BLWeaners - what do you feed your 1 year old and how much of it?

[sausagedoesnotroll]

DS is one next week. We have been doing BLW since 6 months and I thought he'd taken to it fairly well (but he's my first so I have nothing to compare with). He seems cheerful and healthy enough.

However, he's recently started nursery and they are concerned that he doesn't eat enough for lunch. I am not sure whether this is because he isn't eating at nursery because he's not used to it yet, or because he just eats less then most of his classmates, but I have noticed when we've been out with his spoonfed peers that he eats an awful lot less than they do on average.

I wouldn't be worried about this except that it has coincided with a change in his poo. We have been out of the country for a few months and while we were away his poo became a lot more like "adult" poo - i.e. much firmer. Since we have got home it has gone back to being runny. I don't think this is an extended episode of diarrhoea as he seems well and only has one bowel movement a day, but it is much more like it was early weaning. I am starting to worry he is not eating enough solids.

How many meals/snacks a day do other 1 year old BLWeaners give and what (esp. the snacks)? Perhaps I am not offering him enough.

Sausage (appropriate name for the topic?!)

My DD2 (DC3) is about a month younger than your DS so will run through what she eats and then ask a couple of questions.

Breakfast - a banana and a fromage frais (well two actually but half of each end up all over her cos her spoon control not quite there yet!)

Snack - breadstick/biscuit/crumpet/pancake with a bit of pear or grapes

Lunch - sandwich (one slice of bread) with cheese or ham or peanut butter.couple of cherry tomatoes bit of cucumber.sometimes soup or boiled egg with toast fingers.

Snack - cheese triangle or yoghurt or some white choc buttons if we're with other kids having sweets etc.

Tea - 1/4 jacket spud,tbsp beans,tbsp tuna

• 2 tbsp pasta, tbsp sweetcorn
• tbsp curry,tbsp rice,1 brocolli floret,1 tbsp mushrms

Obviously can be more varied than this but wanted to give an idea of quantities.This is supplemented by lots of breastfeeds and about 1 cup of water.

Is your DS growing and gaining weight as he should be?

Has the amount increased/decreased over the last few months?

What's his nursery food like? (If you have intro'd him to adult food he may find nursery food a bit bland, and do they mash or chop which he's not used to)

How much does he drink?

When I pureed for my DS (had never heard of BLW then), I found that it wouldnt make that much real stuff to make a pot of puree. For example one brocolli floret and two chunks of sweet potato would make about a bowlful because of the water content.

I also found that my DD's took longer to eat their 'real' food so may be worth bearing in mind that mealtime at nursery can be a bit hectic so he may not be given enough time to work his way through what he wants.

Will be back on MN tomorrow night so if you want to chat a bit more I'll be around then

Thanks for that! It does sound like what you're doing is broadly comparable to what we give him, which is reassuring. The difference is that he doesn't normally have a morning snack because he tends to have a long sleep in the morning, isn't hungry before it, and had lunch not long after.

He also only breastfeeds two or three times a day these days (but also at least once in the night). He's happy to have little sips of water all through the day but I couldn't really tell you what they add up to.

I was pleased to discover that for his age group the nursery sit them all at a little table, and encourage them to eat with their fingers/a fork/a spoon, so it shouldn't be all mashed up and ought to be much more like what he's used to than I feared. I did ask them how long they give them to eat and mention that he can take a very long time, but they should have at least 30 minutes, which isn't too bad. I guess it could just be that he's not used to the environment yet, or eating with so many other children.

I'll be interested to see what happens today as he's only there for the afternoon and unfortunately flatly refused to eat anything for lunch before he went out. It was a bit earlier than usual because I had to get him ready to go, and I guess he just wasn't hungry yet. Perhaps he will eat the afternoon snack though, as he'll be ravenous by then.

He doesn't appear to be underweight so I'm probably worrying about nothing. I'm just a bit puzzled as to why his poo has gone back to being so runny.

My wee boy was one last week, and has been blw'ed since 23 weeks. Today he ate

breakfast- a side plate spread an inch thick with quinoa porridge and blueberry jam. A dozen grapes and a couple of small slices of apple

lunch- 3 meatballs, a tennis ball size pile of sphagetti in tomato sauce, 3 bits of carrot, 3 cherry tomatoes, half a broccoli floret and half of a foccacia roll

Dinner- two slices of wholemeal bread spread with banana and half an avacado , half a grated carrot, and a handfull of chopped spinach. Half a pot of soya yoghurt and half a punnet of blueberries.

3 breastfeeds and a cup of water