BLW

stoneycakes

I know a few of you mommas on here do this.  Can you tell me more about it?  I have been doing purees, but I really feel like DS would rather feed himself.  He always grabs the spoon and wants to be in charge, lol.  I'm just looking for some good guidelines because I'm totally nervous about him choking. TIA!

bellelamb

We're doing a modified blw. Lucas gets mostly finger foods and has since we started at six months I do feed him applesauce, yogurt and baby food veggies sometimes since we mostly eat raw veggies.

We started with strips of avocado, bananas, mashed roasted sweet potatoes, quickly moved up to thin pieces of toast, chunks of turkey and chicken, pasta, rice, pancakes and eggs.

I googled the difference between baby choking and gagging because they do gag a lot but only once did I feel the need to turn him upside down and pat his back. Honestly I think he's gagging and I know chocking much less than my other two who I waited to start real food with until older. Lucas has learned how to handle the food in his mouth much quicker because he was so young I think.

By this age all my others we're on Cheerios, puffs, mum mums, and yogurt drops.

littleredfish

DD loves it. She's only ever choked once on food, it was a mushroom but she coughed it out before we touched her. They will gag before they choke since their gag reflex is so sensitive at this age, but that's normal it's part of learning so try not to freak at the gagging.

I just make sure that everything is cut into pieces that I feel she can manage (it's just common sense and good judgement) and make sure everything is soft enough for her. Although, now that she is much better at it and know to "chew" I give her harder/chewier things and she is fine.

Our go to foods are steamed carrots, broccoli and sweet potato, toast with butter cut into strips, cubed fruit (avocado, apples, pineapple, any melon), bagel and cream cheese (she LOVES), sliced/grated cheese, cooked fusili. In the end though she eats anything we eat just modified to how she can eat it. Like the other night we had lasagna and hers I just cut the noodles so they were in skinny strips and she loved it. Ate it all.

If you're really nervous about choking, maybe take a first aid/cpr class. I have my infant CPR so maybe thats why I didn't even worry about her choking that much when I started. There are great books and internet sites out there dedicated to it, so maybe read up on those too.

jennyelf

We started at 5.5 months with roasted veggies cut the size of steak fries. We now just feed LO anything that is generally soft/not too fibrous enough to break apart without teeth. So any roasted or steamed veggies, stewed/roasted meats, a lot of different fruits, toast, waffles, other breads and cheerios.

I've definitely seen LO gag a lot when we started, but he never choked. Gagging looks like he's coughing up a hair ball and is pretty messy, but it's kinda like the difference between spitting up and vomiting. Spitting up doesn't seem to distress LO, but vomiting definitely made him upset. Gagging doesn't seem to distress LO, once it's over, he'll just grab more food and shove it in his mouth (sometimes the food he just gagged up! ew!) I've been told that babies look a lot more panicked when choking.

Personally, I love BLW. It's easy and makes mealtime a lot nicer. He feeds himself while we eat and I can eat my meal w/o having to feed LO. I just put a bunch of food on his tray table and he goes for it.  If he can't break it apart himself, he's learned to just chew on it and then spit out whatever won't break apart. Sometimes he'll hold on one end of the food and just suck or gnaw on the other end until he's gotten whatever is edible off of it.

bellelamb

zoeygirl1105:

I have a question too. We do a modified version of BLW. I've been trying to give her toast lately. How do you give it? Do you cut it up into small pieces? Both times I've given it to her she's acted like she's choking and ends up throwing it all up. She normally does really well with finger foods but I decided to stop the toast for a bit. Any suggestions?

Small cubes don't work but cut into strips like French fries work well for us. He loves it with cream cheese.

RMama2012

I have a questions-  how much does your lo actually eat?  I am eager to drop the "baby food" but I think lo would eat much less and worry about his intake.

littleredfish

RMama2012:

I have a questions-  how much does your lo actually eat?  I am eager to drop the "baby food" but I think lo would eat much less and worry about his intake.

I'm keeping BM as her main source of nutrition until she is 1, so I give her that before the other foods. Same principal would apply to formula. Plus I just let her eat and keep giving her more until she gets bored of it or starts throwing it on the floor. We've had no issues with weight gain at all (in fact, she's quite chunky)

bellelamb

Food before one is for fun!! It about learning and exploring at this point. My lo eats about half of what I give him.

jennyelf

RMama2012:

I have a questions-  how much does your lo actually eat?  I am eager to drop the "baby food" but I think lo would eat much less and worry about his intake.

I just don't worry about this. I BF and figure LO eats until he's full then and I have no idea how much he eats, so solids eating should be the same. LO will eat as much as he needs and as long as I give a variety of healthy options, I'm not going to worry how much he eats. 

But I will say, now that LO has gotten the hang of eating, he's a pretty good eater, to the point that I sometimes worry he's eating too much. But he'll stop eating food on his tray at some point, so I guess sometimes he's just really hungry. Yesterday, LO decided to eat 3/4 of a banana and a few handfuls of Cheerios for breakfast. He didn't really eat much for lunch, but then ate a couple of pieces of chicken and some carrot and parsnip for dinner.

ceteichm

We've just started trying this a bit with dd. So far she's tried a peeled pear, strawberries, a blueberry, cheddar cheese banana avacado both she just smashes. We also do puffs and cheerios. We're going to try sweet potato tomorrow. Any other food suggestions?

bellelamb

ceteichm:

We've just started trying this a bit with dd. So far she's tried a peeled pear, strawberries, a blueberry, cheddar cheese banana avacado both she just smashes. We also do puffs and cheerios. We're going to try sweet potato tomorrow. Any other food suggestions?

Scrambled eggs were a big hit early with Lucas.