Want to start BLW this weekend but feeling chicken - anyone want to hold my hand?

[phdlife]

Ds will be 26 weeks on Friday (hurrah!) and I've been wanting to try BLW, but feeling nervous, mainly coz I don't know anyone who's tried it, and the mums I usually get support from have never even heard of it! (plus I am just a worry-wart!)

I sorta had an aborted go last weekend, feeling pushed by HV - ds got some mashed sweet potato on Saturday (he was indifferent to the sweet potato, but my god he loved that spoon) and he grabbed my banana and shoved it in his gob on Sunday. But his little face looked so worried, and I really don't know how we're going to fit his mealtimes in with ours, and I feel even less sure about how to start the whole process off...

So, anyone else about to start BLW? Let's do it together! [hopeful emoticon]

going OK here, although T tends to stick stuff in his mouth, chew and then we get all excited that he might have swallowed it, only to find it stuck to the back of his highchair when we lift him out
Also, just realised, all those bibs we were bought when he was born...now might be the time to actually start using them! Feeling a bit thick but it hadn't actually occured to me

Amazing!

Sat ds down in his feeding chair, plonked some roasted butternut squash on the tray and he just picked it up and ate it!! And he was grinning and making happy baby noises. Gagged a couple of times but didn't seem bothered.

Hooray for BLW!

wow, that's great. well done liathbaby.

and smb as well, of course. that's why i liked the ikea chair, so easy to clean those stoopid bits up.

ooh - thank for this thread. still a couple of months off weaning but been thinking about blw. def mostly interested in the help themselves and the all eat together part of it,but suspect I will bottle it on the large clumps of food side - just know i will be para about choking and don't want dd to pick up on that.

start with chip-shaped veg, size of your pinky finger and steamed or roasted to oblivion. not much can happen in the beginning, if they take something too big they tend to let it drop out again.

Am going to make those lovely veg nuggets off your website this weekend Aitch, trouble is they are so nice I'll end up scoffing them!

So far this seems less messy than purees, dd used to end up coated and would grab at the spoon, pinging food across the room LOL! I videoed today's effort - how sad is that?

ah. well give them time on the mess front... i'm shuddering at the memory of broccoli. i wish i'd videoed dd, tbh, i look back at photos of her eating and i can't believe it's the same child.

hello, just thought I'd add that the big hit with DS is steamed courgette sticks- the skin holds it all together, but the inside bit is so soft that I feel certain that he's consuming it. I think only a minute amount of everything else he's tried has really 'gone in'.
He's so happy to be sat at the table with us and big sister DD. Though DD has now taken to eating apple rings and rusks too!

Oh, a question though, Liath - you said you would be making the veg nuggets from the BLW website- but they contain breadcrumbs and cheese. Does that mean you're making them in advance to freeze, or will be giving them to your DS? (I think he's about the age of my DS- 6 months?)
Just asking because I'm not quite sure when to make the leap from veg sticks to more 'grown up' food. I have that list of foods print out from the BLW site. But then reading that bit about all the babies eating steak with no teeth makes me wonder if I'm being too hesitant?

Am planning on freezing them, will probably stick to fruit/veg initially. I make my own bread with less salt

Thanks. DH makes our bread too, though I have yet to persuade him on the less salt thing. He comes form a family that uses A LOT of salt. They even put extra salt on peanut butter

HI everyone - glad to hear everything is going well for you all. DD still eating something every day (had some minging nappies!) She wasnt too bothered today but did eat some rice cake and hummus and a bit of banana. Then I think she just got fed up sitting in the chair as it takes her AGES to gum anything - no teeth yet!
She LOVED broccoli and parsnip yesterday tho.

Love this thread!!! Not getting much support for BLW offline...

try here as well, geeky.

Hello every one

I'm going to start BLW at the end of Nov and can't wait. In thw meantime i'm going to follow your posts and learn as much as i can
(thanks for the link to your msg board Aitch-I've just joined it too)

Even before i've had my dd i always thought that pureeing (?) all food sounds very odd. And then I've found Mumsnet and read about BLW .

I had already read about BLW here but was impressed when they showed me literature about it at my local breastfeeding group - seems the word is getting around!

Welcome Ahhchewww by the way! Hope we can be of some help before you start.

Hello everyone, just a quick update. DS has mastered the art of the banana like nobody's business, but mommy is still hesitant to try much more...I see him in the evening, so he's got very little patience for the BLW...for example, I gave him a rice cake and while he was chomping away he was crying! I tried to take it away and he stuffed it into his mouth! And cried some more! Poor bear. I promptly put him to bed.

I don't really feel the need to push the point. He is a healthy, big boy (bordering on perhaps a bit overweight, which is a shocker since DH and I are both slim), and the breastfeeding relationship is going very well, and he doesn't seem hungry. He's not having trouble sleeping through the night, and I am happy to feed him on cue throughout the night because he's right next to me in the bed.

Does anyone think that I must either feed him via BLW or stuff him with purees before he's one? If I don't emphasize it, am I setting us up for some problem I can envision?

Finally, what about iron? My doctor recommended a multi-vitamin, but I don't see much iron in it, and I know my milk isn't giving him what he needs in that category...

help.

hi RoroMommy,

all the stuff about puree-led weaning here says bf babies need vitamin drops, but I know there are bf advocates here who scoff at that suggestion. dunno the answer myself.

glad you revived this thread and liked your question about 'pushing the point'.

will post my own progress report in a mo

well GCSE has taken a real shine to broccoli and will ignore everything else on the plate to get to it (bless)

if I give him a finger of baby corn or carrot he will have an enthusiastic go, but couldn't have cared less when I tried him with zucchini today!

am finding the timing of meals extremely difficult. If he's not hungry, he just wants to play with the plate (ie, tip it upside down). If he IS hungry, he gets all screechy and frustrated. So he's only have a tiny bit before getting bored (if not hungry) or screechy (because too hungry).

Any tips on how to get round this?

what I've found is that I am not nearly so worried about him "getting enough" with BLW, although this might have something to do with him being DS3 and I'm more laid back this time!

I suppose sometimes, they're just not hungry - like adults (although, I have to say, I'm usually hungry )
Just giv e a good choice of things and try them again the next day even if they didn't like them the first time

hmm I didn't think I was worried about how much/little he's getting so much as giving him good opportunities to make friendly with food.

think the problem is that he goes from zero to STARVING so quickly (hmm gee wonder where he got THAT from, oh yeah it was me ) it often takes me unawares - it can be anywhere between 1.5 - 3hrs.

oh darn, he's awake again!

on the timings thing - at first (and to an extent now - he's 8m) I just carried on breastfeeding as usual and only gave him food when we were sitting up at the table. So if he was asleep and missed a meal, I wouldn't try and catch it up later. Hopefuly, that way I've managed to get round the him being too hungry and can't get the food in quick enough thing