BLW support - welcome weaners old and new and mind the lentils on the floor

[JumeirahJane]

Fellow weaners,

Hope you find this, our second thread. Haven't we been chatty! The title was borrowed from the kind words with which I was welcomed onto the thread by KiwiPanda. Hope you like...

On the topic of highchairs, I also have the ubiquitous Antilop from I**A, against my better judgement, damn them. It is awfully practical, even I will admit. Just shove a folded towel under her bum before feeds, saves on cushion washing

Felt brave today and administered both avocado AND blueberry muffins in the same meal. It was worth the mess to see her grinning little face at the end.

Hi - I grate the apple/pear and use a fork to make the Hulla pancakes. Very easy. Plus I have made the happy discovery that DS will eat them cold so they are a brilliant one (and relatively clean) to take out and about.

In other news, we've decided to buy a bread maker after trialling my parents' one. As DS is such a carb-monster, it will mean I have to stop fretting so much about salty bread.

Pomegranates - I never do anything fancy with them, just eat the seeds. If you roll them first, apparently they're easier to get out but I always end up in a mess. DS just let them fall out of his mouth, not impressed at all.

Hi Maplemama and welcome! V exciting to hear we have a Canadian outpost.

Eagarbeagle - ouch that sounds nasty. Hope yout toe is recovering. Glad to hear about the banana though.

Jumpjockey - I read your nursery story out to DH and we were both Your poor DD. We loved the way you filled in her nursery form (made us smile) and it was very they ignored it.

Cara I know what you mean about eating. DD and I have to have our tea before daddy gets home and I often end up eating twice. Thank goodness for bf indeed or else I would be enormous. Must confess though that I've never encountered a real live pomegranate and wouldn't know what to do with one if I did

CoteDAzur welcome too! As well as those already mentioned I found good foods to start with were roasted veg (nice soft ones e.g. aubergine, tomato, squash, sweet potato), raspberries (nice size for baby hands) and porridge (we just put it down on DD's tray - very messy). Good luck - let us know how it goes.

Leftangle and Ses - how's it going? Any progress yet?

In the Cosy Tiger household we've hit a dip in food intake as DD is almost 8m after a very very enthusiastic start. For the first time a couple of days ago she had no interest in her porridge and hardly ate anything all day. Am putting it down to teething just now. Hopefully it'll pick up again.

Oh and Hulla's pancakes are fab. We are going to make them for tea tonight

BabyAzur can't sit by himself yet. Does that mean I should hold off giving him finger foods?

cara - the best thing to do with a pomegranate is to eat the seeds, but I do have a tip to get at them. Cut the pom across the middle (not lengthwise) then you'll see different sections (kind of like an orange) score the skin along each of these sections and then pull apart. This will make it easier to pop the seeds off.

Baby Juan had her first yoghurt this morning! We did the loaded spoons thing again and she grabbed and slurped every spoonful! I used greek yoghurt rather than 'normal' baby yoghurt and she seemed to love it!

Then I showed a photo of her using the spoon to my fiend who has a 15month old son & she said "oh ... can't even do that - I never let him hold the spoon - it's far too messy". Made me a bit . Surely it's going to be messy at some point when he learns to use the spoon?

fiend friend

Hi,
I'd like to join in too please. My DD is 24 weeks, so starting a bit early. She is sitting up very well and playing with toys in that position and has finally lost the tongue thrust. I'm going to hold off on wheat / dairy for another 2 weeks though, just in case.

I gave her some rice cake and banana yesterday and she ate some. She swallowed what seemed like a big chunk of each, which scared me a bit. But no choking. Going to try her with roast pumpkin, avocado and banana tonight.

Maplemama - do you live in Canada or UK? I'm a transplanted Canadian and when I mention the BLW route to people back home I get blank looks.

Cupcake - I live in Canada, I ran across BLW in my internet travels, so after 4 weeks of frustration with purees I thankfully knew of another option. I've only met one other person here who has done BLW and almost noone else who even knows about it. There is very little support for it here, which is why I ended up on this board.

A couple of questions this afternoon...

• rice cakes - which ones do you use? All the "baby" ones say from 7mo.

• yoghurt - I normally have Activia ones. Can DS have a little of that or do I need to get him Petit Filous or something else?

DS enjoyed a few breadsticks with Philly this morning but still struggling with his sitting. Tried the Bumbo and tray but he still slumped in it. He's 27 weeks today so I guess I just have to be patient.

Will try the pancakes with my trustly hand whisk!
essence I use the Kallo "adult" rice cakes and also the Organix and Boots apple ones, don't worry about the age thing too much
Yoghurt - you will find most have added sugar, colours etc (esp petit filous )
we use full fat greek yoghurt with fruit stirred in or just plain - yummy!
Re the slumping I'm not sure, DS used to sit a bit wonky in his highchair so I padded him out with towels to keep him straight but he always had good head control so didn't worry too much

Hope that helps some, enjoy!

Maplebaby loved the Broccoli and cheese mini muffins I made! mini muffins were a perfect size for his little hands too. Kidney beans and blueberries were a bust for the first try though

Mine isn't too fussed about blueberries either. Has got pincer grip quite yet so have squished them and stirred them into his yoghurt but he always spits them out!

Hi Ses, I use organix ricecakes and have done since 6m. I can get them from wholefood shop near me but I think they sell them in boots too. I also use either Greek yoghurt or ordinary plain yoghurt and DD is pretty keen on it specially with raspberries. It's cheaper too as you can just buy a big tub. I put the Greek down directly on her tray as it's thick enough to scoop, although v messy. I spoon feed it if it's runnier. My DD used to slump too but tbh as it wasn't too bad and she had good head control I just let her [bad mummy emoticon]. But I guess it depends on the slump angle.

Maple I am very impressed with the muffins, they sound yummy.

Oh and Cupcake hi and welcome! How did the avacado etc go?

Well avocado was a bust. She couldn't get it into her mouth. Next time I'll leave some skin on so she can get a better grip. Pumpkin got a funny face - to be fair we found it quite bitter ourselves - but some went in the mouth. She's had a good gum on a carrot and doesn't seem to like yellow pepper. Banana seems to be the big winner so far.

Going to try sweet potatoes and courgettes next. Looking forward to trying Hulla's pancakes soon. They sound nice and simple to make.

DD seems to be cutting her first tooth so is out of sorts i.e. was up pretty much every hour last night. May need to slow things for a few days to see how she is.

Ses I'm using the Sainsburys too good to be true ricecakes. DD seems to like them so far. I think they taste like cardboard but she doesn't know any better.

Ses We use the Kallo ricecakes - there's a couple of salt free varieties that Ocado stock.

Ses ricecakes are quite good dunked in yoghurt, according to IsItMeBaby. We used to get the Yeo Valley plain yoghurt until granny lured IsItMeBaby over to the wonders of flavoured yoghurts. Rachel's First Yoghurts (nothing but yoghurt and fruit puree - unlike many of the children's yoghurts which seem to have sugar as the second ingredient ) were the ones she has got him hooked on.

Don't be too impressed with the muffins it was probably the first time I baked in a year and a half.

But I saw my first evidence of swallowing in Maplebaby's diaper this morning! I think it must have been from the muffins, definitely saw broccoli bits!

For all those with wobbly babies, my DS was a rubbish sitter until he was about 8 months, he just used to throw himself around before that. We used to feed him in the bumbo (illegally on the kitchen table) and later the Antilop with one of those inflatable supports that Ikea do.

Rice cakes - we have the Organix ones or Kallo salt free too. Boots do some as well. Don't worry about the age 'limit' on the packet - it's just a marketing ploy.

Maplemama - hello and please can we have the muffin recipe?

hi, just posting so i can watch this thread... DS2 is 6.5m and have been doing a mix of mush and finger food since 25 weeks but he seems to prefer to feed himself so I'm leaning more that way without quite doing full blw.

Our main issue is that it looks like he has a milk allergy (DS1 has multiple allergies inc egg, chick peas and lentils so waiting to introduce those too). Along with the fact that we are veggie, I am struggling for ideas of what to offer him aside from fruit/veg/toast...

Aaarrgh, typical BB annoying behaviour today.... Went to grandma's for Sunday dinner and he decides, 'no, I'm not going to eat any veggies or meat', then gobbles up a huge helping of apple crumble! There were various comments from my mum (who thinks BLW is weird and babies should be spoon fed purees from 4 months) along the lines of 'well if he hasn't eaten his dinner he shouldn't get any pudding', 'of course, at 11 months you were eating 3 meals a day and you never left any, you loved your food'. This was on top of 'did you leave him to cry in his bed?' when I mentioned that BB has been waking/crying in the early hours 'cos he's teething. (I replied, in a small voice, that I cuddled him back to sleep and he was already in my bed at that point...)

Then tonight, he decides to eat a tonne of leftover veggie spag bol from yesterday as well as half an omelette! Is he torturing me on purpose?!?!

Babies!!!

Cara - v frustrating for you!! It seems BLWers are always having to try and prove a point to the rest of the world. Grrr!!

Thanks for feedback on rice cakes, yoghurt and wobbly baby! Big help

DS did well this afternoon. We went to our local pub with my parents for a meal. He happily chomped on some of my bread dipped in my soup and then one of my chips.

Meg - I'm new to all this but I'm sure you're doing ok sticking to what you know is ok. I guess you can try and vary the fruit & veg quite a bit. I know I wouldn't normally be buying pears or squash or sweet potato but I think I will this week and I think it will be good for me and DH too!

hello all' haven't posted much recently due to general hecticness (a word i think i've just invented) and sleep deprivation' but BabyPanda is eating like a very small competitive eater at the mo, bless her. anyway juat popped in on my very dodgyt blackberry keyboard (can you tell?!)u to say hello and will be back with lots ioof vegetarian suggestuons and proper spelling tomorrow

I need to confess that IsItMeBaby is now partially spoon fed - usually a pudding (yoghurt, fruit puree thing) - at each meal . I am trying not to feel badly about this, as he just seems to get frustrated about not being able to get enough in himself. And surely the whole point is for the baby to get the food he wants...When he's not teething, he's still doing pretty well with the self-feeding, so hopefully this is okay.

Well have had a mixed few days. Babybeagle was mightily unimpressed with his first experience of broccoli, picked it up looked at it and dropped it. Then ignored it and searched around on the floor looking bored. Utterly uninterested in the steamed courgette I also offered him

Tried again next day and he had a good munch but then got a wedge of fiberous bit at the back of the mouth and got a very panicky look on his face which prompted a few over the knee backslaps from me. He probably could of managed it himself if I had left him to it but am still really twitchy on the choking front - need to chill out but finding it so hard.

I live in Thailand (am a brit expat) and there is no emergency 999 medical services. I have scoured the net for a local infant CPR course to no avail to date (am still looking) so am very much wavering on the BLW front. I don't know any other BLW mums, actually I don't know any other mums with a LO the same age. On the other hand I don't want DS to get to 9 months and have to go through the lumpy stage when his gag reflex is weakened. Arghh the stress of it.

Also told some of the other expat mums I was BLW (translated for them as "i'm trying just to give him finger foods") and they looked at me as if I was totally off my rocker .

Sigh.