BLW possible at 5 months?

[Becky77]

Boy oh boy am I risking a flaming here OK so please no-one preach to me about early weaning etc. I KNOW THE GUIDELINES. My question is, if I have decided to wean at 5 months (which I have) with the approval of my GP etc etc is it possible to start BLW now too or should I wait until 6 months?

here's another way of looking at it, someone wrote this on my forum and it made sense to me.

" WIth traditional weaning a baby learns to eat/swallow before they learn how to chew but with BLW a baby learns how to chew before they learn how to swallow and the risks of choking are therefore smaller.
CErtainly, my DD was chewing and spitting out a bit before she swallowed her veggies, so she was controllign the food in her mouth before actually eating it, which is the opposite to the traditional method so no wonder they have trouble when lumpy purees are introduced."

to answer your qu about fear, i did an infant resus course at the maternity hosp (just an hour or two). never had to use it on dd, did save an older kid from choking on somethng in the park one day. tbh i think resus should be mabdatory for all parents... you can puree feed all you want but if they pick something up off the ground you'll be stuck.

Beccy77 my ds has just started blw at 5 months (22 weeks) I know 6 months is the ideal but the health visitor I spoke to this week has said it's not a problem, and he's a big boy, 18lb and consistently on the 75th centile, has 2 teeth, and he has been feeding and feeding for the last few weeks. He has had some banana on his tray for the last few days and it is actually really interesting seeing how he eats himself as opposed to dd who had puree for months before starting solids. I'll stick my neck out here and say that it's your baby and only you know what's best. There's no way my ds could have hung on another month, but he is also very active (crawling at 22 weeks if you'll believe it! )

@ aitch - I agree and I have done a resus course too... I still find it scary though and I'm not 100% sure I'd remember what to do in that traumatic a situation... Not that waiting another month is going to make me feel more confident.

@ littlelamb - Wow crawling at 22 weeks! What a trouper! SO what foods has he been getting stuck into?

Becky -my middle name is Rebecca - another reason why she thought you were me - I'm 1972 so have a few yrs on you

He has had banana and some spaghetti and rusks (which was convinced he would just turn to mush but amazingly he ate them without much mess) I was getting a bit desperate tbh as he was feeding constantly but my supply didn't seem to increase with his appetite but now he is 'eating' at tea time with the rest of us he seems more satisfied with my milk inbewteen.

becky - we started weaning my DS at 22 weeks because he was also sitting really well, good hand/mouth coordination, increased milk feeds etc. i was a bit scared of entirely blw tbh (pfb, puree is the norm, nobody else i know did it etc.) but we did plenty of finger food from the start so that i got the comfort that he could feed himself, which reassured me that he probably was ready to wean early. we quickly abandoned purees though and so now at 7mo it's safe to say we are very much blw and have been for about a month - leftover purees in freezer being used as pasta sauces!

although i agree with aitch's 'proper' definition of blw, i think combining puree and finger food can be pretty much blw so long as you are really taking cues from your baby with regards to quantities, letting them handle the spoon if they want, letting them take their time and don't think of a 'quota' of food they need to eat, and giving them pretty much all the food you eat (with adjustments for salt/sugar/additives etc.). i would say give your dd the finger food first (perhaps while you're sorting out the puree) and give her plenty of time to try and get it in her mouth and eat it. i know lots of people who say "my baby doesn't like finger foods" and i think it's because they think the baby should eat at the speed you can do with purees so they shovel puree in when the baby hasn't eaten all the finger foods in 5 mins whereas finger food (and blw as a concept) is all about letting the baby explore food so can take a long time.

becky - we started BLW at 23 weeks, although DS really didn't eat much to start with. I was leaving food on his highchair try, and he started when he was ready. (He could sit pretty much unaided and obviously had the motor skills for it)

Immediately he was spitting out the bits he didn't want - for example, pear or courgette skin (which hold the bits together better). I've always been amazed at how good he is at getting what he wants down him, and rejecting what he doesn't.

It can take a long time for a BLW baby to have their dinner - its not 10 minutes for a few spoons of puree - they have to work for their food. However I have a 9 month old baby that eats all sorts of stuff - including noodles and spaghetti, baked beans, peas - all with his hands (we use a spoon for yoghurt and a doidy cup for soup, but he controls them all!)

DS gags sometimes when he gets too excited about what he's eating, but has never comes close to choking (although he's been sick after gagging perhaps twice in the last nearly 4 months). With the exception of the time the vomit went up his nose, he generally laughs (I don't know why its funny but apparently it is - maybe I make a funny face or something while he's gagging) after he's cleared his mouth and puts more food (often the bit he's just gagged up!) in his mouth.

Just enjoy it. If your DD is ready, she'll eat. When she is she'll eat at her own pace.

err, just seen aitch's message re my dd and lump of pear - she was bright red, and gasping for air with saliva running out of her mouth.....don't think leaving it was the best option!! i turned her over, she vomited and started breathing again. NEVER LEAVE BABY TO TRY AND SWALLOW THINGS THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY STRUGGLING WITH!!

you don't need to shout. and in the end it's no biggie, you did the right thing, you just turned her upside down and it was fine. you were the one who got the fright, not her i'm betting.

and leaving her to try finger foods later doesn't really decrease the chances of her taking something in the wrong way and getting it stuck.

being prepared, knowing what to do in the event of a choke, whether the child is six months or six years, that's the best plan as a paretn.

and FWIW i work on a head and neck ward so my knowledge of anatomy and function of swallowing is not too shabby. when i did paediatric resus course the instructor told me the number one cause of choking for children is mashed banana. too lumpy too early.

i just think it's dangerous to advise people to leave thier babies struggling to swallow.

i'm not, i'm saying that they should count to ten before panicking, beccause nine times out of ten in that time the baby will have sorted it out for themselves ime.

and my experience, apart from my own child, is in running a forum with over 50,000 postson blw, none of which mention a choking incident of any danger to the child whatsoever. and considering the amount of people who have started blw on those boards, i'm quite sure someone would have mentioned it by now.

i don't want this to get personal, but actually you didn't say count to ten, you said she wouldn't have choked if i had left her. and i wasn't advising any one not to give finger food, i commented that this experience had frightened me so i was going to leave finger food till she was a little older. i am a fan of BLW and i think, as with most things baby related, that doing things 'caveman' style is good, ie the way things would have been done before the invention of blenders, bottles etc (although thats not to say i never use them )

in what way is it getting personal, unless you're making it so?
i said to you that if you'd left her she'd probably have been alright (because ime ninety nine times out of a hundred it's the mother who over-reacts and starts bashing her kid about in a panic). you disagree. fine, it's your child and your experience.

but as a general 'remember we're on the internet, try not to give too much weight to the person with all the exclamation marks' rule of thumb, ime if you leave them to it they're perfectly well-equipped to gag separate (ie not mashed) lumps out.

chairmum - how old was DS when he started using the doidy without help?

nappyaddict - he still needs help with water as it goes everwhere, but soup needs flinging a lot more so he's not so messy with that.

Its really only now (9.5mo) that we've noticed he's good with it but we don't use it that often

dd never used her doidy, i use it for baking.