Anyone just started, or about to start, BLW? Care to join me?

[Jojay]

DS2 is 27 weeks and from last week, is now joining us a mealtimes.

I tried spoonfeeding for a few days but he didn't seem keen, so I tried him with some roasted veg and he was well away. So BLW it is for us.

But I did purees for DS1 2 years ago, so BLW is new to me.

So far he's had roasted sweet potato, carrot, aubergine, courgette, sweet pepper, some lightly steamed apple and pear, banana, mango, and a chip.

When I say 'had' I mean I've offered it to him. Some probably went straight on the floor, but I've found some lumps in his nappy, so some is definitely going in.

The mango was the biggest hit - he loved it!

So tell me what you're doing and how it's going...........

Hi Rachael - it's so hard to know when they will start to actually eat. Have a look here, click on the show / hide comments link, and you'll see lots of people talking about when theirs started to eat, rather than just have tastes, iyswim - about 9 months seems common.

My Ds is like yours, still feeding at night, nand I have to admit it has been a factor in deciding to give him some purees. I return to work in August. He won't take a bottle, I leave the house at 6 am so no time for a bfeed before work, so he has to eat / drink something. I'm also worried how I'll cope with feeding in the night as I have to get up at 5.15am so I'll be knackered as it is.

Saying that, his puree eating is still very much on his terms - he tends to grab the spoon from me and some goes in, but he seems happy with it. I still give finger food at every meal and he normally has a bit of whatever we're having too.

i have slowly learnt to forget about swallowing. i know some goes in - believe me her nappy tells the tale, and vast majority goes out, but i am sure she will get the hang of it! also now always use one of those pelican bibs and just scoop out what falls in their and put it back in front of her - she happily shovells it back in. bit bovine i know but hey.

some days she is happy with spoon, other days not so on non days i just give up with the notion of feeding her and stick to the finger foods.

oh and my nct group think i am a complete loon!

Hi Duffpancake, an dwelcome
The below info is from the Food Standards Agency website, re eggs here

'Don?t give raw or lightly cooked eggs to babies. Eggs can be given to babies over six months, but make sure they are thoroughly cooked until both the white and yolk are solid. '

duffpancake my mum told me babies can have the yolk before they can have the white, but i think this is when weaning earlier. Everything i've read that's current says eggs are fine at 6 months, and makes no reference to giving yolks and whites seperately.

Hi Rachael- just wanted to say we are having the same issue here. Ds is 31 weeks, we started weaning at around 26 weeks, had 2 weeks of purees then came the refusual so have been blw since then. He sucks everything and does it some but very little change to nappies so not a lot is going in. The BLW book does say it can take a while and there are lots of case studies of mums saying it was around 9 months that their babies started eating lots which is similar to what the Mums said on the link Jojay posted. Fingers crossed! I have started offering porridge, yogurt on a spoon which he sometimes has and will grab from me and shove in his mouth himself.

We've been doing BLW at lunch times for a couple of weeks now and I still haven't really found anything exciting in DD's nappy! I am trying not to get frustrated, but my NCT group are all reporting back on their babies swallowing the food, so it seems a bit frustrating. That said, DD is the smallest (but eldest) in the group, so it might take a little while and they are all different I keep telling myself.

And she wasn't at all impressed with celery at lunch time today!

Anybody tried fish as a finger food, fish fingers (obviously ) ideal, but home made without the salt added? Any ideas on how to make?? Bought some coley but its in the freezer teasing me because I don't know what to do with it. What about pasta? Tried oversized pasta shapes with some shop bought puree as a sauce(bought ages ago when I thought we'dd be going down that road) Should have tasted it first, ughhhhh who thinks apples pears and spinach go together and why would babies like it? No wonder DD did not even pick it up.

ilovespagbol agree with you completely. i had one with swede, pear, peas... yuck yuck yuck (was it ellas by any chance. with fish you could cut into fingershapes, coat with egg and dip into flour/breadcrumbs and then lightly cook in butter? thats what i am trying tomorrow!

Thanks for sharing your experiences, I will just have to persevere for another month or so and see what happens with the swallowing.

Have stuck signs up in my kitchen to remind me not to clamp Baby Moo's arms down and shove spoons of puree in her mouth, they say "Food is Fun", "Lick and Learn" etc.

The clamping and shoving technique was suggested by my otherwise very calm and gentle mother!

We gave DD spaghetti with our homemade tomato bolognese sauce (no added salt) which she liked licking off the strands. Later that night she was lying in cot asleep dreaming of eating it waving her hands round, putting them up to her mouth and chewing, all while asleep. Very cute.

Hello! Can we join? DD turned 6 months on Monday and we've been giving her bits and bobs for a week or so. She's enjoyed melon, potato, nectarine, cucumber, yellow pepper, breads sticks and the apple puree we gave her to see if the tongue thrust reflex had gone. She mostly mashes stuff about and then it falls out of her mouth, the only noticeable result is that the nectarine gave her the runs something rotten

will now go back and have a read of the rest of the thread for ideas

I just love the thought of RachaelandAgatha's DD's spaghetti dreams - so sweet!
Hope my dd starts having blw dreams - i love watching her mouth moving when she's dreaming of breastfeeding

Spaghetti dreams... how cute! Not tried spaghetti yet, we've been using extra large fusillis (Asda) which DS finds really easy to grasp and the sauce really sticks to the nooks and crannies.

It's amazing how their tastes differ- DS did not like nectarine at all and absolutely loves anything spicy- chicken curry this lunchtime and a couple of weeks ago a bit of pork with spicy jerk bbq sauce went down very well. I'd say it has been the biggest hit actually.

In The Book () G Rapley writes about babies getting used to tastes in utero from amniotic fluid, and then breastmilk- my tastebuds went dead in pg, DH and I eat a lot of spicy food anyway but in pg I was putting pepper sauce on everything. Poor DS!

hmm, i had pepper cravings while pregnant and put pepper on everything for a while - maybe i should try putting some on her food now...

"Anybody tried fish as a finger food"

Spagbol, what a coincidence!
We had just that for DS's 6 month birthday celebratory meal last night. I got some pollack fillets (cheaper than cod), cut them to goujon size, dipped them in egg and then in a mixture of cornmeal and fine breadcrumbs before deep frying.

Cornmeal makes them lurrvely and crispy and means that they're quite firm for DS to hold and smush into his ear eat. We had them with potato wedges and homemade minted mushy peas for dipping and all three of us ate with our fingers Yummy it were!

Ooh!! Sounds lovely - fish fingers are fab Deffo going to try them, DD just has breadsticks dipped in philly most of the time, must broaden her horizons...haven't even tried meat/fish yet!
Oop, gotta go and feed...

Yoghurt, all over the kitchen floor now! Remind me again why this is a good idea?

Still no swallowing though, and everything went on the floor in the end.

I picked up my "6 months plus" Bounty bag yesterday, it's full of purees and porridge, no finger food at all. I thought I would let DD try some apple and pear puree at lunch time, but she was disgusted! I loaded a breadstick and gave it to her, she dropped it immediately! I ate the rest myself, and I have to say, it had a horrible texture, almost too smooth if you can imagine? A bit boring I would think, especially to someone who likes rice cakes as much as DD seems to!

Hee hee - he's just demolished a pear - he ate THE LOT and would have eaten the bit with the pips too if I hadn't taken it away! (Much to his disgust _ he was shouting and screaming until I gave him some cucumber instead!). This BLW ain't half messy though - thank God we've got a hard floor!!

He also had some toast and tinned spaghetti (lower in salt than I thought). Bit tricky getting the spaghetti to him, so I wound it onto a fork and gave him the fork - but had to keep my hand on it a bit to prevent him sticking it in his eye!! I have to say it was incredibly cute watching him put some spaghetti in his mouth and then sucking the rest of it up his chin!!

Oh well, better start cleaning the kitchen before DH gets home (he gets very fidgety about the mess!)

pookamoo - we had that bag of stuff as well, it's all so bland and sinisterly smooth. And the sweet potato and summat one I tried was actively unpleasant

DD just had some granary toast which seemed to be a big hit, easy to hold and lots of gumming. Yesterday we did the cliched broccoli and she loved it, bits all over her face and several bits evidently managed to get swallowed as they showed up again this morning

feralgirl, a friend does a similar fish thing but bakes them, and you can chuck some potato wedges in as well, really easy and yummy

Cheers feragirl will try that out, am thinking fish fingers and spaghetti in tomato sauce, the floor will be taking a bashing!

greensparkles, am with you, we need to move our mealtime earlier too, its mealtime, bath and bed all too quickly on our house! Poor girl probably not digesting her dinner properly.

A breakthrough tonight finally! Mixed some tinned tuna with a little tomato puree, squashed it into lumps and put it on ds' tray. He ate loads, in fact the most he has eaten since we started blw. I also saw him using his pincer grip to pick up the small flakes that have dropped off the lumps. Am so proud of him and happy that I've finally seen something going in.

How cool rachie 'pincer grip'...hmm, was watching DD trying to pick up a pea the other day , I was highly entertained! I cut the skin off an apple, slice it and put it in the microwave for a minute til it's soft and she loves it. She ate 6 slices yesterday and it all went down. DH mashed up banana on toast for brekkie and that went down a treat too. Even better was that we were at a B&B so I didn't have to clean up the highchair

Rachie I am going to try that for lunch today...maybe with pasta.

I also got those puree / mushes with the Bounty pack - they are good for spreading on ricecakes. The apple/pear one is very sweet (that said, I've hooked the DS on ice cream, chips, crumpets and strawberries, this week so who am I to judge...)

Hope all is going well with you BLW-ers. I just read the Gina Ford guide to weaning (for a laugh you understand) - while she was quite sensible in places (not pressuring children to over-eat, not weaning too early, introducing finger foods at 6m) - she had some quite advice - particularly about breastfeeding - saying babies who feed too much become milkoholics???

Talking of which has anyone's DC shown any signs of dropping a BF - mine, if anything, is drinking more and more...maybe it's the hot weather or a growth spurt.