Getting my knickers in a twist about weaning, Went wrong last time and seem to be this time too,.,

[MerryMarigold]

Babies are 29 weeks today. They are not eating a lot. They seem to be drinking fine (both bf), but both are falling down in the centiles the past 2 months. I don't know what I am doing wrong.

I weaned ds1 at 6mths on purees. He ate quite a lot and (I think) wasn't drinking much milk as he fell from 50th centile to the 9th over about 4months.

I have twins and wanted to do a lot more finger foods as it is easier. Again I waited till 6months. They haven't been interested in finger foods, so have tried a few mashed meals/ yoghurt etc. and putting rice cakes/ sweet pot fingers in front of them to play with, but they are not eating much at all. Went to see HV yesterday and they have fallen. DD was falling anyway and they are concerned about her, ds2 is now falling as well. She basically told me off for not feeding them enough food. I don't know what to do and I feel quite upset as I really didn't want to make the same mistake as last time ie. feeding too much food and not enough milk.

I am really not a knickers-in-a-twist kind of girl, but this is getting to me as it is the one area I really felt like I 'failed' in with ds1.

Basically I want to know:

• How can I get them to eat more finger food or should I not bother with this and just give them mashed stuff?
• How often should they be having meals at 29 weeks? How much should they eat at the meals?

Thanks so so much...

I had trouble with DS1 dropping centiles when he was little (5yrs ago) so this time around I have started Baby Led Weaning (BLW). It is basically just finger food, what your family eats, with no 'feeding them' as such - you give them the food and off they go.

To start with you need to carry on with the BF as this will still be their 'food' - the playing with food is supposed to be an introduction to eating meals with family / giving babies the right message about food and appetite etc.

Haven't been doing it long but one of the main attractions for me is that it means I'm not wondering about how much he is eating as he is BFing on demand still.

Not sure if this would be helpful - have you heard of BLW? If you are stressing about amounts etc then it may not be for you, but this is exactly what I was attracted to!

Take a look here babyledweaning.com.

Try keeping a food diary, detailing what and when they are offered, and what they eat. You could show this to your HV and see what she thinks?

Good luck

Thanks kirsty. I am off to the BLW place for some more help!

Merry - so sorry to hear that you're having a hard time - if you're up for BLW, come and join us here: we're all doing BLW