BLW fo small/underweight babies

[OrganicHairbrush]

Has anyone had any experience of BLW with a very small baby? Given that DD (6mo) is sitting up fine, grapping from my plate and already confident with a spoon, it seems as though she's ready for it, but I'm a bit apprehensive.

DD is just above the 0.4th centile and whereas I'm not huge and DH and his family are tiny, the HV is getting very twitchy.

I've been experimenting with both BLW and spoons and have noticed both that she seems much more comfortable with BLW (or is it just me?) but eats a lot more when spoon fed. I don't want to create anxiety and battles by stuffing food down her (this is what happened to DH when he was a baby, and he's had a horrible relationship with food all his life), but I do still want her to grow (and keep the HV off her back)...

Anyone tried BLW with a small/underweight baby?

could you not do a mix i.e. offer spoon feeds and finger foods. It doesnt have to be just one or the other

I'm going through this exact same process myself with 0.4 centile DS who is 6 months so sympathise. We have been doing BLW for a couple of weeks since he really doesn't like spoon feeding.

I'm therefore taking the position that I would rather he has a healthy relationship with food in the long run rather than stuffing in a few extra calories now. It is going very slowly and it is hard not to push all concerns aside of course but I think this is best for him.

I am trying some higher calorie finger foods such as avocado on rice cake, etc. Milk of course remains the main staple of his diet and calories.

Thanks. Look forward to hearing how you're getting on. Going to try cream cheese this evening...

I actually mixed the two because I wasn't convinced that either of the girls were eating all that much when they were having so much fun playing with and picking apart their finger foods. It was great to see them get stuck in but like you said, sometimes they eat more when you give them the mashed up meal.

I would tend to spoon feed them porridge for breakfast, made with a dash of cream as well as milk, and also spoon feed dinner because I found that they would be tired and not that interested in eating the finger food meal (hard to make an effort when your tired!).

Then for snacks and lunch, they would have the finger foods. Worked well for us, I think it's about balance - they are still sometimes a bit young to know what they need to eat over a day, a week, ect if you leave them to it

Hope you got on ok with the cream cheese! I agree with Smash. If DD is up for some spoon feeding and it doesn't feel like a battle, then I would definitely go with trying to mix the two. A lot of mothers I know do this.

My problem is that DS won't open his mouth for it so I would have to force it in. I keep offering it each day though hoping one day he will take it!

Weigh-in this morning. Gulp.

My DD was quite small also and I mixed, with a lean towards spoon feeding.

My dd is small. We've done BLW and she's now 9 months and taking more in. We do spoon feed yogurt (for the last few weeks) mainly because she now opens her mouth and launches at the spoon before I can give her the spoon to use herself

I try to give high calorie stuff as much as possible.

We give dd Weetabix bitesize for breakfast - she can pick them up easily, followed by a yogurt. For lunch I often do scrambled egg/omlette type of thing with a bit of cream in followed by yogurt/pudding of some description. Tea is generally whatever we're having unless it's something she would struggle with (like curry & rice) in which case we give her some of ours to play with/try then something else like veg. Sometimes with pudding afterwards, depending on how organised I am and how tired she is.

We also give grated cheese often too - the HV recommended that as a way of boosting calories while BLW.

We also do "mashed stuff" sandwiches - so I often mash an avocado and make sarnies with it for dd (which works well cos she loves bread) or mashed stuff on ricecakes.

I did a mixture with dd2 but I also found that nearly anything that can be mashed can be spread on toast. She didnt eat much of the toast to start with but sucked the spread off.

I have just read Gill Rapley's book, and one thing that she points out is that although babies appear to eat more when spoon fed purees, alot of it is actually water.

Food for thought no?

Thank you all! And yes, she loved the cream cheese .

Interesting, point, though GF. Must get the book.

rambling I'll give the putting-things-on-toast a try...