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...........

why, oh why did I decide to give DD beetroot when i'm wearing a white top? She loved it though, and looked very funny with a piece of meat hanging out of her mouth and beetroot juice dripping down her chin

DD had beetroot the other day and loved it too. Quick tip for changing time: BEETROOT, she has eaten BEETROOT. She does NOT have a critcal illness and you do NOT need to shriek 'OMG what's wrong' at the top of your voice and rush off to ring NHS Direct before remembering halfway through and having to explain it to a very amused nurse

haha, thanks pushmepullyou, great tip! Have already been anticipating the nappy with great trepidation. We use washables so will be interesting to see how the washing machine copes

We've also gone straight from boob to cup very happily here. In fact DD is obsessed with cups and we now can't drink anything without giving her a sip. She's particularly fascinated with my morning cup of coffee unfortunately, but she has to make do with slobbering all over the empty cup then.

One question for all you BLW experts, how on earth do you get Philly cheese out of eyelashes??? Mind you haven't laughed so much in ages watching her eat it.

Am still trying to work out what is going on with the sippy cup. She is desperate to drink out of it, really reaching for it, and holding her head in a way I've not seen her do before. The only problem is she looks genuinely shocked when water comes out. Still don't know if she wants the water as it's so hot, or just wants to chew on the spout

We're also sporting the "food as mascara" look here. Anything that doesn't come off with a quick wipe is left to come off in its own time

Do you think the water's coming out too fast for her lobsters? Maybe worth trying a different cup to see if you get the same problem?

I love the wiping his mouth and then rubbing his eyes - I actually had to pick off dried oatibix the other day!

Hello BLW-ers old and new - I am mostly lurking these days but enjoying reading this thread. DS is doing very well and recently had his first (veg) sushi and his first fancy-ish restaurant meal.

He has a cold at the moment and in the heat just wants to breastfeed all the time. However I have noticed that he is far more keen on eating fruit than on anything else. Is this something to worry about do you think? He has also reverted to spectacular gagging - not seen since the early days. Must be his sore throat.

pushme - I too go through the beetroot fear - and that's just with myself!

aww, bless his little sore throat. I wouldn't worry about him just wanting fruit - maybe he's after all the vitamin C to make him feel better

anyone else's LO dropping feeds left right and centre? DD is not interested in her morning feed at all. I try for about 20 mins cos I feel she should have a wake up feed but she just fusses and has a pretend suck so she can move on to breakfast. She also isn't feeding much at other times, around lunch, one before bed and one halfway through the night and that's it. I offer all the time but she's really not interested...I think 7 months is a bit young to be dropping so many feeds though...any ideas?? She is having 3 meals a day - would it be worth not giving her so much solid food? She's a good eater.
Boiled egg yesterday was quite amusing, she found it quite hard to pick up and then the yolk fell off so she mushed it into the tray and then wiped a strawberry in it. Eyelashes are often caked in stuff but I use greensnail's approach - a good wipe and then leave the rest to fate

Weetabix in the eyelashes must be wiped straight off or left to soak in the bath at night. Other than that, we have a quick wipe down and don't worry about it. As DD1 says (having heard it so much since she was tiny) "it all comes off in the wash."

DD2 (and DD1) spent the day with my mum yesterday as I had a day in work. DD2 was off her milk most of the day - not sure if it was the heat or just because?

She still gets up at 5am with DP each morning but I think it is becoming more a habit for her as she is not finishing her bottle and is then going back to sleep. This has happened for the past three days - could be the heat maybe? DP always gets up at that time to get ready for work - has to catch the boat to begin his daily commute.

DD2 also seems to be sleeping more in the day - again the heat maybe? She has always been a catnapper but has been sleeping most of the morning today. She has slept straight through when she would have her early lunchtime bottle - perhaps she is swallowing more solid food than we realise.

The weetabix definitely goes down and she has been known to scrape out DD1's bowl in the morning! Also enjoying broccoli, mango and yogurt a lot right now. Nappy offerings have got darker too...

Hello, can i join you? dd has been BLWing for 5 days....

Today she got milk soaked rice crispies in her mouth by pushing them into a pile and putting her face in them. For lunch she went mad for cold roast beef but got quite upset about not being able to pick up a strawberry - i couldn't fashion it into a more grippable shape!

On the milk thing dd seems to be having more feeds - but very very short ones. I've put it down to the heat.

Hello, I would like to join if I may. DS is 6 mths on tuesday and we started a bit of food play 2 weeks ago. He has taken to it really well and now has lunch and dinner, really enjoying the play and quite a bit going in at times (ate a whole strawberry today at a picinic ). He seems to love everything I give him and am now finding evidence in his nappy, a good sign right? DH still a bit sceptical and not even discussing it with my mother who keeps telling me to 'just mash it up a bit will you.....' . DH has come round after witnessing a few meals and seeing the joy on DS's face.

My question is about breakfast. When do you start introducing this? His doesn't seem bothered at the moment. DD has hers at about 8am and sometimes he is still asleep at this time, then pre-school run and then he just wants milk. Perhaps try some on the days when no pre-school? Is it that important? Plus some breakfast ideas would be good, what is everyone else doing?
Sorry, about a million questions then..

Hello, dd is having breakfast with us as it is the only meal all of us get to eat together on a weekday. She has her milkfeed about 6:30ish and we eat at about 7:15

Its a bit of a nightmare to be honest as there isn't much time and ds (2.5) is being a bit high maintenence! It means I now don't get to shower before dh goes to work (he refuses to get up earlier)

We don't have anything elaborate. Cereal, toast, fruit - I've been bunging dd a selection of what we have. I did make pancakes on sunday though and they went down well

welcome PatTheHammer and ijustwant8hours.

Chulita - dd is only 27 weeks but also seemed to be dropping feeds. She dropped her night feed a couple of weeks ago (hooray!!) Isn't that interested first thing in the morning but will take if offered, then has one around lunch time and one and bed time generally. Today however, I think she's really hot and thirsty cos she's had an extra very short feed this afternoon. Would rather she wasn't dropping so many feeds this early but am trying to carry on being guided by her.

Ijustwant8hours - we bite the end off strawberries before offering them here - seems to help dd get a good grip

PatTheHammer - dd has toast, fruit or cereal for breakfast. This morning was porridge which she loves, and she feeds herself with a loaded spoon. I think its quite common for babies not to be too bothered by breakfast though, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

oh and I have a question about spoons! Does anyone else do loaded spoons? We just use a teaspoon here and dd manages fairly well but i've been wondering whether she might manage better with a weaning spoon. Are they specially shaped for babies' mouths or something? Or should i save my money and carry on with the teaspoons?

Thanks Ijustwant8hours, I was thinking yoghurt with toast fingers and fruit or strips of omlette. Never thought about milk soaked cereal or pancakes, doh! I can see it being a nightmare in the mornings as I go back to work soon and it is truly a messy buisness.

Hi Greensnail, I have used loaded weaning spoons with organic yoghurt on and DS manages fine (already had some from DD). I started putting them on the table in front of him but he got the idea so now I just pass them to him. Oh, forgot about porridge too!

I think the heat is bothering mots people at the moment, I feel rotten too. DD has been in a grump most of the day. Today was broccoli again, which she's clearly less keen on. Banana went down well again, but we have an issue that she holds onto to it too hard and it breaks so we just end up with increasingly smaller pieces. Bit of a mistake, she broke off a large piece of banana in her mouth, she was clearly struggling with it and I tried to get it out of her mouth, but just made matters worse by pushing it back. I then realised she was able to to push it out herself with her tounge. Clever baby, bad mummy.

Will have to start widening my food offerings now. Got my parents up this weekend and am slightly nervous about doing BLW in front of them, not sure why.

Ah Greensnail, I'm glad it's not just DD but yea...I'm up for this 'on demand' business but I reckon she needs more milk...but then who am I to say?!

I use a weaning spoon cos DD likes to suck it and metal isn't much fun to suck really. I spoon feed her (the shame to admit that on a BLW thread) 2 meals a day and she has finger food at lunch. This is more because she eats like a horse but can't get a spoon into her mouth with stuff on it and then throws a strop cos she's hungry. She never used to accept a spoon but now she sits there like a bird with her mouth open. I'm hoping to get her back to full BLW when she wants to.

Hi PatTheHammer and ijustwant8hours

We use loaded spoons here. Also, it has been known for us to spoon feed albeit almost exclusively with yoghurt. Samba gets sick of the whole BLW thing when it comes to yoghurt and demands a more efficient delivery mechanism! She won't entertain being spoon fed for anything else though

Hi all, and welcome to he newbies

Chulita - my Ds is dropping milk feeds too. I've finally got him to take a bottle (hurray!) and our day is now something like this:

6.45 am - Breastfeed
7.15am - Breakfast
10.30 am - 3 oz ish formula
12 noon - lunch
2.30pm 6 oz formula
5 pm - Tea
7 pm - Breastfeed
Dreamfeed??? (breast)

He started sleeping through from the dreamfeed about 2-3 wks ago (joy!) and I'm working on dropping the dreamfeed now. Last night we had a bbq and he wouldn't didn't go to bed till late so had a bfeed at 8.30 pm. He slept through till morning so i'm going to miss it out tionight and see what happens.

Good day though otherwise. Shreddies for breakfast, bread and philly, banana, grapes and yoghurt for lunch, tuna and tomato pasta followed by ricre pud for tea. Shreddies, yoghurt and rice pud were spoon fed, the rest he did himself.

He's getting a bit better with the sippy cup too, still not hugely keen but he had a few mouthfulls of water today.

Jojay how old is your DS? I have wondered about grapes, what is the thoughts on these?
I am giving my DS two formula feeds in the day at 11am and about 2pm, although he is not liking it. Has just started taking water out of doidy cup and seems to enjoy that. Thinking of switching formula to doidy, unsure if this will work?

greensparkles-sounds like the type of thing my DH would say!
Lobsters, my DS just mushes banana in his hand

DS2 is 8 months. I chop grapes into quarters and he manages fine, though the odd bit of skin gets spat out again. I wouldn't give whole grapes yet, not for ages in fact.

Ok thanks, wasn't sure they could have stuff so small either. Are peas ok? Jeez, I'm so lazy, should have just read a ruddy book!