DS is 6.5 months old and we are doing sort of BLWing with him. I've tried banana and avocado with him, and while he tries to pick it up and suck on it, it always seems to slip out of his hands. Any ideas of fingers of foods I could give him that he can actually hold on to?
Foster parents turned adoptive parents

Adoptive daughter born 08/07/13... growing so fast
BM due again end of March 2015 so any day!
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Re: Ideas for non-slippery first foods?
I've heard rolling it in wheat germ works.
DD likes broccoli (steamed til it's really soft) and sweet potato fries (in oven with a little olive oil until very soft) and butternut squash done the same way.
I actually mash the avocado and let her go at it with her hands and a baby spoon. She's pretty good at getting it in her mouth. It's messy, but it seemed safer somehow... I could picture a big chunk of the avocado breaking off. Banana I cut it the length of a french fry and then stick my finger down the middle of it so that it separates into three parts. She can hold it easier then.
berries are good
blueberries, raspberries, cut up strawberries etc.
for a 6 month old they may pose a choking hazard... I think blueberries are one of the warned about foods... and I can definitely see cut up strawberries causing problems too...
I mash some things like this and just let her use her hands. Not everything is mashed, only things that I think might cause problems.
Everything I've read has said 6 months and when several other criteria have been met (sitting unassisted, lost tongue thrust, reaching for food) It's baby-led...DD was ready when I started her. If I have another child, maybe it will be closer to 7 months, who knows. I'm just super cautious not to giver her things that would be a choking hazard.
Six months is totally acceptable to start BLW. If they can sit up on their own and are interested in food, then they are good to go. The whole point of BLW is that food is big enough that the baby can't put the whole thing in their mouth, but can suck and chew on it instead.
OP - roasted veggies are good or hunks of soft-cooked meat. You can take a banana and leave the peel on the very bottom (so they have a handle for it), which helps with holding it.
I wouldn't do cut-up berries or anything small at that stage.
It's not tradition BLW, but we would mash banana with yogurt and let DS2 feed himself with a spoon. He might have been closer to nine months when we started that, bc I'm pretty sure he was fairly coordinated about it...
DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)
I give DD one of those Gerber spoons that's narrower at the tip. She does really well with it! more often than not it makes its way into her mouth and while she has some trouble getting the food on it in the traditional way, usually some is stuck to the spoon or I "pre-load it" so it's still her putting the food in her mouth, she just gets a little help putting the food on the spoon. It's actually amazing what they can do when you just let them do it, isn't it? The Gerber spoon is good too because it's narrower than the plastic ones, so she can grip it easier.
https://www.amazon.com/Gerber-Graduates-Infant-Spoon-Colors/dp/B0018OHCLC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1353603577&sr=8-3&keywords=gerber+spoons
Thank you for all the suggestions! These were great!
Adoptive daughter born 08/07/13... growing so fast
BM due again end of March 2015 so any day!
Bloggy blog
It seems to me like a lot of posters on this thread have no idea about BLW, so I would take their advice with a grain of salt.
For slippery foods like avocado or mango we left the peel on. At 6 months he was mostly just gumming them, but it didn't take him very long to learn how to scrape the meat off the peel with his gums. They were big favorites.
His first meal was blueberry pancakes, green beans, and sausage. He loved vegetables and fruit early on - broccoli, potatoes, okra, bell pepper, melon, strawberries, tomato, etc. I was lucky that he turned 6 months in April, so we had loads of fresh summer produce to work with! Meat is also perfect for BLW, because it's easy to cut steak, chicken, etc. into the stick shape so they can hold it and get it into their mouth.
Thank you for your advice. Now with the avocado, did you worry about if skin broke off in LO's mouth? He is definitely only gumming things and sucking on things, but that's my only concern with that... otherwise, genius idea! Thanks for the other suggestions too!
Adoptive daughter born 08/07/13... growing so fast
BM due again end of March 2015 so any day!
Bloggy blog
I refuse to believe my son is special or a genius in this regard, but when the avocado skin broke off in his mouth, he pushed it out with his tongue. It didn't taste as good as the lighter green stuff apparently. Now watermelon rind on the other hand, is a completely different story. And supports my opinion I'm not raising a genius.
Leaving the peel on didn't help my girl grip for some reason. I rolled it in baby oatmeal. That worked well. I bet crushed Cheerios or something would work even better. The oatmeal dissolved so there wasn't much texture, but it did make it less slippery.
6 months is totally fine for those foods.