DS seems to find BLW quite stressful...

[Hopefully]

We've been attempting BLW weaning for about 10 days now, and although DS has moved on from outright weeping every time he tries to eat anything, he still seems quite stressed by the whole experience.

He seems to get frustrated about picking bits of food up (I have taken to slightly helping him actually grasp them, and then he takes them straight to his mouth and gums away). He also gets completely worked up if I don't spend the entire meal pulling faces etc to keep him happy.

Over the past 2 days I have also been handing him spoons loaded with puree, which he seems to find slightly easier than gumming 'proper' food. He swallows a small amount, but this doesn't seem to particularly be improving the stress.

He is usually so worked up by the end of a meal that he has to have another BF to calm down - not a problem in itself, but I hate the thought of him finding eating so stressful that he can't actually relax himself again afterwards.

Has anyone else had this to start with and gone on to have a successful BLW experience? I'm beginning to wonder whether I should give up and spoon purees in, so at least the whole thing is over quickly.

Could you stop completely and try again in a couple of weeks maybe? Could he be trying to tell you he's not ready - that is what I thought blw was about.

We dont do proper blw just a mix of finger foods and purees btw.

I thought about that, but he does seem to be really going for it - once he gets food in his hand it's straight to the mouth, and quite a lot is getting swallowed - the evidence is clear in the nappies!

How long does a 'meal' last for other people? DS seems to get just as stressed if I remove him from the highchair before he's ready, but perhaps I'm expecting him to sit in it for too long...

Had exactly the same experience! Started weaning DS at 6 mths and he just really didn't 'get' it to start with - got very frustrated and cried. I remember posting on here and asking if it was ok to put things in his mouth .

But with some persistence on both our parts he soon got it (took about a month for him to really get the hang of it) and now he eats really well (he's 9 mths now). Meals can last about 1 hr which can be a pain (and obviously I've only got one child at the mo!), but it has taught me to slow down my eating and relax at mealtimes. I also tend to read the paper or listen to the radio if we're eating just the two of us as I've found he hates being watched!

HTH

Thanks Sponge.

He's generally been completely unimpressed with BF, bottle and real food today, so I'm wondering whether he's just having an off day/teething/being a hormonal teenager.

Fingers crossed it improves over the weekend, or I'll be back on here whinging again!

i totally don't think there's a problem with handing them the food, personally, i;ve been doing that with dd2. it's not that she can't pick stuff up, just that it makes her less flappy about it if i hand it to her.

we're not doing mealtimes yet, she's too young for anything more than tastes etc, but i do remember that with dd1 mealtimes took a while, so for a long time we only did it once a day at lunchtime, so that she was well rested and had drunk plenty of milk and could therefore approach her dinner as more of a 'oooooh, what's this play stuff?' than to fill her up.

if you want to just feed him, you should, there are other things to consider than just ds (iykwim?) but he is just learning at the moment and will get better at getting it all together to eat more quickly.

my ds didn't eat til 10 mths, i was really stressed about it, still din't eat much til about last week, 13 mths.
loads of hvs kept advising me this and that and worrying, cos he wasn't gaining much weight, but met hv last week who said ten months is normal time, since i stopped worrying he eats

that's interesting, kalo, i've seen old books with weaning advice on them and it seems to have been very common for people to wait until bbetween 9 and 12 months to wean at the turn of the century. so maybe you're baby is an old soul?

mm that is interesting. I think generally breast fed babies wean much later too.

who can blame them?

thats interesting kalo - how do the researchers separate the bf/ff mothers out and whats the control? After all weaning is very much something that is 'done' to babies rather than something they do themselves - crawling etc...

i'm not sure its just what i heard, something about the bio availabilty of iron in breastmilk being easier to absorb if no food goes in to interfere, but in formula the iron is absorbed the same as iron in food is absorbed so babies can more easier move from milk to foods.
but whether thats true i don't know, i've only got one baby who has been really difficult to wean so i have just searched for any possible explanation, and now i just think well it must be normal and its all gonna be okay, and i have only managed to get him to eat oven chips for the last two days and i don't even feel bad