Any advice on starting BLW?

[August24Mama]

Hi everyone! I have an almost 5 month old EBF DD and not going to wean until 6 months, but have recently got thinking about how to do it when the time comes. I really want to BLW, but I have my MIL and everyone else I tell this to that I just HAVE to start on baby rice. I hate the idea of baby rice, I want to feed my baby actual food not filler mush. No offense to anyone that used baby rice! Just not what I want for my baby. Really want to encourage the independence of self feeding too.

I feel like I need to know everything about BLW so that I'm not looked on as an idiot for doing it by family forcing baby rice on me. I know the basics like if they're gagging leave them be, if they turn blue then they need help ect. But no idea on what actual food to start her on.

Was thinking just a small flower of broccoli? Maybe a strip of unseasoned steak that she can't chew off but just suck the juices out of? Honestly so many options. And how many meals a day do they have, just one? How long until meals are increased? Also what's the water situation, how much water do I offer? And I know they should be sitting up unassisted before feeding, my baby is nowhere near doing that yet. If she's not sitting up by 6 months should I wait? Any other developmental milestones I should wait for before weaning too?

Sorry for all the questions I'm a FTM and so new to all this. When I try google it I'm just overwhelmed with all the information. I appreciate any help in advance!

I offered water in a free flow cup mainly used the Ikea ones also the Tommy tippee
Toast I started on with my first. I did use puree as well. But any veg cooked to the still holds together but is fairly soft texture. I didn’t give hard foods that can come off in chunks such as apple or raw carrot.
With my second I just plonked on the high chair tray whatever we were eating, did use a few purées as well.
By 7 months she’d already had chocolate, cake, ice lollies, all sorts of veg, fish fingers, toast, etc. She’s the better eater

I just gave food when everyone else was sat at the table eating. Both were sitting up but we had practiced sitting up quite a bit.
I fished food out when any gagging started. Turning blue was a step too far for me.
I offered water with food.
It’s bests if they are a bit hungry but not starving when food is offered. My first barely ate anything until he was 9 months old. My second barely ate anything for the first 6 weeks

The Gill Rapley book is a great guide on how to "do" BLW. I also found the Solid Starts Instagram page and app useful but it is geared for an American audience and some parts aren't in line with true BLW

My first DD was supposed to be puree etc as that was the way it was at the time but she grabbed a strawberry that was dangling from a plant one day and the rest was history
I baby lead weaned my second, the rules changed again and Dd3 went straight to family meals. We just sat down with them in the highchair and offered things, so toast and butter at breakfast, carrot or cucumber or sandwich at lunch, whatever we were having for dinner... Basically they all wanted whatever I was trying to eat! Pasta twirls and broccoli were very popular with all 3, along with toast soldiers and boiled egg. No one warned me about banana. They love it but be prepared the find weird wiggly bits and black dots in their nappies, a friend thought her DS had worms and panicked too.... Mostly just take your time and don't rush, most of it ends up in their hair (especially avocado) or in the chair or on the floor. Mine were mostly weaned in the summer and I used to strip them before meals to make the cleaning up easier, everything with tomato in stains...

I did a bit of both… mine is a hungry baby and very interested in food but initially struggled and got frustrated with BLW.

So for breakfast I would give him some baby porridge or when a bit older ready brek or weetabix warmed up and mushed for breakfast with some fruit. Hand him the spoon so he could practise feeding himself.

Then at lunch would do finger food, toast and avocado, strips of pepper etc. Fruit - he loves banana but gets annoyed with it. Learnt this week if I mash it a bit he will pick up handfuls and eat it happily, he was obviously struggling to pick up.

Now he is a bit more dexterous he has things like pasta twirls or penne with bolognese, curry and rice, cottage pie etc as well as finger food. He has a go at feeding himself and we help with loading the spoon.

Charlotte Stirling Reed is a fantastic resource, i credit her with our 2 kids being good eaters! She has a blog with tips about all sorts, and a podcast now too

We had a blue free flow cup with a spout for water and a white one for milk. My DH taught them all to nod yes whilst weaning. It was a stroke of genius as we could offer something and if the wanted it and reached out we'd nod and hand it over. They soon caught on and do it back. Then we could ask questions and get nods in reply. Saved so much frustration on both sides, as did sing and sign. I miss those days. Have fun with it OP.

Give then a decent fork to stab things with. The baby ones are useless but a pastry fork is ideal. That way they learn to eat with cutlery too.

They don’t need to be sitting up totally unaided, that’s a 9 month milestone, just well enough to sit in a highchair and control their head. Also loss of the tongue thrust reflex and able to pick something up and bring it to their mouth, but a 6 month old should be fine, that’s more for if you’re thinking about starting earlier. You definitely do not need to do rice but I wouldn’t get too tied into being militant about a particular weaning method! If they’re having greek yoghurt with a fruit puree or readybreak for breakfast then I’d spoon feed it but if it’s toast or pancakes then I’d cut into strips for them to self feed with their hands. I personally think it’s best to expose them to the full variety of tastes and textures. Plus I think it’s super handy for out of the house to have the option to spoonfeed and contain the mess, or on a long flight pull out pouches that don’t need refrigerating or special storage. But up to you really- they can pretty much have anything you eat just no salt (add to your portions after cooking), no honey until 1 and no whole nuts or popcorn (choking hazard).

Oh and water, I gave them a sippy cup they could have pretty much whenever, like I’d just leave it on the coffee table and they’d help themselves. Initially they’d only have tiny sips but it increased as the amount they were eating did. You might have to try a few different cups. One of mine like the mam soft spouted trainer and the other preferred the old fashioned tommee tippee one, eventually they both moved on to 360 cups but that was more like 10 months+.

I’d recommend the book “How to wean your baby” by Charlotte Stirling-Reed. It’s a combine approach of puréed/whole veg (so not 100% BLW) and gives you a 30 day programme of new foods to introduce. So day 1 you offer some broccoli purée along with a whole floret. I found at first my baby went for the purées and wasn’t sure what to do with the whole veg pieces, but quickly got the hang of it. There’s loads of info about number of meals etc, I found it really helpful as a first time parent.

Oh and second the recommendation for the Solid Starts app. It tells you how to prepare any food in a safe shape for babies of different ages.

We did roasted veg batons so a mix of finger food/ easy to grab and mushy

& avocado and yoghurt

But also gave a bit the same means we had too with no seasoning

The main thing iirc is you want them to develop oral dexterity and manipulation with food - started on purees means they're more likely to choke when older

Don't overthink it, there's no need to introduce one food at a time and although I've seen it recommended that you start with green veg so they get a taste for it/don't get hooked on sugary fruit, when I looked into it I couldn't find any evidence to back that up at all. You can just give them a bit of your meal if it's easier. I went with avocado because I had it in at the time.

Most important thing is that you're not stressed and meal times are chilled/happy.

Start with one meal a day and build up, I had one that took to it straight away and we were on three "meals" (heavily supplemented by milk, but she was having several mouthfuls per meal) a day by the end of week 2, so it varies a lot. You have to make a judgement call, if your baby takes to food more slowly it's fine to stick with one meal a day for longer.

Don't get disappointed if the steak strips go straight in the floor without going near their mouth, unlike on Instagram!

You've got lots of good advice from the previous posters. I give a mix of finger food and spoonfuls of puree at each meal, and let LO have a go with the spoon once they've actually got some food on board.

Make sure you have a dustpan and brush and a mop! You’ll be cleaning the floor after every meal. Pelican bibs are great but I prefer the full torso ones (like the overalls you would wear for painting) or strip them to their nappy. Food always ends up mashed into sleeves, dropped on their laps etc.

Don’t feel guilty for using purées, melty sticks etc when out and about, it’s much less stressful. You can always hand baby a couple of bits off your plate.

I feel like I need to know everything about BLW so that I'm not looked on as an idiot for doing it by family forcing baby rice on me.

I think you need to be confident in your own parenting decisions, regardless of your family. Don’t feel like you need to know everything or justify your position. MIL is confidently proclaiming you have to do baby rice with no info at all, so you certainly don’t need alllll the possible info to make your own assertions for your own baby.
Probably the key here is that success to mil will be stuffing the baby up. And success to you will be baby trying flavours and textures, so she’s probably not going to think BLW is going very well whatever you do for the first few weeks.

try the solid starts app, it’s a great way to see what’s already in your fridge or cupboard and how you can safely serve it. How quickly you move to more meals will depend on your baby, some will barely eat a thing for weeks or months and some will be devouring everything.

I feel like I need to know everything about BLW so that I'm not looked on as an idiot for doing it by family forcing baby rice on me.

Also OP these 2 things have nothing to do with each other. Rice isn’t needed any more because we wean at around 6 months which means baby can have almost everything from the get go, because their digestive system is more mature. It was a key staple when our parents and grandparents were weaning their babies because the advice then was to wean much younger and therefore they were more restricted on what baby could have. Whether you want to feed purees, give finger foods or do a mix isn’t really relevant. No one needs the rice anymore unless maybe they’ve been advised by a HCP to wean early for medical reasons e.g. severe reflux.

If you want to justify baby lead weaning to relatives the obvious one is baby can have whatever you’re having so it’s easier than making separate purees and it introduces family meal times earlier on because you can all eat at the same time (you don’t need to feed baby first and then yourself). But really you shouldn’t worry about justifying yourself- have confidence in your own parenting decisions! This will probably be the first of many with MIL, next up will be why is your 9MO still in the baby carseat, mine were forward facing on a booster at that age and they’re just fine 😂

We started with breakfast and would do porridge but we blitzed the oats in the food processor first to make them smaller. Weetabix is good too. It's a soft food without being completely pureed.

With BLW they will touch, poke, throw the food a lot and play with it more than eat it. This is all normal. Slowly more and more will go in their mouths. Loads will go on the floor so I wouldn't start with steak, more like well cooked vegetables like broccoli, green beans, carrot batons, stuff they can easily pick up, and yoghurt - all the yoghurt.

We usually did one puree and one finger food at each meal. You can still do BLW with purees, just pop it in front of them and they will (hopefully) dig in with their hands.

Once you have one meal a day firmly in your routine, add another. We added dinner at this point. Then finally added lunch, then snacks. It can feel like a long old process but for many babies it just clicks one day. We try to make it fun, pretend to feed her toy ducks, let her 'feed' us and be enthusiastic about it.

It probably took around 3-4 months to get to 3 meals per day. Water-wise we offered in a sippy cup but she didn't take to it so swapped to a 360 cup, also didn't like it, and finally settled on a TumTum straw cup. She is now 15 months and starting to practice using an open cup. It took ages to get her to reliably drink from the straw cup and I was always worried about her not getting enough water. We offer water alongside all meals and snacks.

As they slowly eat more you can drop some of their bottles. Your baby will likely start refusing some bottles as they are full from their meals. We are down to 2 bottles a day now and struggling to stop them. My daughter was small for gestational age and premature so we don't want to go cold turkey on bottles just yet.

Good luck!