***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 ?

Hendo, re cereal - I use mini shredded wheat (he can pick them up easily) and chunks of weetabix (but watch out, it does have sugar and salt in it). We also spoon in Ready Brek.

You can make a big pancake of Ready Brek and cut it into strips - just make it up thickly and pour into a tub to cool

I use ordinary full fat milk

Thanks!

hendo77 we also give mini shreddies and they seem much easier to handle than weetabix / oatibix.
We use organic full fat milk.

Came across this recipe on another site (not my own creation)
mix together 1 weetabix with 20g of cornflakes and 100ml of milk. Then mash in a small banana and another weetabix. I must admit this seems pretty strange. Then make 6 dollops on a greased baking tray and flatten to same level (disc shapes). Cook in oven for 30 mins at 190 / 170 for fan assisted. Make them the night before and leave to cool on a wire rack. in the morning they seem pretty manageable and are a good consistency, ideal if you need something to carry with you on a trip somewhere.

There are probably loads of variations you could do with porridge oats / raisins etc.

malted wheats (tesco shreddies) here. easy to pick up and less mess than oatibix.

porridge pancakes for breakfast here with chopped up apricots in them, mini shreddies, yoghurt, fruit, quinoa with apple and cinnamon.(obviously not all at the same time )

Minicrikey is loving all the summer fruits at the moment - strawbs, raspbs, blueberries, nectarines, mangoes, apricots, - shame he doesn't have the same appreciation of broccoli!

We're really stuck for breakfast and lunch with not being able to have dairy, egg or wheat. I'm stuck in a porridge and rice cake rut. Wee One had prune puree with both the other day and her tum hasn't been the same since. It was either that or the bit-too-rare steak she was sucking on the night before

crikeybadger how do you make porridge pancakes? also the quinoa sounds lovely, do you just sprinkle cinamon in? and apple, do you grate it or?

hobnob i hope your wee one is feeling better soon. i might avoid prune puree for a while - was suspicious of what it might do to DD

HI yummymummy- I put some porridge oats in the bottom of a round tub, cover with full fat milk, microwave for a couple of minutes (don't cover) and hey presto, a porridge pancake! It's from the babyledweaning website. Sorry I don't know the quantities, I just do it by guesswork.

I add chopped apple and cinnamon to the quinoa as I'm cooking it. It's quite good to have a portion in the freezer for a standby.

Hi everyone - what a fab thread, my LO is 25 weeks and we're just getting started with BLW. She's been having sticks of fruit and veg for a few weeks and loving it. Today she swallowed a fair amount of mango and melon and sucked some red pepper.

I'm quite anxious about starting with meat so the ideas on this thread are very useful. Don't your little ones struggle with meat?

Any geberal tips or suggestions for beginners? Everyone happy they chose BLW? Any regrets?

...obviously I meant 'general'...

HI bobby99 and welcome!

My DS is abvout 8 months and still does struggle a bit with meat- it gets mainly sucked. He had some chicken tonight and I think it's not quite the right texture for him yet. Have had more success with meatballs and burgers, fishcakes etc. I find tinned sardines or mackerel with cream cheese makes a good pitta bread filling.

General tips... remain calm, don't expect too much too soon, keep up the milk feeds, get a good stain remover. My only regret....not having a cleaner

No really, we're enjoying it a great deal and like the fact that when we go somewhere I don't have to take little tubs of mush with me.

Hi Bobby99 we are not that far in (DD 6.5 mo) but really enjoying it. She is a definite carnivore and loves her meat. Also finding chicken a little tricky as it requires quite a lot of chewing and she doesn't have teeth yet. Had a BBQ yesterday and she loved burgers and sausages and enjoyed meatballs tonight (actually swallowing). Other meat (pork, steak etc) gets sucked of all flavour and then chucked on the floor .

Like Crikey, I would say remain calm. Also use a wipe clean bib and try and relax about the mess.

Even though it sometimes feels like groundhog day with all the cleaning, I'm still glad we chose BLW. I really couldn't be bothered with all the pureeing. Also we are eating more healthily because it forces us to cook and vary out diet a bit more.

Hi everyone

We've just started BLW with DD (22 weeks). I know it's a little early but she's sitting up quite well and has started pinching food from our plates so...

So far she's had rice cakes, banana (messy), melon, steamed apple and butternut squash. She actually swallows some bits and her nappies are awful!

We've had a couple of gagging episodes but on the whole she's doing really well. Watching her learn to eat seems much more fun this way than with purees.

I have a lovely looking pineapple in the kitchen, does anyone know if this is safe for her or should I eat it myself?

Another question about meat. We're about 2 weeks in after a quick diversion along the puree route. So far, roasted carrot, parsnip, and sweet potato sticks have been good, broccoli is a winner and rice cakes and philly have been good.

I too am at the stage of introducing meat: am a bit about mince though. We've got some lovely cold moussaka in the fridge and was going to give DS some of the aubergine and cheese sauce bit but was wondering about some of the minced lamb as well. I can see how a strip of steak etc could be sucked/chewed on, but how about minced meat?

PS AngelaCarleen, a poster above, recommended avoiding pineapple until LO a bit more experienced as induced a big choking/gag episode. Can't speak from experience myself but thought you might like to know. I think that the post was about a week or so back.

Hi AngelaCarleen and Bobby99 and welcome :-).

Bobby99 - general tips - like the others don't worry about the mess, use a wipe clean bib (we are also feeding only in a nappy at the moment as skin wipes clean quite easily and its so hot anyway ), enjoy it!

AngelaCarleen I agree lots of fun watching them eat this way.

I'm very glad we're doing BLW.

Hobnob57 - was racking my brains for other breakfast ideas for you but could only come up with fruit / fruit salad which you've probably already thought of.

Hi there, I just started BLW 4 days ago. My son is 6 months old tomorrow. I had started him on purees/baby rice which we did for about 10 days but when I heard about BWL I decided to swap over. I so much want it to work but am a bit concerned that my baby is getting frustrated that he's finding it difficult to pick up sticks of fruit/veg. He seems to really want to get it in his mouth but he's getting stressed. This lunch time I tried pasta spirals which I thought would be easy to hold. But he wouldn't even try it just screamed. So I'm feeling bit anxious and also bit concerned that he was having some solids but now isn't really having anything. I've just got the BLW book today so need to read it but wondered if any other babies had been really frustrated at the beginning?

cairnterrier, you could try with mince - there's no harm in it! In fact, I think it's less choke-tastic than strips (which dd stuffs whole into her mouth). We've had best success with baked chicken which is quite stringy and she can chew off the end bits of a strip of that. And casserole. Irish stew for tea tonight!

bshawbaby be patient - they will get the hang of it. DD was a wee bit impatient to begin with, but hadn't had purees so didn't really know what she was missing out on. She was just to excited to be at the table and involved in things. Pasta doesn't go down well here - it's a bit slippy and tends to get spat out. Roasted veg is always a winner.

Ok need some ideas for ...on toast. Preferably not involving dairy, soy, egg, wheat, nuts.

bshawbaby - my DS (who is 6 months on Thurs - was yours a New Year's Eve baby too?) was also really frustrated at the beginning. When he did manage to pick up the veg sticks, he had the end sticking out the other end of his fist so couldn't get at it.

Don't worry your DS will get the hang of it. It's also a bit of skill learning for us too . I had the veg sticks too long at first so they bent over when he grabbed them . He also struggled with slippery food like cucumber and banana but has now got the hang of it. You could try picking up the veg in your fist to show him (we did - might have helped!)

Don't worry if he doesn't have much at this age. More about learning than eating. "Unless they're one its just for fun"

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I really appreciate it. Yes he was born 29th Dec, not great planning there!!

LovingKent - when did you start BLW with your DS?

It's good to know the frustration thing will ease off in a bit. He's not the most chilled out baby ever. He's number 4 so busy house, lol! The other 3 all had the traditional weaning approach.

My husband isn't really keen on the BWL approach so I have a little wobble about it now and then but really don't want to go back to purees.

hobnob57- on toast.....avocado, lentil puree, pear and apple spread (sugar free), hommous, marmite, banana? (blimey it's quite tricky acutally)

Well, mini crikey had his first curry tonight! I did a Jamie Oliver roasted veg one (minus the chilis) with coconut milk. Went down a storm

Hi bshawbaby, yep, some frustration from my LO early on, I think he wanted to eat, just couldn't get it in his mouth.
Don't worry about him not getting solids though if he doesn't eat. Just make sure you are keeping up your milk feeds and he'll get the nutrients from there.

bshawbaby - hehe worse planning here - DS was born New Year's Eve but due 29th December.

We started last week at 24 and a half weeks but was ready. Been sitting up for ages and shoving toys in his mouth and chewing my fingers! He still has episodes of frustration! Got one at lunch today. We just keep calm

The Gill Rapley book is quite helpful - might reassure your DH to read it (Baby Led Weaning). Also website www.babyledweaning.com

Yum curry - haven't tried DS with that yet. So far has really made him windy if I have had anything spicy. Will have to revisit

Hello, can I join you?

We started at 26 weeks and we're a week in. Rice cakes, toast, courgette and cucumber have been definite hits but yoghurt, carrot and broccoli less so.

DD seems to have inherited DP's drama queenism and when she touches broccoli makes a disgusted sound, pulls a face and does these ridiculous 'get this stuff away from me' hand gestures...

It's been really enjoyable so far and I'm really glad I decided to try BLW although my MIL and DM are generally horrified by the whole thing which I'm trying to ignore

Well, what fun we're having! Tried fresh apricot yesterday, a big hit. She sucked and slurped it for ages. Also tried broccoli, which ended up all over the place... LO impressed my mum with her skills with a preloaded spoon of porridge, and discovered she can blow bubbles through a mouthful and spray anyone in range. It is very clear that LO loves exploring food, and despite the mess I'm glad we didn't bother with purees. I do help her with her porridge, mainly to stop her poking herself in the eye with the spoon.

It's amazing to watch how quickly her skills are developing. How soon did you guys introduce a cup? I've got a sippy cup and a doidy cup, not sure which would be best.

LO just had the time of her life with an apricot and a nectarine - cut in half and stoned. Couldn't help laughing out loud at her obvious pleasure! Wasn't fussed about houmous, had a good chomp on cucumber.

But then came the rice cake... she bit it into small pieces, gagged, did an almighty swallow then choked. Poor little thing. A couple of slaps on the back put her right but she wasn't happy

I suppose its because they break up so easily without being chewed. Was going to try toast but a bit cautious now. Any advice?

Hi All!
Been a while since I checked in you are all going great guns by the sound of things!

DD has been doing pretty well lately, some meals she eats tons which is great...that meatloaf recipe goes down a storm and just made it with turkey mince instead and she ate the whole portion so that was a success..

Turned her nose up at curry (altho I think prehaps I made it rather spicy oops!) and at salmon for some reason but has been wolfing down other fish so thats ok..

have had a bit of a worry today that I am giving her too much salt (hadn't realised how much was in a portion of the meatloaf recipe for eg)

I think she is well under the 1g a day and some days really has hardly any (never add any to food so its really only what is in bread/weetabix etc)
but I just read that they actually get salt in breastmilk as well..so do we think its likely to be easy to give them too much or is it ok as long as not adding it/giving processed foods??
Obviously everything else has been going too well so I am just finding something random to worry about

bobby99 I found toast doesn't break up as easily as the rice cakes, they really have to suck it. Pitta bread and crumpets also good as they don;t break up easily but lo can suck the toppings off...