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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

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Original poster

BLW and bottle feeding..............can I still do it?

23 replies

JenumGeranium · 21/11/2007 15:39

My ds has been bottle fed from birth and I would like to start the BLW with him (when he is 6 months).

All the threads I have looked at, the babies have been bf.

Any advice would be good! Thanks!

OP posts:

StealthPolarBear · 21/11/2007 15:43

See aitch's rant

StealthPolarBear · 21/11/2007 15:44

Sorry, the gist is, yes!

Original poster

JenumGeranium · 21/11/2007 15:48

Hehe!

Will have a look ta!

OP posts:

talktothebees · 21/11/2007 15:56

JG same story with me ...well almost. I made a very bad job of breastfeeding for about 5 days but I don't think we want to hear another failed bf story do we?

Anway baby bees has been on the bottle since then. How old is your little one? Just wondering if we might be likely to both be starting this at the same time?

Original poster

JenumGeranium · 21/11/2007 16:02

He is 16 weeks at the mo!

I just started to think about weaning as he seems very interested in what we are eating, but looking through various threads it seems that its still too early.

Then I saw thrads on BLW and found that very interesting - hence the original question!

How old is your little one tttb? Would be lovely to have a 'weaning partner' so to speak!

OP posts:

talktothebees · 21/11/2007 16:28

DD is 21 weeks so I guess I'm likely to be starting before you. In fact I posted on here a couple of days ago asking can I let her suck on a bit of broccoli and it all went horribly wrong for a bit....

Anyway since then I have let her hold/play with/lick banana, apple and cucumber. I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as BLW because she's not eating them as such. My DD has been intently watching people eat since she was teeny-tiny and I have been sorely tempted to let her have a play with some of the less allergenic foods for weeks. I would have been worried giving her something earlier than now though.

How's your DS doing with his holding things and holding his head up and all that other BLW indicator stuff?

Original poster

JenumGeranium · 21/11/2007 17:50

Ooh whats all the BLW indicator stuff?

He can hold his head up fine - has been able to do for ages now and he can hold a rattle too!

OP posts:

flowerybeanbag · 21/11/2007 17:52

I'm doing it!

Back in a bit..

talktothebees · 21/11/2007 17:56

Oh thank the lord, someone who knows what they're on about!! I think it's just wait til their 6 months-ish, losing their tongue thrust reflex, can hold their head up, can hold things in their hand and suck on them....I really wouldn't look to me for advice. I can't keep tropical fish alive so the sooner DD learns to feed herself the better.

TheQueenOfQuotes · 21/11/2007 18:06

Well DS3 (who'll be 6 months old on Saturday) is FF and we're doing BLW with him. We actually started about 1 month ago as the tongue reflex thing had gone and fitted all other "requirements" (apart from being 6 months old that is ). He's now really starting to get to grips with it so certainly possible with a FF baby

talktothebees · 21/11/2007 18:38

Hope you don't mind me asking, how did you know his tongue-thrust reflex had gone?

TheQueenOfQuotes · 21/11/2007 18:40

because I let him have some of my banana as he was repeatedly trying to grab it, it kept slipping through his fingers so I broke a piece off and put it in his mouth, he chewed, swallowed, looked rather shocked and the launched forward to get some more LOL

flowerybeanbag · 21/11/2007 18:46

Back again

DS is 27 weeks now, we started when he hit 6 months. I had read stuff about BLW including lots of stuff about it being breastfed babies and ooer don't know how well it would work with ff babies.

I chose to ignore all that. I thought it sounded right for us and I couldn't think of any logical reason why DS being ff meant he had to have pureed mush from a spoon.

He doesn't actually 'eat' very much yet, but loves playing with it all and usually ends up swallowing some. Favourite so far are asparagus and banana. Banana was hilarious, he couldn't hold it himself, kept slipping but was dead keen so I held it near him and he manoeuvred (sp?) my hand towards his mouth when he wanted some.

talktothebees · 21/11/2007 18:53

ah then from our banana experiment yesterday dd still has tt reflex. Ta very much

TheQueenOfQuotes · 21/11/2007 21:00

we are giving DS3 some bits on a spoon - but not mashed or pureed (last night was mince cooked with beans and rice) he's not quite grasped the spoon concept yet (although loves trying to eat one LOL) - but was very interested in eating what we had.....I let him have a go first but he ended up throwing a hissy fit so I helped him out, obviously as he gets more practice he'll get better and we'll back off - and it's only for things that are just not "pick-upable" (ok so I know it's not strictly BLW - but we're still not mashing or pureeing )

AitchTwoOh · 21/11/2007 21:06

it's not not BLW either, QoQ, it's just that spoon feeding isn't necessary except for a few bits and bobs, as you've demonstrated.

AitchTwoOh · 21/11/2007 21:06

i mean.

flowerybeanbag · 21/11/2007 21:07

DS has porridge for breakfast with a spoon. I initially tried to do it for him but he wasn't having a word of it. Now I load the spoon for him then hand it to him and he smears it all over his face/hair and some of it ends up in his mouth

Our dog loves DS's mealtimes, positions himself strategically under the highchair ready to catch errant splats of porridge or sticks of asparagus

TheQueenOfQuotes · 21/11/2007 21:08

oh that's ok then .

I just don't want the poor little (????) thing to miss out just because he can't yet cope with dish (had to give him a spare one with the mince yesterday as he was determined to eat that too LOL) and spoon LOL.

Seems to have a particular liking for cheese.......and now he's 6 months the possibilities have just opened up for what we can give him.

AitchTwoOh · 21/11/2007 21:15

tbh now that he's 6 months you'll porbably see his dexterity come on in leaps and bounds anyway... there'll be no stopping him.

jojosmaman · 21/11/2007 21:34

My ds is being BLW'ed and he has been FF since he was 5 weeks old. I think the thing with BF is that it is supposedly better suited to BLW due to theories of bf babies being able to regulate their food as they did their breast feeds. But if you have fed on demand with your bottle feeds, there is no reason IMO as to why you can't BLW? I didn't and still don't push my 9mth old to finish his bottles, or have bottles at a particular set time as I was afraid of over feeding him and we seem to have done ok! He now eats good amounts of food and is generally drinking less milk to compensate.

HTH!

AitchTwoOh · 21/11/2007 22:04

jojosmaman, it's not just your opinion, it's gill rapley's as well. she posted it on the bottom of that rant that was linked to earlier.

Original poster

JenumGeranium · 23/11/2007 11:24

Thanks for all your advice girls!

I am seriously thinking of trying it. DS is my 3rd and with the other 2 we went down the baby rice, puree, jar road, so will see how this way works out!

Still got a couple of months to wait anyhow!

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