Any mamas introducing solids with baby-led weaning?

Married2MrWright · July 2010

Libby will be 6 months old at the end of the month and we plan to start her on solids by skipping purees and just giving her "finger food" versions of whatever we're eating (within reason...no nuts, for example)...

I've read up on Baby Led Weaning and it makes total sense to me and is very much in line with breastfeeding on demand, etc. Just wondering if anyone else her is using BLW or plans to...

It'd be great to chat with other mamas feeding their LOs this way...

MauiWedding08 · July 2010

we are.

we haven't really started but I don't make an effort keep the food away from Jack since he is usually on my lap at dinner. He has had watermelon, cucumber/carrot/celery and cantelope. I just put whatever might be appropriate in front of him if he is showing interest and let him try to pick it up and gum and lick at it. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. It's fun to watch - he could obviously tell the difference between the rind and fruit of the watermelon and would shift it in his hands to get to the good stuff. Watermelon was the first and I explained that experience in a previous post - he could distinguish it from other stuff on the table and would pick it back up by sliding it to the edge of the table and "catching" it to get it back in both hands.

He did not like celery and was obviously avoiding it and only picking up the cucumber and carrot when I had all 3 in front of him.

I don't think he is really eating - just exploring tastes and textures and practicing the motor skills required to get the stuff in his mouth which is consistent with BLW - I don't want to make food in general seem "bad" but not allowing him to self explore right now even though he isn't 6 mo. It would be different if I was forcing it or doing it for him but we just let him explore on his own. We don't pick it up for him (even if he gets slightly frustrated) and like I said, he isn't getting much - if any at all.

He can sit in a highchair (my mom bought the space saver for her house) on his own and I am ordering a tripp trapp so he can slide right up to our table and have his own place setting.

MrsZiz · July 2010

We didn't do this but are doing this more now. We offer her the breast first and then finger foods. She's been eating less and less milk. Our goal is to get her to wean eventually She's a total boob girl! So we're offering her pretty much anything (within reason like you said) that she reaches for and she reaches for A LOT! Yesterday she tried red pepper sticks and her facial expressions were priceless and she LOVES watermelon!

As far as purees went (not like you asked but I'll share anyways) She would turn her head away when she was done so it was easy to tell. I don't think at 6 months she would have done well with finger foods... then again she was 5 weeks early. She wasn't really interested in finger foods until she was 8 months old.

Married2MrWright · July 2010

MauiWedding08:

we are.

That's awesome Robbi...thank you for sharing Jack's experiences (thus far...) We plan to start soon and yes, just allow her to explore food for now...we don't expect she'll be truly eating very much until she's much closer to 12 months old.

I think we're going to get the Keekaroo Height Right Chair...since she's already the size of some one year olds and we want something that will grow with her. It's quite similar to the Tripp Trapp but a little more affordable.

mrspresley · July 2010

i'll be interested to hear about your experiences with this (and more about Jack's too).... we started miss A on rice cereal and then purees but i wanted to see how she would do with finger foods. i gave her a carrot stick that had been steamed (i was about to puree it but gave it to her first) and she grabbed it right away and put it in her mouth. she was able to gum it and bite a piece off but unfortunately she gagged on it and couldn't figure out to chew on it before swallowing. she also gags when she gets too large of a mouthful of puree.....

i only briefly looked at the BLW website so i don't know the ins and outs of it...so i was wondering how you can get them to eat finger foods when they are so young. now that i read your reply i guess that you just let them explore the food and mouth it but they don't actually eat it until they are older? our pedi said not to wait too long to introduce solids b/c if they are older than 8 months when you introduce them it gets harder to get them to accept solids.... do you know if this is just if you don't give them anything at all (i.e. not even to pick up and taste) or if this is sometimes a problem with babies that do BLW? just curious!

MrsZiz · July 2010

mrspresley:
our pedi said not to wait too long to introduce solids b/c if they are older than 8 months when you introduce them it gets harder to get them to accept solids.... do you know if this is just if you don't give them anything at all (i.e. not even to pick up and taste) or if this is sometimes a problem with babies that do BLW? just curious!

Our pedi said the same thing.. although I take what she says with a grain of salt That said, I do have a friend that waited until 9 months to introduce solids, mostly finger foods, and her LO completely refused until he was around 2. So I'd be curious about that too to see how the BLW process works... at what age do most babies on the BLW program wean?

MauiWedding08 · July 2010

I take lots of what the peds say with a grain of salt Fortified rice (and other grain) cereals were made for babies when it was recommended for them to start at around 3mo. or earlier. Even the AAP recognizes (according to their newest feeding babies solid foods brochure) that cereal does not show any clear benefits as the first food. Anyways, if you believe the baby's skill sets matures with their ability then the idea that they are able to self feed when they can physically handle it makes sense. And just like with breastfeeding I am confident that Jack will know just how much he needs.

The actual phrase "baby led weaning" is actually a little bit confusing - it's not meant to be a weaning regiment - rather just a baby led solids so I don't think you can really estimate when BLW babies actually wean - babies that are spoon fed for the first few months vary in that respect too.

I am not worried about Jack not "learning" how to eat w/out me spoon feeding him - he will gain the skills necessary. Again, if he doesn't I don't think it will have anything to do with how we started foods.

I have unofficially started with Jack b/c a large part of BLW is letting the child decide. By constantly moving my food away from him I was afraid of instilling an idea that food was forbidden or bad for him. Since he is curious and has the other skills (can sit up, grasp) I am letting him start the process.

There was a whole section in the book I read about gagging/choking. Gagging is one thing, actually choking is supposedly rare. Gagging is actually a survival mechanism and has its place in letting the child learn how to move food around, break it up, and swallow. The book and other resources actually had some diagrams about how putting the food on the spoon and into the childs mouth is too similar to bottle/breast feeding so the child lags behind in loosing the thrust and actually takes longer to develop the skills necessary to eat, chew, etc (especially an issue when you then first start stage 2 lumpy foods).

Take it all with a grain of salt - but that is just what I have read. Watching the BLW babies (on youtube and other sites) is actually pretty remarkable.

Married2MrWright · July 2010

We haven't started just yet, although she is very interested in our plates so I think we may just let her grab onto what she wants and try it...

That said, my understanding that while the primary goal is to let the baby explore food that they do begin to injest some rather quickly in the process (as is evidenced in their diaper)....but again the primary goal is learning, the secondary goal is nutrition...their main source of nutrition will still be from breastmilk. It's about going with the baby's developmental needs...and Robbi's right...gagging is totally normal and to be expected (and a naturally built in safety mechanism...babies will gag on purees too)...choking is rather rare but it's still a good idea to know what to do if the need should arise (again, babies can choke on purees or even their own saliva)...

MauiWedding08 · July 2010

jaime - I also meant to say that the steamed carrot *may* have been too soft to be used for the purpose of finger foods.

Steamed foods for BLW should be only lightly steamed b/c the baby needs to learn to "chew" so if it's too mushy the food breaks off to easily, which is interesting because unlike most babies that move up to stage 2 foods such as lightly mashed banana or avacado a BLW baby may have more difficulty with food that is too soft until they learn to chew and move food around more efficiently.

myday1708 · July 2010

A woman in my mom's group has been doing BLW and it has worked well for her... That said, she still uses baby food in jars while traveling. At least she did in the beginning. She has been very helpful to the rest of us in getting ideas for finger foods... Like watermelon... She has even given her son chicken quesidillas! And lots of beans...

We are doing a lot more of this now, giving Alexa finger foods and a taste of whatever we are eating to play with or gnaw on. But at 6 months, she would not have been able to really eat any of that or do much with it. Now, our goal is to broaden her culinary horizons and get her ready to eat table foods (and food offered for free at daycare) by the time she is 1 years old.

mrspresley · July 2010

thanks for the info

it's interesting and a lot of it makes sense...i just can't convince DH to get on board, he is too traditional about this

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