BLW - is it as easy as it sounds?

[whyme2]

Just wondering because my baby is exclusively bf and now 12 weeks. When I had the last child the recommended weaning age was 4 months and the dc to be weaned onto purees etc. Please could someone suggest where I can read up on blw.
Thanks.

babyledweaning.com for further reading, but yes, it's easy.

The 6 month thing is (imho) mainly because they need to be able to sit up properly to feed themselves. The whole guts being able to digest things is something I'm not too clear on and don't want to get into that debate. Most babies start to sit up around 6 months.

Just basically start them on chip shaped pieces of soft fruit or steamed veg, sticks of creamy cheese, fingers of buttered toast etc. You'll be a devotee as soon as you see they feed themslves in cafes while you enjoy your own food!

Is it easy? A RESOUNDING YES

The article is yesterdays Guardian is a good quick read.

no, it's messy and you will always worry about how much your child is eating. After the remnants of lunch have been wiped off your baby's face/out of his hair/off the walls and scraped off the floor, it will appear more than you started with, so how could anything have gone in?

If you do go the BLW route, get the most basic highchair available, because it's no fun washing and drying thick padded cushions and cleaning lots of grooves on the highchair.

I will always prefer feeding my babies puree'd foods. I like control, cleanness and speed of tidying afterwards.

i absolutely never worried about how much dd1 was eating, she was quite clearly not shrinkin...

Agreed about the highchair. Can't reccommend the ikea antilop highchair enough, it's made of molded white plastic, very smooth, no nooks and crannies. We bought the little tray that goes with it but now ds is older he sits directly up against the table with us.

Get a mess mat for underneath, or a cheap vinyl tablecloth. It can be very messy but there are ways round it, and some foods are "cleaner" than others. Feed the messiest stuff before bathtime. Use bibs if they'll keep them on, and old/cheap vests when they won't.

I didn't ever worry about how much ds was eating either because he was having plenty of milk. The more food he ate, the less milk he required (eventually. It was withdrawn very naturally and very slowly as he started to refuse feeds)

I'm doing a mixture of blw and mush.

BLW great if they can eat what you are but for me this is not always practical. What if I'm having a curry or biscuits for tea!! For me it's good to have a stock of mush in the freezer (I find it easy to make up a big batch and freeze it). If I am giving mush then I tend to give some finger food as well (toast/vegies/rice cakes).

Some people can be a bit evangelical about blw but it's like most things - take what suits you and leave the rest. I quite like Gina ford's idea of a morning nap at 9.30 but believe me I'm not going to follow her to the letter. Same with blw in my opinion.

Here's a new book on blw

It;s not for everyone because of the choking worry.
Agree with what sunshine75 says - just do what suits you.

I agree that it's not for everyone but at Geepers 'control, cleanliness and speed of tidying'.
This is a polar opposite from the sort of attitude I have about food and that I want my DS to develop.

I have no choice but to do BLW as DS (10 months) point blank refuses to eat anything from a spoon (except yoghurt that is!) I tried giving mush for 4 months and have now given up and we are both loads happier. I didn't even know it was called BLW until a few weeks ago so in my opinion it comes quite naturally, though what am I going to do with all the puree in the freezer I don't know!

And by the way I am an obessively tidy person who cleans madly - wish I wasn't with a baby in the house, but hey. Finger food for me is actually much cleaner, even the brocolli, as DS used to just spread purees everywhere in his attempts to avoid eating it.

sunshine, my ds loves blw curry, give it a go, you might be surprised at what your dc can manage. (mind you, I have No Fear of squishy food mess being an artist used to being up to my elbows in oil paint back in the day. You clean ladies would shriek in horror at some parts of my house lol) and ds doesn't mind being covered head to toe in spag bol sauce etc...

Incidentally, I did/do a mix of blw and spoon feeding, but these days I only spoon feed yoghurt and porridge, which I think you would naturally eat with a spoon anyway so no point in getting silly about it. Just do what feels natural and don't stress about it.

I don't prioritise control, cleanliness and speed of tidying in my interactions with my children, so BLW works just fine for us. And DD is virtually spherical, so I don't worry about how much is getting in (at the moment, not a vast amount most days but quite a bit on others). The IKEA Antilop highchair is indeed fab (sadly we don't have one, as got suckered into something fancy with DS, but use one at my mother's).

Thanks for all the info - I'll read up on it. Tbh I'm not worried about mess as this is my fourth dc and a tidy house is a distant dream. I just couldn't quite believe the child wold eat enough at first. It certainly sounds the easiest way to go.
Thanks all

they don't eat 'enough', they drink 'enough' milk, iykwim? you'll see.

we're in week 3 of blw with dd and she's still on the 91st centile. I've been and had her weighed more often because initially I worried about whether or not she could feed herself "enough" food. Some meal times she doesn't seem to be able to get much in but she seems to make up for it with others. Today she ate a whole small baked potato, gummed all the flesh off and merrily flung the skin overboard, and half a big fish finger has disappeared so unless she's hidden it really well she ate that too!