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.

maplemama I have seen black and red bits in stools recently, but assumed they were the copious amounts of tomatoes and blueberries DS had been consuming - do you mean blood in stools?

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Today saw babyBev's first encounter with a banana (and my first real experience of how messy this could all get ), she was loving it and there was less gagging than yesterday. Lots of excited noises.

Though as her piece de resistance, she threw up all over herself! Then beamed at me.

Think I need to wait a bit longer after a milk feed next time....

isitmeor BB has only recently started dunking (mainly spoons or fingers) - he has just turned 11 months. Greek yoghurt dolloped on his tray was what taught him that he could dip his fingers in and then lick something off them. That started at around 9 months I think. Self-fed yoghurt is very messy so I save it for dinner and then he goes in the bath!

IsItMeOr - yes, I mean blood. If you're sure it's food, that's not a big deal, but if you are at all unsure, maybe try taking the things that you suspect to blame out of the diet for a bit to see if there is a change?

Thanks Maplemama TMI alert! It definitely looks like little pieces/chunks rather than streaks, so I think it's pretty safe assumption that it's food. Will keep a look out though.

Think we have taken BLW a bit too far here... Was making DS's tea while he was scooting around the kitchen floor. Realised he had gone quiet and turned around to see him contentedly munching on something out of the food recycling bin (baaaaaarf!). Think it was yesterday's pasta, but equally could have been a tea bag or egg shells. Gross.

Lol at Sospan, yes, definitely time to draw the line somewhere slightly before that one .

Well, babybeagle is getting on a lot better now. Much less gagging and when he does he seems to be able to deal with the problem a bit more quickly which is much better.

Had rice cakes with philly and steamed carrot for lunch. Rice cakes went down very well mainly because I think we will have some more teeth soon and i think he liked the firmness of the ricecakes against his gum. Poor love tried to rub the carrot against his gums and they just snapped so all the carrot got lobbed on the floor.

That's good news on babybeagle. Have you tried chilled cucumber sticks if he's teething?

IsItMe Yes DD has only recently started "dunking" or sucking stuff off her fingers and she is 11 months too. She also rather cutely keeps tearing bits of food apart and then seeing if she can put them back together again.

Hulla Yup that's pretty much it with the potato cakes. A bit of nutmeg goes well in the spinach mix, and DH has also made them with mushrooms. Oh and sometimes he uses other veg in the mash bit - parsnip or suede or squash or whatever is left from our veg delivery box!

IsItMe will try that. I have yet to find recognisable cucumber in Bangkok. I know they have it though (I think they are just a different shape - short and squat and paler colour) so I will have to buy what I think are cucumbers and give them a go.

I was also clearly wrong on the carrot front as there was extensive evidence of carrot eating in babybeagle's nappy this morning

Hi all

I have been lurking for a while but decided to say hi. I have just started on week 3 of BLW with Babyseb, (6m 2w) and he seems to be making real progress now - for the last few days he has been really enthusiastic and has tried to eat everything we put in front of him. I think some of it is going down although there is a lot which gets spat out!

I was wondering if anyone had any advice on a something though? It is a bit TMI!! As a purely BF baby his poos were very infrequent - once every ten to fourteen days being usual but the HVs said this was fine. This (in)frequency doesn't really seem to have changed since we started solids and even since he seems to be eating more in the last few days. I would guess this means that nothing is going down ... He has done a couple of poos in the two weeks since we have started and they have been very much like BF poos except possibly with a few bits in. Sorry this is all a bit gross - but has anyone else experienced this?

Evening all,
Thank you cupcake, isitmeor and maplemama for the green poo responses! The health visitor today said it is probably a combination of teething and starting solids, and there was nothing to worry about. Also he's still putting on weight (s-l-o-w-l-y) and seems happy after each very short breastfeed, so he probably is getting enough from me. Phew!

Today we had the first baulking at a food other than underripe avocado - hard-boiled egg. Initial enthusiasm led to much whining. So we moved on to Greek yoghurt, with slightly squished raspberries loaded onto a spoon for him to put in his mouth. Much better!

sebsmama, I think that babies can often get constipated once starting on solids, as well as the reverse, like mine, and apparently prunes and bananas are good for this.

Yodaisacat funnily enough we have also only really had poor reviews from ds on my attempts to use egg to get protein into him. Hard boiled eggs - no. Scrambled eggs - no. Plain omelette - no. Omelette with red peppers and mushrooms - no. Eggy bread - no. Cheese omelette - yes, Yes, YES. I suspect that might have been the cheese that was the winner (again) there.

Am running out of ideas egg-wise and it is a shame as they are so quick and easy!

Thanks for the reply Yodaisacat. He tried banana a while back and liked it so I will try him again with it and see if it gets things moving.
He doesn't seem uncomfortable at the moment which is good.
BabySeb loves Greek Yoghurt as well - we do a combo of me feeding it to him and him grabbing it off the tray and shoving his fingers in his mouth, over his hair, into the grooves in the highchair, etc...

Thanks Yodaisacat for positive news on the poo front. That is one more weight off my mind.

Had the first gagging / puking incident at lunch today. I don't think the pear was quite ripe enough. She threw up and then carried on eating butternut squash without getting stressed at all. I somehow managed to remain calm as well.

babycupcake loves Greek yoghurt with smushed blueberries. We can't resist taking picture after picture of her yoghurt smeared face. Am sure at some point feeding will become business as usual but for now it seems to be an endless photo op.

Well I made the mistake of cooking something especially for DD today - nothing special, just pasta with a sauce made from pureed carrot, red pepper & philadephia. She loves all those things separately but the combination went down like a lead balloon - she threw every last piece off the side of her highchair and ate half a babybel instead. Hey ho.

Toast and potato (not together!) are the current favourites - she's a carb girl like her mum!

mrsjuan babybeagle is also a carb king, like his mom. Loves toast fingers and rice cakes. He also goes nuts for bananas and makes a very cute oo-oo-oo noise (in manner of baby gorilla) and reaches his hands out whenever he sees one.

Had a bit more success with papaya today, perhaps a little less ripe than the previous exploding orange goo I tried with him before. He also had a go at some melon but got a bigish piece squashed into his top palate which did not go down well and resulted in some shouting and a good winge.

He had some of our lasagne yesterday which he happily squeezed through his fingers until it was mush and then lobbed on the floor. I don't think he ate any but seemed to enjoy making a huge mess.

He is still getting very frustrated at every meal and groaning and moaning and wingeing a lot. I wonder if its just being constrained in his chair (hes an on the move all the time kinda kid).

Oooo and hello sebsmama waves at sebsmama. Babyseb must be about the same age as babybeagle.

Hi Eagerbeagle. BabySeb was born on May 10. Like Babybeagle he moans and fidgets quite a lot when he is in his chair - not sure why. However he has also started making yummy noises!
He is so cool whilst waiting for me to bring his food over and tries to launch himself out of the chair to grab my plate from the table . This BLW thing is fun!
My friends and most of my family think I am nuts though - keep getting asked how much he is eating, how many meals a day etc. He is only 6 months old!!

Hi All, I'm a newbie on this thread and here is a stupid question alert !! DS - almost 11 months - is loving finger food at the mo. He eats most meats so I thought I might try him on some ham but am wondering where to start. Should I go to the deli and get some, or buy a ham and cook at home - or heaven forbid - use a packaged ham? Also thinking of the salt content.

Many thanks in anticipation.

sebsmama Patrick was born on 8 May so only 2 days apart!

Question for the experienced ladies. Babybeagle is doing ok with steamed carrot/courgette sticks, broccoli, rice cakes, potato wedges (steamed or roasted) toast, and banana but need to get some more protein into his diet. Am pretty nervous about meat as everything else he has had so far is reasonably squishy once he gets it into his mouth but meat or hard cheese won't be. He has two teeth so is pretty good at biting off big lumps.

Any experiences/top tips in this area would be appreciated as am nervous of him having strips of meat and cheese.

Am trying him on omelet strips today to see how that goes down.

Hello all
I've been lurking for a while on the BLW thread, but not posted before, so hello!

It's been really useful/interesting/inspiring to read how you are all getting on. DD is 8 months in 2 days and we've been BLW since she was 6 months. She's pretty good, manages most things we have ( I either adapt them slightly or have a stock of savoury muffins and soup with rice cakes for other occasions!).

eagerbeagle I give DD meat- chicken usually just in strips and she picks it up and mashes it to an impressive pulp just with her gums- no teeth at all yet. So far I have only given her breast, though I have read that you are actually better off giving them the brown meat as it contains more iron and is less crumbly. In the BLW book it suggests giving them some on the bone but I haven't tried that yet. I have also given her fish fingers (I made some myself and she had a go, then threw them on the floor, I also gave her fish fingers from a packet with the crumbs taken off the outside, they went down a treat ) She eats strips of cheese too- double gloucester (not sure I have sp that correctly) usually. She has also had a good go at a strip of steak and we are having lamb with apricots tonight- I'll let you know how that goes! I am planning to cook it till is is falling apart and then squish hers onto rice cakes. That seems to work well for most things!

I was wondering if anyone had any words of wisdom for me. Though I am happy with how she is doing with food, and I know that she will eat what she needs and make up the difference with milk, I am going back to work in Jan and she is still BFing at least 3 times in the day. I'll be ok with the morning one (7) and the bedtime one (6) but it's the three in between that worry me. She won't take a bottle and takes no more than 1 oz from either her tommee tippee or her doidy cup. Anyone experienced this and found a way round it? I'm only working 2/3 days per week, so hoping to carry on BF on the days I am not at work. The thought of giving up makes me feel so but do I have to do it to be fair to her?

BTW anyone else have a terrific storm last night? We had huge thunder and lightning and sideways rain. V impressive, but poor little DD was terrified. Nice excuse to get her in with us though.

eagerbeagle The first thing I tried in terms of cheese was actually cream cheese spread in a sandwich - so you can see if he likes the taste without worrying about the hardness.

Mini babybels go down a treat here - mind he stuffed one in almost whole yesterday and then had a major crying session. I think it's because he's teething and maybe attempting the whole thing at once jarred his teethy jaws a bit painfully?

Cheese on toast is a goody. IsItMeBaby actually first enjoyed chicken most obviously by having a small amount of meat left on a thigh bone for him. Initially he would just strip the meat off and wave the bone around, but now he definitely eats some. Just make sure there are no bits that will come off (there's that funny hard bit of gristly stuff around the joint - IIMBaby can do some serious damage to that with his two little teeth, so I confiscate it to remove that once he's loosened it).

Now (81/2 mo) he also nibbles daintily on slices of chicken, strips of steak, fishfingers (shop-bought, as they come, just check the salt), king prawns and a sausage cut into slices (again, check the salt).

wrt cheese - DD loves philadelphia - has it on toast or rice cakes. She also seems to being great guns for babybels although they are a bit scary because she can bite lumps off and then has to really concentrate to chew them!

I am going to try her with some cheddar on her jacket potato for lunch.

Meat wise she's only tried chicken. I made a chicken casserole last night with thigh fillets (with some complicated swapping from pan to pan so that we got stock but she didn't!). She managed to pick large lumps of fillet up and gum away at them and even managed to bite a few little bits off which I presume were swallowed.

I am having a slight wobble about her milk intake which seems to have dropped quite a lot (although could just be one of her funny phases). So far today she's had a total of 5oz of formula with her last feed of 4oz last night at 11pm. It was a similar story yesterday.

I keep telling myself that if I were still breastfeeding I wouldn't know how much she was having so not to worry but it's easier said than done!