smilelari

duffmaker

Hi! I noticed on a PP's thread about solids you said you were feeding DD from your plate now, chicken, burrito (I completely LOLed at that one )... How?? What do you do, is it BLW? How? Sorry, I've just been wanting to play with big foods with DD but I'm not sure how to go about it and I am so paranoid that she'll choke!

smilelari

We are doing BLW.  You'd probably want to wait until LO is 6 months or a little bit closer to it, but it really is as simple as it sounds.  We started with fruits and veggies.  Most veggies we steam or cook in some way, like bell peppers and carrots.  A few things are soft enough to give raw, like ripe pears, banana, cucumber.  Food is cut into large stick shapes so that it's easy for baby to handle.  Once I had watched her gum those foods and felt more comfortable we started feeding off our plates.  We are sure to cut things appropriately and not offer things that are choking hazards, like whole grapes and nuts.  We also avoid a few things that are more allergenic (again nuts and we'll hold off on eggs for a while).  In babies this age, the gag reflex is pretty far forward and very sensitive so they gag long before a piece of food that's too big gets any where near their airway.  So, they gag a bit, but if they can't swallow the food they just spit it back out.  I've seen it countless times.  DD gums off a huge piece of food.  I stare at her, sitting on my hands so that I can fight the impulse to sweep it out of her mouth.  Seconds later she just spits the whole thing out (usually not even gagging)

 She loved the burrito, BTW.  Avocado, tomato, ground beef, cheese, all yummy stuff.  I just cut it into pieces the same way I tend to do for my toddler and she went for it.  When we give her something like that off out plates, we also give her something like stick shaped steamed veggies so that she also has something a little easier for her to handle and doesn't get frustrated.

"Real" foods are kind of nerve wracking at first no matter when or how you introduce them, but eventually they'll have to eat more than purees.  If you're interested in trying it out, I recommend picking up Rapley's BLW book.  I love BLW (it's so much fun!), but we didn't do it the first time around because I was too nervous.  I wish I had done it, but I had all the first time parent nerves having never done any of this before and just couldn't bring myself to do something like offer a 6 month old pasta

duffmaker

Thanks so much! I'm going to have to look into getting that book, it's something I would like to do. I feel awful eating in front of her lately because she eyes down and reaches for our food all the time!

authorofdreamz

Sorry to but in but I have a question. When you gave her the burrito (or really anything from your plate) do you cook it without a lot of seasoning or at least without salt? Cause I always read that they shouldn't have salt but then I read about how with BLW you can feed them right off your plate and I don't get how the two work together.

smilelari

authorofdreamz:

Sorry to but in but I have a question. When you gave her the burrito (or really anything from your plate) do you cook it without a lot of seasoning or at least without salt? Cause I always read that they shouldn't have salt but then I read about how with BLW you can feed them right off your plate and I don't get how the two work together.

You definitely have to be careful about salt and we are modifying our own diet to cut down on salt and processed foods.  For example, when we seasoned the beef for the burritos I made my own taco seasoning (chili powder, cumin, oregano, pepper, other stuff I can remember) and left out the salt.  I also made the guacamole from scratch.  The one thing the BLW book stresses over and over is how important it is to be careful about salt.  I don't hold back on seasoning at all.  We found that even doing purees, DS liked a lot of flavors and loved some strong flavors like garlic.  But salt and preservatives we are pretty careful with.