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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Original poster

A question on BLW

15 replies

ellideb · 17/01/2009 22:10

Just been reading up on BLW and I am looking forward to starting it when my DS reaches 6 mths but one thing confuses me.

BLW is all about letting your child be in control of what he puts into his mouth so when my DS, who is 4mths old right now, is sitting on my lap and I am eating my dinner and he reaches out for a piece of my food and tries to taste it, do I let him? Is he capable, at this age, of swallowing it and because he is physically able to reach out and grab then is he mature enough to explore the piece of food without harming himself?

Advice much appreciated, thank you.

OP posts:
NorktasticNinja · 17/01/2009 22:22

IIRC the theoretical thinking is that once a child is externally physically capable of sitting independently, picking up food, chewing and swallowing it then he is internally physically developed enough to cope with it. In the original study babies were given food to explore from 4 months (which I believe was the advised weaning age at the time), most started eating at about 26 weeks.

Babies develop at greatly differing rates so there will be extremes of early and late development, but most babies will be at ready around 26 weeks.

That said I don't think I'd let a 4 month old try, just because of it being so far from the guideline age.

I let my DD have food to play with from about 23 weeks. She started to ingest tiny amounts at about 24/5 weeks and was up to a couple of teaspoons worth at 26 weeks. After that things went at a rate of knots. So, IMO in our case the weaning guidelines happened to be spot on!

TinkerBellesMumandFiFi2 · 17/01/2009 22:37

It happens a step at a time, so if for example he's still not ready but sitting up, picking food up and putting it in his mouth he won't be able to chew and swallow.

Gill Rapley said that you could theoretically start from newborn because they won't do it before they're physically ready, in the same way we give them opportunity to walk every time we put them on the floor.

Becky77 · 17/01/2009 22:40

I'd say just because he is able to grab doesn't mean he's able to swallow big lumps effectively. Can he sit up unaided? If he can then I'd be confident his airway is clear and he should be able to manage it... But I would imagine that'd be much nearer 6 months

Original poster
ellideb · 17/01/2009 22:40

I don't really want him to attempt it yet because I don't think he's mature enough, like you say they need to be able to sit up by themselves etc but also, because he is capable of picking things up and bringing them to his mouth I don't want to hinder his progress either. It isn't very clear about what you should do with a curious 4mth old in the book.

OP posts:
NorktasticNinja · 17/01/2009 22:44

I refuse to advise anything that could be construed as early weaning, but, if my DD had behaved in the same way I'd probably have given her a bit of something to explore at least once

slushymummy · 17/01/2009 22:48

I was wondering exactly the same thing as the OP. My DD 21 wks keeps going after my food ( I actually let her have a suck on a stick of raw carrot today [naughty mummy emotion] after she refused to let me eat my salad in peace !).

Original poster
ellideb · 17/01/2009 22:51

Oh no, don't get me wrong I'd never try to wean DS early, besides it wouldn't really be a weaning thing anyway as he's probably incapable of swallowing, I was just wondering how it all panned out when you have a curious 4mth old who likes to pinch food from your plate, you want to include him in the sociabe side of mealtimes but don't want to do any damage either. Stopping him from exploring would be taking the control away from him right?

OP posts:
NorktasticNinja · 17/01/2009 23:01

Oh I wasn't suggesting you were thinking of early weaning, it's just you never know who's reading or how limited their intelligence they'll interpret it.

I'm all for letting children develop at their own rates and, to to carry through TBM analogy, I didn't keep my DD confined to a moses basket until she was 'old enough' to roll. I gave her the space and let her do it in her own time. Like I said in my last post, I know what I'd have done if DD had shown such a strong interest in food...

Original poster
ellideb · 17/01/2009 23:06

I get you.

OP posts:
pispirispis · 18/01/2009 08:20

Just to confuse matters re sitting up unaided - my dd is nearly 9 months and is not sitting up unaided yet, but she sits up very well and very straight with a wee bit of propping. We do BLW and she's been wolfing down her food (most days) for a month or so now and explored the food and ate a little from the very beginning.

nappyaddict · 18/01/2009 12:17

I would let him explore the food if he wants to. It's unlikely he'll actually be able to chew and swallow at this stage.

nappyaddict · 18/01/2009 13:04

ellideb - has he ever actually put any food inside his mouth or has he just put it near his mouth?

Original poster
ellideb · 18/01/2009 16:06

He's just begun to take an interest, his jaw moves up and down when he's watching his daddy eating (so cute!) and he reaches out for things and brings them to his mouth but is yet to actually put anything fully into his mouth.

OP posts:
macaco · 18/01/2009 18:42

He'd probably just gum it even if he got it into his mouth. Even if you BLW at 6 months it'll be a while before he does much more than suck it.

nappyaddict · 19/01/2009 14:24

pispirispis - what do you use to prop her up with?

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