BLW making my baby really frustrated – should I stick to purées?

[Paigeratcliffe1]

Hi all,

Looking for a bit of advice/reassurance about baby-led weaning. My little one is nearly 6 months and we’ve just started trying finger foods alongside purées. The problem is, she gets really frustrated and upset when doing BLW – she’ll pick the food up, put it in her mouth, then it either snaps or she drops it and she ends up screaming in frustration.

I’ve tried avocado cut into sticks and even used a crinkle cutter to make it easier to hold, but it’s still the same. She’s absolutely fine with purées and being spoon-fed and actually seems to enjoy mealtimes that way, so now I’m wondering if I should just stick with that for now?

Did anyone else’s baby get really annoyed with finger foods at first? Is it okay to mainly do purées and keep offering finger foods on the side, or am I doing something wrong? I don’t want to put her off food altogether by pushing BLW if she’s clearly not enjoying it.

Any tips for less “snappy” foods or ways to help them not get so frustrated would be really appreciated. Thanks 😊

How long have you been weaning her? Doing a bit of both is fine.

Of course it's ok to give purées and a bit of finger food. She'll gradually become less interested in the purée and more interested in the finger food - it's a process 😊

Perfectly fine to do a mix.

Well-cooked veg fingers usually don't snap, but they can gum a bit off or just suck on it, carrots, broccoli, anything you can cut into a suitable shape. A microwave steams them really quickly. We also liked slightly overcooked fusilli for weaning – easy to grab, also easy to gum bits off.

All of my children didn’t really get excited about food until 7-8 months, barely a mouthful before then

Do you have a tray for the high chair and are you fairly mess tolerant? If yes and yes, put a dollop of the puree on the tray and give baby a second spoon to whack it. They'll have a lovely time and will probably lick it off their hands. We mixed couscous and porridge oats into puree so it clumped and made it more grabable. In my book it also counts as baby-led if you hold the spoon and let them choose whether to open their mouths rather than doing aeroplanes and trying to poke it in. They may get more interested in finger food when they start teething too because it gives them something to knaw. Mine loved a cold raw carrot when he was teething.

My DD was like this too so we ended up doing a mixture of purées and finger foods and she was much happier (and btw is a healthy not fussy 11 year old now)

I think the timing might have something to do with it, if baby is really hungry, they’ll get frustrated (but obviously if they’re not hungry at all they won’t have anything). Maybe try to time it in between milk feeds?