DD below 1st centile, puree vs BLW?

[CalypsoFramboise]

DD born on 45th centile, now at 5.5months is below 1st centile.

BF every 2-3hrs during the day, every 3-4hrs during the night.

Was planning on BLW but seeing my friends with 6-8month old babies gobbling up their pureed veg, I'm wondering if BLW is suitable for a baby with such a poor track record in weight gain...?

I like the principles of BLW but am wondering if a 'dual pronged' approach might work despite puree-ing being discouraged if BLW? Can one successfully puree fruit and veg for one or two of the meals and offer finger food for one or two? Is that too confusing / counterproductive?

Ta

I suppose you CAN do both, but am not sure why you'd want to or that it will make any difference wrt to weight gain.

The idea with BLW is that the baby is in control of the food and how much she eats. Also they say 'food is fun until they're one' so BLW isn't about getting lots of food into them, more about exploring and learning the skills for eating. Your breastmilk has lots of fat and calories--that will put on weight much more efficiently than anything you can shovel into her.

FWIW, I'm doing BLW even though DS was born above 50th centile and is now hovering around the 5th. He is quite healthy and happy, and in just a few weeks is doing a lot more chewing and swallowing than at the start.

Do you have a copy of Gill Rapley's book? It's very helpful to go back to if I start doubting myself!

Oooh, forgot to say, if you did do purees you could give them to her on pre-loaded spoons so she maintains some control. We do this for really sloppy stuff like fromage frais. To be fair, I couldn't spoon feed DS unless I tied his hands down! He grabs for everything to shove straight in his mouth.

Ha Calypso, was just about to post something very similar to this, so am v. interested to see the responses!

DS no.3 ( 5 mo)doesn't actually have a centile as he has dropped off the chart but is gradually going up on his own line. I had the discussion about blw too with hv this week as I am keen to do this.

She 'advised' me to do a compromise between the two because of his weight. I have read the GR book and find the idea v. interesting.

When I explained to HV that you don't really drop the milk feeds as they are more calorific than the food, she claimed that it was the other way round
(Maybe I should pass the book on to her)

having done a bit of research, the only thing I can find with more kcal than milk is avocado.

Of course I wouldn't want to put his health at risk but my instinct says give blw a go (with maybe some carrot sticks and avocado for extra calories!)

crikey, we do lots of avocado here too! Smashed up on a rice cake works well. HVs give some startlingly bad advice sometimes.

i agree with yankncock - milk and avocado more calorific than carrot... .

My son is doing BLW and is galloping up the centiles! Maybe it's all the butter on his toast.

I always did a combination of finger foods and spoon feeding for each meal, there was never any conflict between the two approaches and it did help my DCs to maintain a level on the chart when they tended to drift down through the centiles if I wasn't careful.

I spoon feed yoghurt and porridge. I don't mind mess, but there is a limit!

thanks for the advice and ideas
can't wait to get going on it!

we are in the same position here...my little one isn't even on the chart and I have been pressured to start weaning her since she was 17 weeks by the paediatrician so that I could get some more calories into her.

Needless to say I didn't.

I explained that I was going to do baby led weaning which prompted her to make an appointment for me with the dietician so that I could learn all about traditional weaning so that I could 'make an informed choice' !!!!

Anyway...spoke to the paediatric dietician WHO DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT BLW out of courtesy. she of course said I should be giving her baby rice and mush.

load of tosh.

so...I am going to do baby led weaning and just delay going back to see the consultant for a while :-)

My DS is 7 months, all his calories come from milk really, as I don't count tiny bits of BLW veg he gets down. Just been to have him weighed and he's gaining weight well - even up to a higher centile than he was a couple of months ago. So that seems to fit with what people on here say - that as long as they're getting plenty of milk, solid intake doesn't correlate with weight gain.

i would say that the key thing is making every morsel count, so look at nut butters (holland and barrett do cashew), avocado, mixing double cream into things etc.

i'm a big fan of blw, so much so that i have my own blooming website about it all... but the absolute number one priority for weaning imho should be that the parent is comfortable doing it. why not see how you go, if the baby is a right old chomper then blw could be great, if not, load up some spoons. again imho if a parent is feeding their child with a blw head on (no begging, no pushing, no freaking the kid out) then they won't go far wrong, even if for the moment spoons are the most expeditious approach.

Totally agree with you willowstar!
My approach is to smile sweetly and say I'll try whatever the HV/paed suggests ...then just do whatever I feel is right.

Their advice and knowledge has been so inconsistent that I've lost all confidence in them.

....bring on the avocado on rice cakes I say!

Thanks for all your responses! Saw a paediatritian yesterday who concluded that DD was fine just tiny (as am I!) and wasn't too concerned that I'm still exclusively bf and that I was taking weaning slowly...

Tried BLW with some cucumber and there was some choking so might leave it a week or so as she's not quite 6 months and perhaps - as suggested here - add cream and other calorific foodstuffs to make it the proto-blw/offered-loaded-spoons of food nice and fatty.

Good to hear from others who trust their instincts even with the teeny babies; it's hard when its your first and there is so much pressure against what you feel is best

steamed carrot first. and if you could hear her choking, it was gagging. glad you're feeling more chipper.

Cucumber might be a bit hard to start off with - ditto raw apple.
Mango, pear, avo,steamed broccoli, toast etc all gummable!

My 'less than 0.4th centile' ds has just crossed his first centile line after 2 weeks of BLW (though supplemented by spooned porridge and Total nat yog with fruit) - he forgets he's holding the spoon and I had enough of the porridge splatter effect on the walls.

I think the full fat nat yog and cream cheese are probably comparable calorie wise to bm - they do taste very creamy!