Not quiiiite completely converted, but do want to thank the BLW crowd for

[twelveyeargap]

giving me the confidence to ditch puree and mush of all descriptions almost as soon as we started weaning and give DD2 whatever we have for dinner (minus salt). It was reassuring to know she wasn't going to choke on the foods I was going to give her.

By not quite converted, I mean that I just cannot bear and never will be able to let her feed herself shepherds pie or yoghurt and other messy foods until such time as she's more proficient with a spoon, but she does get to try things by herself without me pushing them at her and she prefers to eat things she can hold herself.

I now have a baby who at 8 months eats absolutely anything put in front of her. She's hasn't refused a new food yet. Loves a bit of toast, chunks of butternut squash, wedges of pineapple, spicy foods and so on. A far cry from my friend's baby who still eats only puree, at 10 months.

my mil stared wistfully at my 7mo DD eating sardines on toast the other day and said "I can't believe the hours of my life I wasted playing aeroplanes with mush on a spoon trying to get her dad to eat."

Of course the downside is that you can't eat anything without the lo expecting a bit of it. No biscuits until 7pm for me now

oh god, the biscuits. dd gets up in the morning and searches for stray chocolate that i may have inadvertently left behind...
that's cool, twelveyear, isn't it? i think we all find our level of BLW etc that we're happy with, sounds like everything is going famtastically well.

Sometimes I can be found ducking into the kitchen for secret biscuits. You'd think I could go without for a few hours.

DH was immensely proud of DD2 when were in a restaurant when she was 7 months and she sat up and ate our roast lamb dinner. The other diners couldn't believe the wee thing was stuffing a roast potato in her mouth.

I think I might be a bit braver at the start of weaning with the next one. We'll see.

lol, when i was pg with dd for the first twelve sicky weeks dh swore she was going to come out looking like a jaffa cake.

That's great twelveyear, it's hard not to feel smug isn't it?

DD has been having water from a doidy cup and now she thinks that she is entitled to drink from every cup!

I have had no choice but to convert! But we are slowly getting there the proof was in the nappy today after she ate half an omlette loaded with cheese and fried in butter we just need to find the highest calorie finger foods that she can cope with holding/eating well done to you all for helping to encourage others I am gonna try keep away from the hv till she bangs on some weight otherwise we are getting referred.

oh that is good. although personally, i wouldn't be too fussed about goiing to a paed really, they're not judging your parenting skills, they do just want to help. (which is, ahem, not always the case with HVs. )

So lovely to hear these stories. I'm really looking forward to DS's first experiments - 6 or so weeks to go.

Bad, bad news about the biscuits. I saw him eyeing up a Cadbury's finger today. (Or ten of them. I hear babies like repetition though, so ten is good. )

they can wat yoghurt and shepherds pie with their hands ... it is messy but they can!

Also, if you load a spoon, you'd be surprised how quickly they get the hang of feeding themselves with it. The scooping bit comes later. Did BLW, but experimented for fun, and DD made it abundantly clear that the only hand holding a spoon near her mouth was her own. Which I was very happy about!