BLW - help with finger foods for 6 month old

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Can't decide whether what I have just done is really good and me and my ds are to be congratulated, or whether I am just being irresponsible.

DS is 25 weeks, and for a few days now has been helping himself at meal times. I hadn't intended to go down the BLW route but since he seems to like putting food in his mouth thought we could give it a try. He hasn't actually done much other than put food in his mouth and lick it a bit until this evening.

I let him have some brocolli this evening, and it just fell apart in his hands and he got really angry about it because he couldn't get any in his mouth. So I got him an organix biscuit that I had bought for when he is a bit older, thinking it wouldn't do any harm knowing that all he was going to do was lick it, but all by himself he scoffed about half of it .

1. Given that he is only 25 weeks is it OK for him to be eating stuff like this? Am I just being silly to wait until the magic 26 weeks or is that important?

2. Is it OK for him to eat stuff like this as a first food or should we stick to fruit and veg first?

3. Does the various coughing and spluttering he did whilst eating it mean that he isn't ready for this yet or is it just part of the learning curve that they all go through?

Any advice welcome!

The advice on BLW is that you can start once they are old enough; 26 weeks is an average but if they are showing signs of interest before then, it should be ok. DD started getting fascinated by food around 23-24 weeks and it was round 24-25 weeks that I started trying her on things (she's now 27 weeks).

She doesn't really swallow anything but she has already licked/gummed/destroyed a wide variety of bits and pieces from bread sticks to nectarine and even decided to try some of my chilli con carne the other day (and smeared most of it over her face). She's even had bread with branston pickle on it; I don't force anything on her but if she's interested and gives it a go, I don't stop her. The gagging/spluttering is rather offputting but she doesn't seem bothered by it so I'm trying not to be.

Good luck!

1. If your baby is leading then I suppose it's baby led weaning give or take a week. I'd be surprised if much actually gets swallowed at this stage.

2. Aitch's marvellous BLW site has loads of useful info about best foods to start with

3. A fair amount of gagging and spluttering is normal to begin with. Noisy spluttering = OK, silent spluttering (which we thankfully never experienced with DS) = possible choking,immediate action required.

We found BLW a fantastic way to introduce DS to food and he's a great eater now at 16 months, would definitely recommend it.

3. If it was an organix rusk I don't like them as they seem very claggy and liable to cause gagging (more so than other biscuits) other organix biscuits are ok but do check the sugar content, don't assume it will be low. I tend to give the rice cakes as little snacks instead of biscuits. (Organix do nice flavoured ones)

Thanks for the link to Aitch's website. I have been reading it and feel a lot braver about BLW already.