***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 ?

Hello

Jumping on the wagon

My bf baby dd3 will be 6mths in 2 weeks and after two fussy eaters I have decided to try another technique and since reading about it I am really excited, everything about it makes sense so I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Most people I speak to say, "oooh no, sounds too dangerous" but it obviously works for alot of people.

JUst about to make kids dinner so sorry for jumping in and out but if any of you can spare a mo to just tell me what you gave your babies for the first few weeks I would really appreciate it.

Sh has started to wake in the night now for extra feeds and hv said I should start feeding her soon and when I do act fast and build up her intake quickly but that goes against what I have read about baby led weaning... that they dont need the food at this stage and 6 -8 mths is more about experimenting with food. GUess I just need to increase her feeds. I feed her now on demand and about 7-9 feeds in 24 hours. But last two nights she had 11 feeds.

Many thanks
x

Well, I think we had a momentous occasion today - I was chatting to my mum about BLW and she said 'I was sceptical at first but now I can see how good she is with hand-mouth coordination and how much she loves food' - hurrah!

We tried mini shreddies in milk today, surprisingly successful, although I think DD would be able to hold the big ones better. Also, rice cakes are now the bees knees, especially with Philadelphia.

devotion - I think in theory you can try anything you like and the babies should just have what you're having. In reality however I think most of us have started with vegetables and fruit - things like cucumber and roasted vegetable sticks (parsnip, butternut squash, sweet potato etc...). Brocoli spears and toast were our first meal.

loving your list hendo - we did crumpets with melted cheese and tomato for dinner - would never have thought of crumpets but DS loved them! so thanks for that .

hendo, that is a fantastic list! I shall have to get experimenting

Cucumber and melon are two of the favourites so far here - he is teething at the moment.

Anything on a pre-loaded spoon goes down well, but that's just because he likes chewing spoons more than anything else.

hendo77 - thank you x

i ordered a BLW family recipe book today so looking forward to that.

think i'll start with the few bits you just menioned here.

she sat up and watched her sisters today eating their dinner and the concentration watching their hands bringing their food to their mouths was so cute, she is so ready but I 'll hang in there until the 6 mth mark. she was trying to get food off my plate tonight too.

What about eggs at 6mths?

RubyBuckleberry - how did you serve your tomatoes?

It would be really interesting to see a list of all the parents on this site with their childs age next to theirs, be handy if you wanted to discuss food issues with parents of different aged children iykwim.

on this thread i mean!

Imogen is 7 months old.

I was told by HV and NHS weaning booklet that the only things to avoid were honey and whole nuts (or bits of nuts, nut butters apparently fine) and to make sure that salt intake was less than 1 g per day and that eggs as long as they were cooked properly all the way through were fine so I have just introduced a million things all at once with no problems. HOWEVER my understanding is that if you have allergies, or are worried about allergies then you can introduce new foods every couple of days to watch for reactions and some common foods that cause reactions can be tomatoes, strawberries, eggs (can't think of any others but I'm sure someone else can).

Oooh, thanks hendo, that list is great.

Bobby

Welcome devotion. Sorry but I would ignore your HV. Haven't actually admitted to mine that I am doing BLW but DD is a fat porker so they are not worried. 6 months is also classic growth spurt time, my DD woke up more often at this age (7mo now).

Agree with Hendo. We started with sticks of fruit and veg for the first couple of weeks but now she just eats what we have.

Rice cakes going down well here too. Have a couple of new toppings too, from the finger foods book, that have gone down well with me and DD - tinned mixed bean salad whizzed with sour cream and spinach & lentil spread, great for getting some iron into her.

Ceiling is now yoghurt free LovingKent but have puy lentils everywhere

DS is 7.5mo.

Update on fish : I fried up some hake fillets dipped in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs and they were a great success. Ds loved both the coating and the fish, and I ended up having to give him more of mine! There was relatively little waste as well.

hi devotion - i chopped up the tomatoes and put them in with the cheese before it melted so it went under the grill and came out a bit like a crumpet pizza. very messy, but then what isn't ?

Cies that is a great idea about the fish - full on fish goujons!!

good idea about the age thing - we had one at the start but we could start again:

RubyBuckleberry DS 9mo

devotion, I would ignore your HV too. The World Health Organisation says solids should be 50% of babies' nutritional intake between 6 and 12 months (the rest should be breastmilk). They say that from 12 months to 2, two thirds of their nutrition should come from solids. Obviously it would increase gradually from nothing at 6 months to between 50-65% at 12 months, so you don't need to worry about getting big quantities in them quickly.

My DS had eggs within the first week of BLW. He's just over 6 months.

Cies, thanks for the fish tip. I'll have to try that.

Whoever posted a while back about sweet potato falafels, thanks - they are yum!

Hi, eggs were fine for us too from 6 months although my nephew had an allergic reaction to them (but his mum and dad are quite allergicky people)

Cies, how funny, I did similar with cod tonight and it was devoured. (Shame DS2 turned his nose up at them - he prefers Findus me thinks!)

i also did a 'spicy fish stew' off the bbc good food website (my staple source of recipes) and he enjoyed that too.

oh yes and he was weighed again and has jumped up to the 9th centile (2 pounds in 5 weeks) so all that avocado, double cream and doughnuts have paid off .

We were given a second hand highchair for our DD. We are currently using a bumbo (on the table, only under supervision!) as the highchair is really too big and the tray is miles away from her so she can't reach things very easily. Is the Ikea Antilop one more suitable? There's not a store that close to me so I was going to order one online, but I'd like to know it is a winner before buying one. Any comments?

The Antilop is great. It is good for when they are small; DD has been sitting in it since she was about 5mo. You can get a blow up cushion from Ikea too and I would recommend this too as it gives them a bit of padding and props them up until they are a bit bigger. The tray is quite big, and with the cushion to push her forward, she can reach it easily.

The best thing about it is it is so easy to clean (once you have figured out how to get the tray off anyway) and very cheap. You have to buy the tray seperately but with the cushion too, it is only £20.

The only disadvantage (depending on how much room you have) is that it doesn't fold. You can take the legs off though so it is portable if you wanted to take to friend's/parent's house.

My friend has a high chair with a fabric seat and says it is the worse thing she has ever bought. Food gets everywhere and it takes her ages to clean and she is not doing BLW so would be even worse then I think.

HTH

Welcome devotion.

My DS is 6.5 months.

His first food was sticks of steamed carrot and cucumber (didn't steam the cucumber obviously but left the skin on so he could pick it up more easily). He had toast fingers on day 2. We mostly stuck to fruit and veg for first week.

Bobby99 Another vote for the Antilop here. And its cushion. DS has short legs like his parents so brings him further forward .

DH found a good way to get tray off too. Place it on its back. Look under tray bit. You'll see 4 tabs (they hold it in place). Push down hard on 2 with fingers. It will release a bit. Then push down hard on other 2 tabs. They release then you just pull it off. After a few days wasn't as stiff.

Cies that fish sounds good. Will have to try it.

DS had strawberries for breakfast and loved them. Forgot to roll sleeves of sleepsuit back though so now trying to get stain out - whoops.

Baby ages

Angeldog DS 6 mo
Ruby DS 9 mo
Cies DS 7.5 mo
PDog DD 7 mo
Hendo77 DD 7 mo
Devotion DD 5.5 mo
Mini Kent DS 6.5 mo

Gave DD (23 weeks today) her first taste of real food today as she tried to wrestle some scrambled eggs off my plate at our breakfast meeting this morning. Was going to leave it the full 6 months but she sat up in a highchair this morning really well and has very good coordination and no tongue thrust. I have to fight to stop her swiping things off my plate if I eat with her so I decided I would just follow my instincts.

Got a really ripe banana and squashed it about a bit with a fork as I was too nervous to just give it to her. Put a bit on a spoon - which she promptly grabbed out of my hand and shoved in her mouth. Cue a look of "what is this that we have here then ?", a swallow and an expectant look at the bowl with the remaining banana mush in it

Well done, LovingKent!

Bobby, another Antilop vote here. I had a second hand fabric-covered high chair but realised what a nightmare it would be to clean and sent DH to Ikea. I stuff towels behind DS's back to stop him lolling backwards.

Once you get the hang of removing the tray it is really easy to clean - and you can take the straps off to wash them, which you can't with many chairs.

As a newcomer to the thread, can I ask about posters' experiences with BLW and returning to work? I have to go back P/T when DD is 6 months old. I'd love to use BLW but not sure how practical this would be. To clarify, she'll be looked after by my mum and my auntie when I'm working.

My biggest concern though is BFing. I'm sad that I can't carry on indefinitely until DD is ready to stop. I'm sort of thinking I'll BF morning and night, and switch to formula for daytime feeds. There's a possibility of expressing at work so she can have EBM at lunchtime too, but not sure how practical that would be.

I don't have time to read the whole thread but would be really grateful for any relevant advice.

Bloody work. Bloody money

TartyMcFarty - as long as you explain the principles to your mum & aunt I shouldn't imagine it'd be a problem; have you got the book, that you could then lend them?

re: breastfeeding... some babies will actually hold out for mum to get home! If you were able to express for a decent lunch time feed, you could feed her before work, EBM at lunch time, then feed her again when you get home. She might start reverse cycling and taking more at night though. I'm sure someone more experienced in returning to work/etc can offer more advice though (or you can post on the breastfeeding board).

Help! I've had a big wobble this week with blw after a particularly large gagging/vomiting incident earlier on Wednesday at my parents house. My parents are brilliant with blw and being a retired doctor and nurse I have no worries about them dealing with any incidents but I have scared myself a bit now. I think that DD is teething as we have had a couple of large sick incidents this week (highly unusual) at random times and she's also doing this sort of coughing quite a lot (although doesn't seem ill in any way?). Where she is teething she tends to really bite down on stuff taking off quite big chunks right into the centre of her mouth, cue lots of chewing, coughing, raspberries, gagging going on. As a result I've hardly given her any 'proper' food in the last couple of days and have given a small amount of puree at dinner alongside some finger foods. Has anyone else exprerienced a regression where it seems their child starts gagging more again? Will it pass? Please reassure me so I don't stop, I was really enjoying before...

not been on this thread for a while (broken laptop!).
fab list hendo thanks
my DD is 7.5months
antilop high chair & cushion thoroughly recommended here too. we uae a bumbo too but antilop much easier.
tMcF i think the best advice to give would be make sure that your mum/auntie are confident using BLW approach - they need to be thoroughly committed too. the book does talk about a combined approach in these cicumstances. if you are back part time will you be there for breakfast / dinner? i agree with jem, you will probably find night time feeding increases to compensate, or she will wait until you come home.
i think BLW will be easier as you don't need to prepare purees etc. one of the best parenting decisions we have made - DDs coordination has also improved, so there are loads of non-food benefits. good luck

hendo just remember that gagging means they are working out for themselves how to not choke. i have friends not doing blw and they are introducing finger foods at 7/8 months so you would likely have same issue regardless of method. stick with it would be my advice. if it feels better give her pre-loaded spoons with less choke-tastic foods. good luck

AngelDog, LovingKent and Pdog - thanks for the Antilop encouragement - I think I will get one. The yawning gap between DD and the tray on the highchair we have is ridiculously impractical. Just need to get to an IKEA as the cushion isn't available online.

DD hasn't been so interested in food for the last couple of days. We're having sleeping issues - not entirely sure why - and I think she's been too tired to be bothered with eating much. Does the sleep get better when they hit 8 months and start stuffing the food down? Please say it does...