the tongue to the back of the mouth.
So of course, at the beginning it takes more time to figure it out.
When weaning, step away from the debate spoon vs BLW - which just focus on how (a spoon or a finger) the food will reach the mouth - and just think about the food you want to give her. Spoon will give you the ability of offer a variety of soups, risottos which you can exactly experience with your fingers (hard core BLW will tell you you can suck soup off fingers, but seriously? ) .
I would suggest you follow your instinct and don't stick to one, as spoon doesn't exclude BLW and vice versa. When you are eating and she is interested, if it is not salty or spicy, let her have a taste from the tip of a spoon. Don't put too much on the spoon at first, and leave the purees quite liquid, more a thick soup than a mash.
In France, we don't steam the veggies, but cook them in 2 or 3 cm of water at very low flame, and then blend the veggies with what will be left of the water after 15 min.
We also do a lot of soups as first food, so it is both a focus on veggies and also a way to introduce flavours in a liquid form. At first the soup is blended, but later, you will cut the veggies in very small dices in a kind of minestrone.
Then will use the soup as the base in which a risotto is cooked, so the rice absorbs the flavours of the vegetables, and in the last minutes of cooking you add a bit of butter and parmesan cheese. Again you can make a risotto quite soupy or thicker.
A soup or broth can also be used to share some of your meals if they are too dry at first, such as a roasted chicken breast. Shred some pieces and give them on a soup.
The important thing is really to determine what diet you want to give your child and what habits . A lot of the processed abby food is junk. All the melty puffs / vegetable chips are just corn flout and oil (like the Doritos) with some added vegetable powders (void of any nutrition) to be able to put a vegetable name on the packet.
Ricecake and granola will give a taste for artificial food sometimes very high in sugar.
Most pouches offer very strange combination which have the sole purpose to attract you, because spinach and blueberries or peas and pear are not food eaten together in real life, and your child will not develop a taste for real food but for artificial sweet based combination.
It is summer in UK, there will be plenty of watermelon, sweet melon, and other loverly juicy fruit which are perfect as first taters. You can squish them with the back of a fork but she will soon know how to do so with her gums.
You are doing well so far by having her at your side during your meals. You can even take them together, her with her plate, you with yours, and alternate between her food/ your food.
Just be aware of the salt, baby kidney are too fragile to deal with the salt, so add salt at the table.