Baby Led Weaning

LilPunkinsMommy

Hi ladies, allow me to introduce myself. I am a stay at home mom to my daughter who is 7 months old. A friend of mine told me about this website and had mentioned baby led weaning.

I am curious about your experiences.

I look forward to reading the responses!

ScissorTailedFlycatcher

We tried it for a little bit. It's basically a way to teach your child to eat by feeding themselves. We do a bit of a modified version where we give her baby food out of jars, but when there is food available for her to eat, we let her try to eat it. 

We first tried avocado. It was definitely messy, a lot of fun, and not exactly a success. Lol. 

djm05

We do BLW with our daughter and she absolutely loves it.  We've been doing it for about a week now and she's doing better and better every day.  You really have to be prepared for the gagging though, it really stressed me out at the beginning but she's doing it less and less as she learns how to chew better. 
We've given her avocado, mango, banana, steamed carrot, steamed sweet potato, baked regular potato, brocolli (a huge hit surprisingly), watermelon, honeydew, among other things.  She thinks she's really cool when she sits at the table with mommy and daddy and eats dinner, it's so cute.
Also, you may want to ask on the Attachment Parenting board if you have any specific questions, a lot of the ladies over there do BLW and are really helpful.

diana.filipi

There are some really great resources on the net.  Before we started we checked out all the pictures on the facebook page for Baby Led Weaning and several sites that really go into it including Gail Rapley's site.

We started at about 5 1/2 months.  Ophelia has gone from playing with a lot of her food to now where I give smaller amounts because she eats pretty much everything we give her.  She eats all three meals with us (hubs come home for lunch every day).  The only thing she has turned her nose up at really is grean beans (but she still ate a few) and beets (but again, she ate some).

The list of stuff she eats seems endless but here's what I can think of right now: peaches, nectarines, plums, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, mulberries, wine berries, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs, egg salad, plain tofu, herbed tofu, pb&j cut into pieces, toast with cream cheese, meat loaf, breakfast sausage, chicken sausage w/ spinach and feta or with portabella and Gruyere cheese (her favs),  roast chicken, roast beef, steak (she sucks it doesn't really consume it), pork chop (same), Indian naan, fresh mozzarella, cheddar, swiss, feta, goat cheese, broccoli, squash, zucchini, cualiflower............

At this point Ophelia can pick up the tiniest things with great discrimination and eat them.  I always bf first and limit how much she gets at a single meal.

LilPunkinsMommy

diana.filipi:

There are some really great resources on the net.  Before we started we checked out all the pictures on the facebook page for Baby Led Weaning and several sites that really go into it including Gail Rapley's site.

We started at about 5 1/2 months.  Ophelia has gone from playing with a lot of her food to now where I give smaller amounts because she eats pretty much everything we give her.  She eats all three meals with us (hubs come home for lunch every day).  The only thing she has turned her nose up at really is grean beans (but she still ate a few) and beets (but again, she ate some).

The list of stuff she eats seems endless but here's what I can think of right now: peaches, nectarines, plums, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, mulberries, wine berries, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs, egg salad, plain tofu, herbed tofu, pb&j cut into pieces, toast with cream cheese, meat loaf, breakfast sausage, chicken sausage w/ spinach and feta or with portabella and Gruyere cheese (her favs),  roast chicken, roast beef, steak (she sucks it doesn't really consume it), pork chop (same), Indian naan, fresh mozzarella, cheddar, swiss, feta, goat cheese, broccoli, squash, zucchini, cualiflower............

At this point Ophelia can pick up the tiniest things with great discrimination and eat them.  I always bf first and limit how much she gets at a single meal.

Wow. She eats eggs, are you not concerned with an allergy? Or do you give her just the yolks? What about the feta cheese? Isn't that considered a soft cheese?

diana.filipi

We aren't concerned.  Research has changed and we have no allergy issues in our families.  She gets the whole egg.  She's been getting scrambled eggs since we started BLW at 5 1/2 months (well, maybe it was 5 3/4 months by the time she got the eggs).  We've given all 8 of the top allergy possible foods on purpose.  New research suggests that there is good reason to no delay these foods.  It works for us, but that's just us.  I know not everyone is so comfortable.  It what we do....you asked for personal experience.

LilPunkinsMommy

diana.filipi:

We aren't concerned.  Research has changed and we have no allergy issues in our families.  She gets the whole egg.  She's been getting scrambled eggs since we started BLW at 5 1/2 months (well, maybe it was 5 3/4 months by the time she got the eggs).  We've given all 8 of the top allergy possible foods on purpose.  New research suggests that there is good reason to no delay these foods.  It works for us, but that's just us.  I know not everyone is so comfortable.  It what we do....you asked for personal experience.

Did you talk to your pediatrician first?

It seems like breakfast sausage would have unnecessary fat in it. As well as the other meats; meatloaf, pork chop. I would think chicken and turkey would be a better choice.

No need to get deffensive, I am just responding to your response.

diana.filipi

didn't mean to come off defensive - my pedi does know and is cool with it - the meats are such a tiny portion of her diet and fat is not all bad (I don't give it to her dripping grease either).  You aren't alone in your coming down on it but I'm certainly not alone in giving sausage and meat is recommended in BLW.  I responded to a BLW post over on Attachment Parenting where the mom gives some sausage too.  I have been harpooned on this board for it though :-)   It's important to me anyway that it isn't store bought breakfast sausage (that stuff is full of crap), I get sausage from a local butcher so it's just the meat some fat and seasonings, no seconds or gristle or filler like in the store bought stuff.

diana.filipi

Ground beef is recommended once baby has a pincer grasp so I'm not sure why meatloaf would be bad?  Meat is good for babies IMO.

My folks are farmers so most of our beef comes from my folks farm.  They have about 80 head of cattle that are field grazed.  My dad tags the little suckers when they are born and we kill two per year.  Everyone helps wrap meat.  When you cook the ground beef there's almost no fat to pour off unlike store bought ground beef that can be up to 20% fat!!!!  The farm doesn't have pigs anymore but we get them local.  All our eggs come from the farm.  They are from chickens that are let out during the day to eat as they will then put up at night.  The yolks are so orange it's crazy if all you've ever had is store bought, high production ones.  

OhioBobcat

LilPunkinsMommy:

Wow. She eats eggs, are you not concerned with an allergy? Or do you give her just the yolks? What about the feta cheese? Isn't that considered a soft cheese?

In the BLW book it does say egg is fine as long as it is well and fully cooked. Also, you're correct that feta is a soft cheese, but it is safe because it is not a mould-ripened cheese...so perfectly fine.

I should also point out that the BLW book does have sausage on a list of 'don't do it very often' because of the salt content.

We've been BLW for just over 2 months now and DS is doing really well. We're constantly getting positive comments from family and friends who were previously skeptical. You just have to remember that BLW-success isn't measured by the amount of food they consume as it isn't textbook for them to be consuming much right away.I also make sure to nurse DS no more than an hour before any BLW meal as he will be too fussy if he's actually hungry or he will try to shove too much in his gob.

I blog about our BLW experiences in a photo-blog as do some other bumpies (link in siggy). I also second the suggestion to check out the 'Attachment Parenting' board as there are lots of more experienced BLW'ers.

Leap08

Our doctor highly recommends BLW (he didn't call it that, though). He believes that this is how babies were meant to learn how to eat, and how other non-Western cultures have always fed their babies. We are still avoiding some potential allergens (like nuts & eggs), but give our daughter almost everything else. I basically just put a little of whatever we're eating on her tray. We started right around 6 months. At first she just kind of played with her food, but over time she's become pretty good at "eating" whatever I put on the tray. She still doesn't have any teeth at 8 months, so it takes a bit of effort for her to gum off bites.

I read a really good book called "Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby Learn to Love Food." It made me feel more comfortable and confident about feeding my daughter this way. Honestly, we love it. I love watching my daughter explore her food. When she really like something, she makes the funniest, happy sounds while eating it. After our positive experience with BLW, I would never do purees.