A General Thread for BLW

[TheBreastmilksOnMe]

Hi! I thought I would start off a thread for anybody who is interested in BLW, who has started it or has done it and hopefully we can support one another. I havnt seen another general thread on it yet so sorry if anyone has already started it-could you link me if so?

My DS is nearly 6mths old and we have been giving him the odd bit of finger food which he absoloutly loves! Guidelines state you should wait until they are 6mths old and able to sit unsupported but 1st time parent excitment has made me a bit impatient and eager to let DS join in the fun!

So is there anyone else out there?

Divvy I am following BLW and I think you can do BLW and use spoons I just load up a spoon and hand it to DS (7 mths) to put himself in his mouth, he can take it or not, up to him. As for breakfast cereal I give him bitesize shredded wheat or bite-size weetabix which he can pick up himself.

snottymcgrotty - sometimes when I am feeling lazy jars are just easier however I make sure I don't give him purees but the version up which is more textured so he still has to chew, maybe this can be a compromise until your DH is feeling a little more confident.

snottymcgrotty - My friend choked on her own saliva whilst meditating the other day apparently so it can happen to adults just as easy ( can't have helped with the meditating i guess, wouldn't know, not my thing though!!!) She told me this i was talking at my mother/baby group about my doing BLW and the choking issue, and i was surprised by how many others had pureed....i thought they were all a bunch of hippies and i was the straight one!!! LOL!!!! Anyway i have read that they are just as likely to choke when spoonfed as they don't have the control, you do and so you can shovel too much in, though i guess mush is easier to dislodge than carrot.....maybe that would be more of a gag..? well shrimpy gags a bit but so far i have only once had to turn him upside down and even then i think i was over reacting and he had it under control...talking of choking....if B/F doesn't get back from bar soon..... LOL!!!!

Well I have done a very cruel thing. Feel guilty about it now. At the time i couldn't stop laughing. DS has suffered no harm though just a healthy suspision of what mummy puts on his plate. I don't blame him one bit!

DS reached out to grab a slice of the lemon next to my fish yesterday. I didn't stop him. I thought, well he needs to expereince a wide range of flavours doesn't he?

His little face crinkled up like a concertina and he threw the offending item across the table. He shuddered and then crinkled his nose up again. I admit I couldn't stop laughing. Then he started to cry and I felt awful. Lesson learned. Babies do not need to experience every flavour.

ROFL & PM too
(but i would also feel the guilt afterwards!!!!)

can I join this thread? I thought I'd do a mix of spoon feeding and finger foods for my ds2 (6.5 months) but have found it so much easier to just let him get on with it himself most of the time.
From a purely selfish point of view really in that I want to eat my own food while it's still hot and I'm too lazy to make more than 1 meal!

DS1 was weaned before 6 months and given purees but somewhere between 6 and 9 months I think he refused to be spoon fed anything except yoghurts and so would only eat finger foods- I wasn't (and still amn't) brave enough to give him things like cottage pie to eat with his fingers before he figured out what cutlery was for. I didn't know about BLW then and often got myself stressed that he wasn't eating enough when he wouldn't let us feed him.

This time round I'm much more relaxed (helps that ds2 still loves his milk too- ds1 wasn't fussed for it) and already I can see ds2 eating more things than ds1 did at the same age. And when he eats his food I get a bit over excited about what he's managing to eat himself.
For tea last night we had baked potatoes and that worked really well as the bits stay together while being held but break up easily in the mouth.
I do still spoon feed him things like yoghurt though but let him grab the spoon while I hold it so prob not long before he can do it himself.

I second whoever it was who said mini weetabixes are a good cereal, they're the perfect size to hold and don't go too mushy if you go easy on the milk.

bad mummy alert dd just snatched a piece of shop bought onion bhaji out of my hand a nd adored it , i am a bit concerned re salt content but delghted that she shares my love of spicy food.

wahwah- as a one off i don't supose it will do any harm. I wish my son enjoyed spicy/hot stuff, he cries if its got pepper and won't eat guacamole because of the chillies in it!

I give DS a block of Oatibix some mornings and a dollop of natural yogurt on his tray. he loves it.

BTW a healthy switch:

Weetabix = high in salt

Oatibix = low in salt

Can anyone give me some advice. I BF so do I need to include water in DS's diet now that he is eating more solids?

thebreastmilksonme I remember discovering with ds1 that oatibix has less salt in it. Also it seems to be more filling (so says my dad who has had weetabix or oatibix for breakfast since time began)

ohh interesting about the oatabix, will try that next.

DD is on day 3 of BLW, I have been putting various bits and pieces on a tray of a morning and she always goes straight for the toast bypassing anything else, although she will also try the spoon with yogurt. I don't hand her the spoon, I just put it on the tray with everything else, so she has just as much opportunity to pick that as any of the other foods. She is surprisingly good at it actually, no real mess and always picks up the right end as well.

As a couple of other people have mentioned, she's not really interested in breakfast but definitely much happier to get involved in the afternoon and early evening.

In second week of BLW - DS has only had basic foods so far - steamed veg, fruit, toast, yog etc. But I know he should be eating what we eat...

Is there any reason he can't eat the leftover lamb mince from last night - with onions, peas, spices (no salt)? I think I'm going to smear it on rice cakes (so useful!). It just seems so odd to be giving him meat, but I can't see any reason why not.

I'm also struggling with my own cowardice re: choking, but you lot all seem very calm which helps.

This morning i half peeled a kiwi fruit, handed him the hairy half to hold (still waiting for bumbo tray to arrive...)and he just shredded it! Seemed to go down well.

charitygirl - Lamb mince sounds perfect, he can eat pretty much anything after 6 months (apart from honey, whole nuts and stuff that you/your dp might be allergic to).

With regard to gaging, just watch over your DS when eating and be ready to spring into action if needed. My DD is now 1 and we did BLW from 6months and she's never had any incident, but I was always at the ready. You'll be fine. He'll be fine!

What is classed as unacceptable for salt content? I had a look at labels when shopping today but I don't actually know what I'm looking for.

lolllipopmother as far as I know:

0.8g of salt per 100g and above is classed as high in salt

0.3g of salt per 100g and below is classed as low in salt

Look at the salt content not the sodium content but if it only has sodium then times the value by 2.5 to get the amount of salt.

This is a guideline for adults so I don't know if it applies to babies aswel so I just try to make sure that I don't give DS to many things that are above 0.3g per 100g and I'd rarely if ever give him anything if it had over 0.8g per 100g

Hi there! I've been following this thread for a few days now - my DD is only 4 months, but am planning to do BLW when she reaches 6 months. Will keep reading in the background with interest how you are all getting on!

Welcome MonkeyMargot. Hope you've got the floor and furnishings covered and protected!

Hello all - well, I feel as though we have officially started now. DS is 24 weeks this weekend and a couple of times so far if we have been eating and he has been particularly trying to get hold of the food I have let him have a bit of a play with it. His first taste was carrot which he liked, but I took off him as I was concerned it was a bit hard and a bit small. Then we were staying with some friends and went out for lunch and I gave him an unsalted chip, which he munched and coughed up again! Later DP told me he had given him a breadstick the night before which I was a bit about as I was worried that it was a bit crumbly and he might choke on a crumb of it (is that a sensible worry, btw, or am I being paranoid?)

Anyway I went out for breakfast with my mum yesterday (How posh do we sound?? Her car was being MOTed so I met her in town early!) and gave DS some of my toast to munch on. He absolutely loved it and although most of it went on the floor, I did find some bits of seed husk in his poo this morning (it was brown toast) so I think that means we have officially begun!

I have decided not to start any sort of elaborate routine yet. DS can sit up but not on his own, he falls sideways, and he will fall over sideways in his highchair at the moment so he's not happy to be sat at the table unless he is on a lap. So my take at the moment is, if he is bored and/or wanting to join in with us when we are eating our dinner, he can - which means I have to make sure all our meals are baby-friendly, but that isn't really a problem, in fact it is a very good thing!!

Oh and one more thing - he tried cucumber yesterday at lunch and licked it and made a lemon face - it just shows how different their tastebuds must be to ours, cucumber barely has a flavour to me!

Hi,
what a breath of fresh air!

Thebreastmilksonme.... I have a confession... I followed your link here after you replied to my "my baby wont eat veg" post. I said she was 6 1/2 month but she is actually 10 days off being 6 months! I have posted a few things on mumsnet before and got a real roasting for trying to wean before the magical 6 month mark so felt the need to lie! How sad. But now I know that I am not alone so I can drop the pretences and accept I am not a bad mam for weaning early because it sounded fun!

Purees are a complete faff! I wouldnt mind if she would eat the damn things! But alas it seems she is destined to eat my custartd, have all her teeth drop out before the even arrive but at least we will all be happy. Only joking..... I think!

Welcome nicnic01 you can absolve your sins here!

I too was impatient and keen to start with BLW and so was DS! He kept on reaching out and grabbing my food from my hands. No you're not alone and we're definately not the first mums to be hurrying their PFB's' along to the weaning stage!

Agree with the puree malarky, hope you feel right at home here. Keep us posted on how you're getting along.

Hi just wanted to add that if you are worried about choking at 6.5 months etc, try just giving them very soft cooked veg for a couple of weeks until they have mastered chewing and swallowing a little better! We didn't give dd any harder food (meat, toast etc) until she was about 7 months and was hardly even gaggign on food any more. Just helps with peace of mind.

By the way, DD is now 11 months and it is still going really well! She loves her food, apart from cereal, have tried shredded wheat, weetabix, oatabix, porridge.. any other breakfast ideas? (apart from toast and fruit, her usual brekkie these days!)

Hi everyone, I've just joined. My LO is 6.5mnths and we've started BLW her, and as none of my other friends with babies are doing BLW I kind of feel like some support would be good! Just wanted to check that it's ok that she's not really swallowing anything yet - although I'm sure she swallowed some chicken and yogurt yesterday! But she is getting the idea!
Anyone know how long it takes them to actually start eating the food? I know it will differ hugely, but any experiences would be great.

hello dd is just over 6 months and loving her food, I'm giving her rice cakes, banana, tangerine and peeled grapes. She even ate 2 big pieces of steamed broccoli yesterday. I so prefer this to all the puree faff I did with ds. She just enjoys it so much more than I remember him doing so.

Do we really have to keep off dairy til 12 months? and pasta and wheat?

I can't believe French and Italian babies do that!

also baby rice with banana

to be honest i havnt my ds nearly 7months has everything apart fron nut (obviously) but as we have no history of allergies he has dairy (though not to drink) wheat meat fish ect when i read the book it said give them what you are eating i took it very litteraly i just make a little plate up of what we are eating let it cool and scoop it on to his high chair and we sit down and eat its great!

have you read about that doctor (I think it's a doctor) who's treating nut allergy sufferers with tiny amounts of nut? I just wonder how you introduce them, why would it be better to wait til they're one?