Feeling down - blw a disaster so far....

[Cosmogirl]

Hello,

Have a DD 6 months + 3 wks. She is being BF and after reading 'the book' I was determined to follow BLW. We started a wee bit before 6 months because DD was showing signs of readiness. However it has not been going well. DD seems to gag on almost everything we give her and sometimes after she gags she throws up violently - often bringing lots of milk back too. We have tried things like steamed broccoli, roasted sweet potato, weetabix minis dipped in milk to soften them etc...

The whole solids issue is causing arguments between myself and DH because he is a nervous wreck everytime she is feeding herself because he fears she will choke/gag/chuck up or all of the aforementioned....I'm not sure what to so now...Do I throw in the towel and get out the blender and ice cube trays? I was thinking maybe to give her loaded spoons of runny food until she is able to move food around her mouth better. Do babies mouths suddenly become more developed and able to move food and chew around a particular age?

Any words of wisdom or more experience blw who have come out the other end?

Gagging is normal and not dangerous.
Choking...hmmm...why is she bringing up a lot of milk? Do you feed her before mealtime?
My DD was gagging all the time, but it didn't stop her eating...
Maybe if her stomach is full with milk, her gagging is causing her to throw it up?

I have a DD 6 months and 3 weeks too (and older DS).

I give her pureed stuff but also stuff to eat herself. so for example she gets some mashed avocado, with some bits of cooked broccoli or whatever. Don't give her too much milk before the solids.. ALso, can she grab food and put it in her mouth easily? If she has trouble moving stuff round her mouth, that suggests to me that she is barely ready for weaning, tbh... I started weaning DD a bit at 5.5 months and she did that spitting out thing, only around 6 months did she get the hang of actually eating.. so could be your DD is not quite ready. I also see a big difference between my DD, who tries to grab everything and eat it and is a much more BLW type baby, and my DS, who wanted everything from a spoon, made no efforts to take any food himself but very happily gobbled up anything offered on a spoon. so I think it also depends on their personality. is your dd a 'grabber' or a 'sit back and relax' type?

I would try with a bit of baby cereal or veg or mashed fruit on a spoon and see how she does, then give the same thing but for her to hold herself. just mix the two and see what she prefers..

We did BLW with DD who is now 14mths old.

I too found in the first few weeks we had plenty of gagging and the occassional sickness. Tip- to stay calm or she will pick up on your panic.
It was amazing how suddenly she wasnt gagging and then seemed to have "got it".

The first things I tried DD with were fingers of toast, Banana, juicy pear, cooked carrot sticks. Sounds like you are doing just fine. Keep going and DD will stop the gagging soon enough.

She is now a fab eater, who tries anything and loves chilli's, currys and Chinese food!

My two pennies worth - try to relax about the whole thing. Get it in perspective. What you are trying to do is very slowly, over the next 6 months or so, introduce the idea of food other than milk to your baby. I really wouldnt get hung up on following a particular 'plan'. Try not to think of it as 'BLW", but as 'giving your child food and letting him/her have a taste and eat what they want of it'.

It isn't a test.
There isn't a 'right/wrong' way of doing it.
Your baby doesn't actually need huge amounts of food for months and months to come and gets most of his/her nutrition from milk until the age of 1 yr.
There is no need to let this cause you stress. Offer food, observe closely, read cues, dont worry if not much gets swallowed! Gagging is par for the course, but if she is consistently bringing up her milk feeds, try to stagger milk feeds until after she's eaten or make gaps between milk and meals longer.

gagging is actually a good thing. it's her body learning what to do with food and stopping it just going straight down her throat and causing her to choke. if her tummy is full of milk then yes this might come up with the gagging. she'll move on from this soon.