How EXACTLY do you do BLW?

[Liz79]

Its a bit early for us yet but I want to be prepared. How do you do it? Have looked at BLw blog but I need instructions, can I get a book? What do I start DD on? I imagine sitting her in high chair with selection of chip shaped things such as boiled potato, half cooked carrot stick, pepper, cucumber, pear, melon, cheese. What about pasta? Any particular shape to use/avoid? What do I put on the pasta? Could her first food really be toast? What do you put on the toast?

What should you not give them? when can you give sloppy food such as yogurt, do you do the spoon or do they?

"baby led cleaning"

Tink would never let me clean her, still won't, she has to do it herself. I also do Baby-Led Dosing - she takes her own medicine and inhalers so no fights to get it into her. I defintely think allowing them to do more for themself encourages a natural independence.

So on the day DD turns 6 months, DH will bring to bed his bowl of (sugary) cereal, my toast (with butter and low sugar jam) and 2 cups of tea. Will I rip off a soldier of toast and give it to DD? Should we omit the jam? We have unsalted butter. With normal weaning, you give one food at a time, and one meal/day for a few days. Is it like this with BLW? Can she have homemade beef meatballs, steamed carrot and broccoli for her tea the first day? When do you give her a strip of cooked chicken? day 1?

she can have whatever she likes, peanuts excepted. the rest is up to you. would you puree jam and give it to her? probably not. can she have a bit of toasted bread and butter? yes. can she try meatballs on her first day, sure? but she might cough a bit when it breaks up, dd always did so we realised she preferred fist-sized hunks of meat, but some babies are fine. steamed carrot is fine of course.
your baby will either be able to eat it or not, you can cut things into chip-sized to make it easier for them to hold from the off.
i know you find my blog a bit chatty but there is a link on the front page to Gill Rapley's guidelines, and that is all there is to it. just let them have a shot of things and then see how they go, no limit on milk.
oh, and wrt the three day thing, that's nothing to do with blw. it was because babies were weaned before 6 months. now there's no reason to do it but if i was from an allergicky family i probably still would to be on the safe side. i'm not, so i didn't.

I did BLW with DD3 - partly because it just made sense, partly cos I'm bone idle and couldn't be arsed with making purees

She got pretty much what the rest of us were having, and at 20 months now eats anything and everything.

I would start off simply - we did it the same way as WriggleJiggle. Sit her in her highchair, lob lumps of whatever we were having onto the tray and watch her have a whale of a time with food!

I don't give mine jam on toast, just plain buttered purely because I think they enjoy it enough without jam. I probably wouldn't give the meatballs for the first few meals, just the veg until they get used to it, but then almost anything goes.

Liz you give whatever you want to to your child. Some people start off with the chips and trees method, but some go straight in with what they eat - someone started with Spag Bol. Normal common sense applies, eg sugar and salt levels, but if it can be held and put to the mouth then it's fair game.

Thanks everyone. Last night I told me mum what I am planning to do and after the got over the initial horror, she told me to disguise the taste of the broccoli - with gravy!!!!!

I did 'let DS steal whatever is around' weaning. No faff, no rules (almost), no thinking about taking food out with us. At 2 he eats literally everything - fruit, veg, sushi, steak, you name it.
But then I couldn't cope with AKs meal planner. in fact I looked at it and it filled me with horror...

that meal planner was one of the things that sent me screaming to BLW, actually...

Is it possible to over feed a child when blwing? Only dd2 (now 6 and a bit months) eats MOUNTAINS of food.

Aitch - yes, dd2 is the wriggler's 7 month old little sister. No passion for corn on the cob yet, but I'm finding giving her a cucumber or a whole apple to hold on the way around Asda keeps her occupied and out of mischief !

lol at her gnawing away on a whole cucumber... it must run in the family. how's it been with two of them to feed? (and i don't know if this was the same with the wriggler but dd ate us out of house and home to begin with and then at about 8 mos started to show preference for stuff and want less. i think in the beginning her eyes were bigger than her stomach. )