BLW...has anyone started before 26 weeks, and if so was it successful?

[mumof2pixies]

I know...another baby Led Weaning thread!!!
My dd is 20 weeks, and I wanted to BLW her at 6 months. I weaned my ds at 17 weeks, as at that time thats what you did, and until I discovered mumsnet which was only a month ago (!), I hadnt heard of BLW and was ready to stock up on the baby rice for dd at 17 weeks! So glad I didnt! Luckily round here the HV's are anti weaning before 6 months...so if I had been caught red handed with the dreaded rice I would have been shot at dawn! Although, I was planning on weaning her at 17 weeks regardless, as I didnt think it had done ds any harm...and sometimes I think you can become very defensive about the decisions youve made in the past...which is why inlaws etc must think we are bonkers with this BLW stuff! Anyway...slightly off track there!

What I wanted to ask was, did you all wait till 26 weeks or later with BLW? Its just my dd is intensely crabby of late...and is waking in the night sometimes every hour! Which of course I realise may be nothing to do with hunger at all...
But...on a couple of occasions in the last week, when shes been fed, shes not tired, her nappy is fine, she doesnt seem to want to play, or rest...and shes just really stroppy...I peeled a banana and sat her on my knee, and I just held it in my hand, and she lent forward and scoffed the lot! This wasnt exactly how I intended things to go...but I have convinced myself that it is sort of BLW, as I just held it there, and she would lean forward and suck it and gum it to death, and pull away for a bit, then come back for more! I suppose Im just looking for reassurance that its okay to do this! Its certainly not something I plan to do everyday! I may not offer anything else until 26 weeks at all...but I just dont want to start out on the wrong foot iyswim!
Thanks in advance!!

we started at 24 weeks and tbh it didn't really suit us. He gagged the whole time and got really frustrated. Now he has a mix of puree and finger foods and is much happier. He has learned how to chew and rarely gags. We are now at 28 weeks. I found that starting on finger foods before all else was 'too much too soon', but I know that this isn't BLW as others might see it. As far as I'm concerned though, DS led me in this direction.

Mumof, I started ds at 25 weeks but although he did pick up his food and put it in his mouth there was a lot of gagging. In fact, it wasn't until he was about seven months that he really started to get into it and really eat for Britain!!

Just a thought: around 20 weeks or so my ds started to wake up (even more) during the night... I wondered if it was time to wean but then realised what was happening... he was at the age where he was far too distracted during the day to feed so was making up for it at night. I started introducing two "deliberate" daytime feeds upstairs lying on the bed with curtains closed. His night waking went back to normal (i.e. two or three times not four or five times!)

It can't hurt I'm sure to put a few finger foods in front of your dd and see what she does, not hand them to her but just put them in front of her iyswim.

We started at 22/23 weeks (can't really remember) when ds2 grabbed a banana and scoffed it.

It was very successful and ds2 had never had pureed or mashed food, or been spoonfed.

He got the hang of BLW straight away, and never really gagged at all. HTH

DD is now nearly 25 weeks. We waited till 26 with DS, but DD is able to sit up independently for a few minutes, she's able to chew (as my nipples can testify) and she feeds every 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Day and night. Aargh! I think she's ready.

Anyway, yesterday we started plonking her in her highchair, so she feels she's joining in, and when there's something suitable on the menu, we leave it in front of her. She chewed on some baby sweetcorn and spat it out again. That's the extent of weaning so far but I wouldn't want to do anything more proactive than that because, well, it's meant to be BLW!

I gave vegetable sticks from just after 23 weeks. He ate more than I had expected - I thought they would mostly go in the bin!

i thik the gist of the research is that there is no appreciable harm being done after 17 weeks but no appreciable good either, so that gap between 4-6 mos seems to be a bit of a grey area where we still don't know yet about the permeability of the gut, the increase in allergies, IBS, Crohns etc so it's better to be safe than sorry, iykwim? especially as it's doing no harm to give them milk.
in fact, it may be that the early introduction of solids in puree form on a spoon by people who are more force-feeding than anything else (so a small subsection) may fill their tummies up with less nutritious food than the milk they'd otherwise be getting.
wrt your question, what BLW posits is that when the babies are ready, they do it. it's just a theory, but it's one that makes sense because if all the development is coming together to a point where the child can self-feed it makes sense that they're also ready internally as well.
so i'd say that if they can do it, let them do it, at least that's what i'll do if there's ever another baby in the family. but keep off the gluten before 6 months, though, and watch out for the fact that bananas (as i'm sure you know) can cause constipation.

My lo started at 23 weeks - she seemed keen - was sitting up unaided and putting things in her mouth. I started off on very simple veg and fruit until the 26th week.

Anyway - she took too it brilliantly - never gagged and you could see her dexterity improving every week. She's now a year old and is a great eater.

I always make an effort to have meals together so she's always watching us eating seated at the table even before we started giving her food. I'm not sure if that made a difference to her being so keen to start early.

Thanks for all your replies!!! I really want to do BLW, as even now my 3 year old wants me to 'help' him with his food...ie put the spaghetti on his fork and sometimes shovel it in his mouth...the lazy so and so!! I so dont want to be doing that with dd! I havent offered her any food for a few days now as her mood seems to have improved, but its great to know that if I felt she would like try something it wouldnt hinder our success with BLW! We're still having some rough nights with her walking every hour and a half sometimes...and only the boob seems to get back off again, but obviously this may not be hunger related. I know what you mean MerryXMoss, about being too distracted during the day to feed properly, and I think this may be the case here!
Got to go as shes just woken up, shes only been in bed 15 mins!
Thanks again for all your replies!