If you combine some purées and baby led how do you do if?

[Lelophants]

I know technically any use of spoon feeding means it’s not BLW. But if you do a combo of some spoon feeding purées and some self feeding of normal dinner with everyone else, that’s kind of what I mean by a combination.

if you do this, how do you do it exactly? LO is 6 months. Can you try spoon feeding some purée at lunch and then at dinner you all eat as a family and do BLW then?

I’ve read some things saying babies get confused. I’ve started doing some purées so don’t want to just stop that now but do I have rk go through all the stages now?

Basically this is how most people wean. 6 month olds are not very good with spoons, so mums often wait a bit with non finger food.

I put purees and finger foods at the same time in DS's plate from early on. He would munch some of it on his own and the rest I spoon fed him. He would also always have at least a bite of whatever we are eating (as long as it's age appropriate ofc) for variety / taste buds. So not much of a structure really, went with the flow, watching DS's preferences, hunger cues etc. DS (2.5) is a great eater.

If you've started with purées, could you give them a bit of finger food on the side?

I used to plonk something in their tray whilst I was getting things ready.

Things like a littler grated cheese, some cooked pasta, lightly steamed carrot sticks? Let them just grab and feed it to the dog eat what they can manage

Surely this is now most people wean? I know a few militant BLW but otherwise most people seemed to do this.

Tried to have something mushy and a finger food at each meal but don't overthink it. Had some pouches and jars in as a back up and also froze in ice cube trays what we were eating so that was an option.
Eg:
Breakfast: porridge with some berries or banana as finger food. Or toast fingers and an egg.
Lunch: Toast with peanut butter or cheese or ham with some cucumber sticks. Defrost some of the ice cube meals. Sometimes a jar or pouch. Cut omelette into strips. Yogurt as the spoon in part.
Tea: puréed/mushed up what we were having (so bolognese, curry, fish pie, cottage pie, mashed potato). Finger food could be some pasta, piece of broccoli or other veg. Followed by some yogurt and fruit.

Yes just do a bit of each as suits you. Spoon feed the yoghurt but let them try with the fruit, spoon feed porridge but give toast as a finger food etc. You might find the baby enjoys both or shows a preference - my eldest much preferred finger foods so we went with that and ditched the purées pretty quickly.

It's called traditional weaning tbh. I offered finger foods at the same time
/in the same meal as feeding puree. I dont see how they could be confused.

Do agree too that giving a mixture of finger foods and mashed/purées food is how babies have been weaned for a long time

We spoon feed a bit and then when she’s getting bored after a few minutes we let her dive it with her hands. We also load the spoon and leave it on the tray for her to pick up. Same with the finger foods, serve them at the same time as any purées and just leave them on the tray for her to grab.

How are you both doing now @Lelophants?