***Just about to start Baby-led Weaning*** Join Me to share experiences !!

[FluffyFrog]

I have a 20 week old and am planning on starting BLW around the end of May ish. Have been reading the Gill Rapley Book but would be great to get some ideas from others and share a few experiences. We will probably start in the next 4-6 weeks. Is there anyone else around starting at the same time that wants to join me on this thread ?

Hi

I have been lurking for a few days now as planning to start in 2 weeks and wondered if you could answer a couple of questions for me?

Did you just give tastes of things to start - carrot sticks, broccoli tress and the like - or did you give your DC some of whatever you were having?

What do you do about tea time? My DD has her bath at 6ish so to have tea together we would have to eat about 5pm when DH will still be at work

The hardcore lot say to just give what you're having but most of us (I think) chicken out and start with easy stuff like broccoli - I know I did!

if you're having something really easy to hold then go for it though. We actually 'started' with a pear core!

Regarding tea - I have fruit/crackers with ds while he has his dinner, which is usually leftovers from ours the night before! Then dh and I have dinner after ds is in bed

Good luck, it's great fun!

The hardcore lot say to just give what you're having but most of us (I think) chicken out and start with easy stuff like broccoli - I know I did!

if you're having something really easy to hold then go for it though. We actually 'started' with a pear core!

Regarding tea - I have fruit/crackers with ds while he has his dinner, which is usually leftovers from ours the night before! Then dh and I have dinner after ds is in bed

Good luck, it's great fun!

Wow ruddynorah that's brilliant in 3 weeks - is he actually swallowing it all too?

We are still doing ok - he seems to suck stuff more than swallow but toast and the like ends up in a mush so he must be swallowing something.

I think I need to start eating with him so he can copy - we don't have a dining table but I can just eat crackers or something in front of him,

Last night he slept 7pm-7am so something must be going in!!!

eek mistressploppy how scary! i've fished about for rogue bits before - cherry tomato skin, athough DS loves these! - but i don't want to overdo it! and he just keeps it in his mouth like a hamster. it takes ages for him to swallow. when he drinks the water it washes it down sometimes.

we had a good supper - simple sweet potatoes and brocolli with grated cheese. and cherry tomatoes . and then plain yogurt with dates and prunes, which i ate most of .

wakes up twice a night for a feed though as it is still so hit and miss. he's enjoying it, but it is one step at a time. .

punky yes he does swallow a lot. not all of it, but a fair lot.

he was with dh all day today who tells me he had toast and banana for breakfast, tuna sandwich and two pears (small disney things tesco do) for lunch, courgette and mashed potato for tea (dd had sausage and mash). oh, and he did two spodgy poos he says. i was swinging through trees doing 'go ape' through all this .

Really sorry to ask such silly questions but am going to be preparing and cooking Imogen's first foods for tomorrow!

I have brocoli I'm going to cut into spears and steam and some vegetables (sweet potato, butternut squash and carrots) to cut into long fingers to roast.

How soft should I steam the brocoli?

When roasting the vegetables do I use oil like usual or should I be using something else? How soft do you roast them as well?

Sorry if these are silly questions... Should I basically stop worrying and cook them the same as I will be cooking them for us (making sure no salt added)?

cook as you would for yourself normal oil is fine, i use olive oil for roasting veg. normal herbs on them are fine too. ds also loves cheese sauce with his roastie veg..and yorkshire puds

you'll soon see if the food is too soft or toohard for him. maybe roast the veg in varying size chunks so some or harder and some are softer and see how he does and which shapes he likes best.

Thank you! Good idea about varying the roasting to see what she likes. We are away for the week from tomorrow so I will report back in a while about how our first week went!!

thanks again.

Hi all,
just back from hols in France and the blw was great there- lovely croissants to suck on for breakfast and other goodies too.

A couple of months in and things are coming on nicely. There's still lots of mess and I'm not sure exactly how much is getting in him, but he tucked in to some spinach and feta filo pie last night and is looking good on it!

Going to try some risotto this weekend and a meat loaf recipe from the bbc good food website that sounds like it will make good finger food.

Anyone else got any good recipes/ideas that they feel like sharing?

Hi all

Crikey badger - I make a white sauce with LOADS of cheese and throw in lumps of broccoli and salmon. When it's cold it solidifies into wobbly lumps which ds can pick up, he loves it.

Fave thing at present is big chunks of extremely strong cheddar! I'm actually a bit worried at how much cheese he eats - he can easily consume a matchbox-sized piece . There must be so much salt in that...

Thanks for that idea mistressploppy, I'll give it a go! Could do with getting some more fish in to him.

The italian meat loaf went down a storm... Not exactly your budget recipe at it contained pancetta, parmesan and minced beef, but DS devoured it. .

Went to some friends today and they were well impressed seeing him tuck in to frittata, bread and melon slices (just wish we'd taken the high chair with us !)

Hi all - can I join you?

I have a 25wk old and we've been BLWing for almost two weeks now. Initially we started with purees as she wasn't quite 6 months and I had this fixed idea of BLW only being possible from dead on 26wks. Anyway she'd stolen my food on a couple of occasions and was sitting up quite well so we started, but with the purees. She had a few mouthfuls but wasn't keen but kept on stealing the spoon so we've changed to BLW and it's going really really well now .

So far we've tried avocado, butternut squash, green beans (still coming out the other end two days later!), melon, pear, yoghurt, rice cakes today, fish... there's probably more but can't remember. Everything that she's had this way she's loved - even things that she'd seemed to really dislike when pureed.

We've also given her a tommee tippee sippy cup with water in a couple of times, but she doesn't really know what to do with it - likes playing with it though.

She seems to always have wind, though it doesn't really bother her and she's pooping maybe a tiny bit more often. It's still quite runny, but you can easily see what's she's eaten in it. DH and I are developing a bit of a nappy watching habit

She's still drinking away at the old BM just as much as ever, tbh possibly more, but she's due a growth spurt so it probably would have happened anyway. She's waking up in the night with wind a bit too and needs a BF to get back to sleep. So all in all she's getting much bigger. Getting her weighed on Tuesday which will be interesting. She's always been on the 25th centile line, but I weighed her at home this morning then looked on the chart and it puts her smack bang on the 50th - I'm assuming the scales aren't accurate!

I've put some piccies of her eating on my profile if anyone would like a peek - unfortunately the best ones are on my phone and I don't know how to get them off...

Hi all and welcome Partial!
DD is 25 weeks old this week. She's been in her highchair at our lunchtimes everyday for about a week now - and has been offered sticks of sweet potato, banana, melon, carrot and cucumber so far. She's not showing that much interest but is still watching us eat closely. She does pick things up and attempt to get them in her mouth, sometimes successfully!

I'm just letting her do her own thing in her own time at the moment and know that it is different for all babies. It's hard to stop yourself reaching out and 'helping' though!

hi all, welcome to partial! Sounds like all the lo's are doing well

DD has taken her screeching up to a whole new level and now just screams (happily but vv loudly) for pretty much all of mealtimes...its fab , esp at 7am!!

casseroles are going down a storm here and spaghetti too..went to see some friends yest who have 3 lo's and dd managed to be messier than all of them put together...oops!

crikeybadger could I have the recipe for that meatloaf? Sounds fab!

Good to hear everyone's LOs are as enthusiastic for their food as my dd2!

I'm finding BLW a bit of a challenge at the moment due to her allergicky tendencies and the knowledge that I should be doing this in a regimented way in order to pick up on food intolerances. However, it is so hard when BLW is so easy and she is so enthusiastic...

I am left wondering if we started too enthusiastically when she got so constipated and, even with lactulose, her poos are still quite sore to produce. When I consider that it's recommended that purees are given only 1 tsp at a time initially I think my wee chomper was literally biting off more than she could chew. Hopefully no damage has been done.

When you talk of 'loaded spoons' do you mean actually holding the spoon too? I gave dd2 lentil soup the other night and she grabbed the loaded bit of the spoon, guided it into her mouth and sucked it and her (now covered) fingers. Are your LOs actually picking up spoons and getting them into their mouths? I want to try porridge but don't really know how to go about it.

hobnob - I've given dd loaded spoons of yoghurt and she holds them herself - see piccy on profile . I dip the spoon in the yoghurt then hand it to her and she (tries to anyway) puts it in her mouth or spills it and licks it off her fingers. Then she drops the spoon on the splash mat (well, shower curtain, but splash mat sounds much better) under the chair. Meanwhile I have loaded another and handed it to her, then pick up the first one and so it continues... She's actually quite good with a spoon - wish she was as good with the sippy cup.
This works well with yoghurt as it holds together well, not sure how it would go with soup though

Hi all and welcome to the new weaners!

pickesrule, here is the link to the recipe for meatloaf.

We're still getting lots of screeching too-and when the other two DSs join in, it's just pure chaos!

if you want to give porridge you have a few options-

make it very thick, not much milk, and just dollop it in a heap on the highchair tray.

load up spoons of it and hand spoons to your baby.

pour it into a tupperware box in a thin layer. let it 'set'. unpeel the layer once it's cooled. hand porridge layer pancake to baby.

spoon feed it to your baby.

don't attempt porridge, try oatibix instead

Hi can I join you please?
Am very enthusiastic about doing BLW with DS2 (who will be 6 months on June 6th), started a couple of weeks ago as he was getting so excited when anywhere near our food, trying to grab it off us (he's big for his age and has been sitting up for a couple of months so fits perfectly into his Antilop high chair )

He's been tucking into steamed veg (carrot sticks, broccoli) and has toast fingers for breakfast, tried him with roast veg and some bits of omelette yesterday, all very successful. Banana pieces have been too slippery for him to hold at the mo but he seems to be enjoying himself and is giving everything a good chomp.

I don't know anyone else who is doing BLW, so it would be great to keep track of how everyone is doing on here.

hi everyone,

DS starting to pack it away. ate a whole weetabix this morning . i loaded up the spoon, gave it to him and he shovelled it in. he usually drops the spoon when he has had enough but he just kept accepting more spoons!

he also likes cheesy white sauce with brocolli and veggies - great idea to put salmon in it mistressploppy .

he is eating most things and getting pretty good at it. he was enjoying bread dipped in soup yesterday. he will also eat lots of plain yoghurt with chopped dates and prunes. if you mix it up the yoghurt goes all pruney - DS loves it.

he was struggling with potato wedges the other day so mashed them with his hands and then ate them - clever thing

loves quiche
loves cheesy wholemeal scones
won't touch parsnip
loves potato salad at bbqs
won't touch porridge

loving it

Thanks mistressploppy, I have thought of a few more questions:

Did any of you tell your HV you were planning to BLW? I had the weaning chat last week (give baby rice and purees) but I just smiled and nodded.

When you give water, do you use cooled boiled water?

Do you sterilise spoons, cups etc? My friend did but she did purees, don't really see the point myself seen as pretty much everything goes in DD's mouth at the minute.

I gave DD some bread dipped in soup last week and she seemed to enjoy it. Not sure she is quite ready yet though as if I put it on her high chair tray, she just ignores it - I have to hand it to her. She is not 26 weeks til next week though so not really starting in earnest until then. Think I need to revise my estimation of the amount of mess to expect though - one finger of toast with a tiny bit soup was enough to create carnage

Hi Pdog!

I vaguely mentioned it but really the HV wasn't bothered. I'd just get on with it....

I just use tap water, seems a bit daft to use boiled when he's putting everything he finds in his mouth anyway!

I don't sterilise anything but use the dishwasher to do his stuff. Let things air dry or use kitchen roll - tea towels are usually manky....well they are in our house

DS would only eat things if handed to him for a couple of weeks or so, then he got the idea of picking stuff up. I still hand him slippy things and sometimes long things (green beans) so he gets the right end in his mouth!

We are doing puree as well and it's interesting to see him gradually starting to prefer blw, although he loves being spoonfed too.

our HV pro BLW - well, one is - the other one is a bit about it

we don't sterilise - read on mumsnet about a mum who was until she turned round to see DC eating pram wheel

we use filtered tap water but tap water fine i think

i agree kitchen towels manky - better to air dry

we had weetabix this morning and oh my life, the mess

i am on my hnds and knees three times a day cleaning the splash mat

we don't sterilise, just dishwasher.

ds has tap water.

lunch today was a scone, some cheese cubes, a nectarine, two strawberries and the crusts from dd's ham sandwich