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Attachment Parenting
mollybloom
member
Baby hates purees, question about BLW
mollybloom
member
Other than the Gail Rapley book, are there any resources you ladies recommend for getting started with BLW?
I am really nervous about her choking and decided to do the traditional puree because of that. But she hates the texture of the purees and spits almost all of it right back out. DD is 7 months old.
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Re: Baby hates purees, question about BLW
Did you read the book by Rapley? There is a great section in their about the differences between gagging and choking. It gave me great comfort when I started feeding my DD solids.
Not yet, I decided today (after another pureed disaster) that we were going to try BLW. I ordered the book from Amazon and should get it in 3-5 days.
Good to know that it has a section on that, none of the reviews I read said it had a section that addressed gagging/ choking.
I have posted about this before and went back and found my old post which includes an excerpt from the book..sorry if the format is wonky:
Gagging is normal and you should try really hard to refrain from sticking your finger in her mouth every time she gags (I sit on my hands). In most cases she will spit it out on her own. Remember that gagging does not = choking. This is a paragraph from a book that I read recently that made me feel better about the whole issue: "Often worries about choking are based on seeing babies gagging on food and confusing this with choking; these two mechanisms are related but they are not the same thing. Gagging is a retching movement that pushes food away from the airway if it is too big to be swallowed. The baby opens his mouth and pushes his tongue forward; sometimes a piece of food appears at the front of his mouth and he may even vomit a little. It doesn't seem to bother babies who are feeding themselves and they usually carry on eating as if nothing has happened.In an adult, the gag response is triggered near the back of the tongue- you have to put your finger right back towards your throat to make it happen. However, this reflex is triggered much further forward on the tongue of a six-month-old baby, so not only is it activated more easily in a baby than it is in an adult, it also operates when the piece of food that has caused it is much farther away from the airway. So when babies of six or seven months gag on food it doesn't mean the food is too close to the airway and it very rarely means they are in danger of choking.
The gag reflex may well be a key part of babies' learning how to manage food safely. When a baby has triggered this reflex a few times, by putting too much food into his mouth or pushing it too far back, he learns not to do it. As he gets older, whether or not he has been allowed to experiment with self-feeding, the place where this reflex is triggered moves back along his tongue, so that gagging doesn't happen until food is nearer the back of his mouth. So he simply 'outgrows' the tendency to gag.
However, as the gag reflex moves back towards its adult position it becomes less and less effective as an early-warning sign. So babies who haven't been allowed to explore food from the beginning may miss the opportunity to use it to help them learn how to keep food away from the airway. Anecdotal evidence suggests that babies who have been spoon-fed have more problems with gagging and 'choking' when they start to handle food (often at around eight months) than those who have been allowed to experiment much earlier.
However, while gagging is not a cause for concern, it's important to remember that this response is essentially a safety feature. For it to work effectively the baby must be sitting upright, so that any food that has gone too far back in his mouth is pushed forward- not backwards- by the reflex.
Choking happens when the airway is either completely or partially blocked. When something partially blocks a baby's airway, he automatically starts to cough to clear it; this is usually very effective. If the blockage is total, which is very rare, the baby is unable to cough and needs someone else to dislodge the lump for him (using standard first-aid measures).
The coughing and spluttering that look and sound so alarming are actually signs that the baby is dealing with the problem. By contrast, a baby who is truly choking is usually silent- because no air can get past the blockage. Normal babies have a very efficient coughing reflex and, provided they are upright or leaning forward, it is usually best not to disturb them while they are clearing their airway (Baby Led Weaning, Rapley & Murkett, pp. 61-64)."
The book is great. I also like:
www.babyledweaning.com
www.baby-led.com
My baby has only gagged once or twice, and one day he did try to eat his whole chunk of banana without chewing and vomited all over his tray. It was gross, but it's also pretty normal regardless of when you let baby feed himself.
BLW has been a lifesaver for me. My child HATES when I put things in his mouth, but loves feeding himself. It's way easier to go with that than fight it 3+ times per day.
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Following on pinksweetpea's post, we did BLW and DD loved it. She "gagged" a couple of times, but nothing serious. I have seen her start to "choke" when she was older, but the same way that an adult would and then cleared it very effectively. I STRONGLY believe that the experience she had with BLW when she was younger has helped her know how much food she can safely put in her mouth, how to effectively chew her food well, and not to put more food in her mouth if she hasn't finished what's in there already (yes, she will tell me this).
If we had another, I'd do it exactly the same way again.
It may make you feel better (and generally be a good thing) to take an infant CPR class just for piece of mind, though.