BLW mamas come in...

tjkdlhb · November 2012

Have you started yet? We started about a week and a half ago. DD stole some dip from my plate and I decided to let her play with some oatmeal, expecting her to fingerpaint, but she ate a lot, even licking the table.

What foods have you tried? Roasted Sweet potato, steamed asparagus, steamed peppers, steamed broccoli, she also licked my pancake yesterday mashed carrots (yuck!) and mashed avocado (yum!).

How is baby doing? She loves it. She looks so proud when we give her something new. DD scoops mashed things up with her hands and uses a spoon. The spoon does go in her mouth, but sometimes it has food on it, sometimes not. Sometimes she sucks her fingers while holding the spoon, which is super cute!

Has your family "adjusted" to the idea? I've only let mom watch the mashed stuff yet, oatmeal and avocado. She's pretty impressed with how DD problem solves to get the food into her mouth. DH gets such a kick out of watching her eat!

Have you spoken to your healthcare advisor about it? I spoke to the nurse and dietician. Lent the dietician my Rapley book... They both agreed with many of the principles of it, but were anxious over choking. I am starting (except the asparagus) with food that is really soft and have signed up for a first aid course just in case. But they're always useful anyway!!! The dietician said that she wasn't familiar with it before, but when she has kids, she will use some of the ideas (baby puts food all food in mouth, etc) just modify it some (mash, not straight to solid).

Anything else?

Changing diapers is now an adventure! She's definitely eating!

I mixed a little applesauce in with oatmeal today and she broke out in a little rash... I have no idea if it's related, but I will wait a while for apples now.

littleredfish · November 2012

I can't comment to the above yet since we haven't started, but since I posted on it a while ago I've ben reading up. The articles you posted were helpful and I've read some others, talked to a friend whos doing it right now (her DS is 7months).

I'm excited to start! She's sitting up, watches us eat, tries to grab at our food, and sucks on her fingers when she watches us eat. She's also getting pertty good at bringing her hands to her mouth. The only solids we've given her so far are rice crackers that she likes to suck on. Just waiting for her 6 month appointment to get the go ahead to start real food!

jennyelf · November 2012

Have you started yet? We started 3 weeks ago at 5.5 months. LO had all the signs of readiness (sitting upright unassisted, interest in food, ability to direct things into his mouth w/o any difficult and chewing on them).

What foods have you tried? Roasted Sweet potato, roasted butternut squash, roasted parsnip, avocado slices. We have a lot of food allergies in our family, so only one food a week.

How is baby doing? He seems to love it. The first week he definitely did not understand the significance and probably thought it was a weird tasting toy that broke apart in his mouth. But this week with the parsnip, he was just chowing down on it, picking it up off of his tray and eating it. Sometimes if he "bites"off too much, he gags a bit and pushes it back out of his mouth.

Has your family "adjusted" to the idea? My parents thought it was interesting to watch him. My in-laws haven't observed it yet. We haven't really mentioned it to them yet.

Have you spoken to your healthcare advisor about it? Our pediatriation was not a fan of the idea when we mentioned it to her. She said she'd seen too many instances of choking. We have our 6 month appointment next week.

Anything else?

Agree that diapers are an adventure. We can definitely see that he's eating the food. I really like it as it allows LO to eat at dinner with us and we can eat at the same time. LO seems really happy during dinner and way less fussy now that he gets food than when he just had toys to play with. Definitely not messier than my memory of purees with my younger cousins. And now that he's figuring out that food is fun, he's swallowing more and dropping less of the food. Overall, we're enjoying it.

bellelamb · November 2012

I'm interested in it but with a two year old who still tries to eat too fast do he has to be watched carefully it is kind of difficult.

We gave him slices of avocodo the other night to play with, I also made a pure and fed him that. I think we may do a mix of both ways.

I asked his dr at four months she had never heard of it and basically said it sounds like a bad idea.

tjkdlhb · November 2012

bellelamb:
I'm interested in it but with a two year old who still tries to eat too fast do he has to be watched carefully it is kind of difficult. We gave him slices of avocodo the other night to play with, I also made a pure and fed him that. I think we may do a mix of both ways. I asked his dr at four months she had never heard of it and basically said it sounds like a bad idea.

I am so super nervous about choking! Which I assume is your dr's reservation.I do often second guess this decision for that reason.I was worried, since she's so tiny, that she wouldn't get much in her mouth, but I'm not worried about that anymore. She's pretty good at it ~ eating way more than I thought she would. I've been giving mushier stuff mostly and just letting her scoop it with her hands. The booklet that was given to us by the health dept. about feeding after six months said to start finger foods when babies can bring the food to their mouths, which she can...I'm running out of ideas for mushy stuff though! (any suggestions?!?)

Her hand-eye coordination is amazing for a 6 month old! I think food is a good motivation!

nicole0066 · November 2012

We are starting soon. She isn't super interested in solids but we do offer her things to experiment with.

Our pedi said to offer purees but other soft foods such as avacado, flaky whitefish, etc were fine. Her explanation was that she might reject more solid foods because of the texture. She also brought up gagging, but I know that gagging is much different from choking and babies are going to gag regardless of when they start more finger foods.

I have read the BLW book and really agree with what it says. I will take the pedis advice, but I also know that pediatricians can vary sooo much on their opinions so I am going to do what works for our family.

ElinJ · November 2012

bellelamb:
I'm interested in it but with a two year old who still tries to eat too fast do he has to be watched carefully it is kind of difficult.

We gave him slices of avocodo the other night to play with, I also made a pure and fed him that. I think we may do a mix of both ways.

I asked his dr at four months she had never heard of it and basically said it sounds like a bad idea.

My Dr thought it was a bad idea too had never heard of it until I mentioned it. She also wanted me to start real food BEFORE 6 months.

Originally I wanted to do BLW, and start at 6 months. After talking with Dr, I decided to start with rice cereal at 5 months. I am holding off on doing veggies until closer to 6 months, and I would like to do a combination of BLW as well as pures. Per her suggestion I plan on starting with a couple nonsweet veggies first, before introducing sweet potato, avocado, or bananas. I will say, he seems to enjoy the rice cereal! I know some babies hate it. After rice cereal we'll move on to barley or oatmeal.

bellelamb · November 2012

I wish more dr were up to date on ideas and newer studies!!! Rice cereal before six months is such a dated idea.
My dr says babies won't be able to chew the food enough to digest it so they won't get enough nutrients from it. Again dated idea that food before one needs to be anything but fun. Oh well I'm going to do what I feel is best for my child as long as he's gaining and meeting mile stones I'm not going to take much stock in what his dr says.

lucylove619 · November 2012

We are kind of doing a combination of BLW and purees - BLW makes DH super nervous, and me too sometimes when she gags, so we give her a puree to start and then something safe to 'play' with - a mashed banana, avocado, sweet potato. We preload the spoon and she feeds the purees herself, which is a big huge giant mess, but I figure it still gives her good food practice without so much of the choking worry. She had scrambled eggs this morning. The more we give her things with texture the better she gets at figuring out what to do with it, so I think in a few weeks we'll be giving her more regular foods. We will still do purees at daycare though, because I don't trust them to watch her with real food.

bellelamb · November 2012

lucylove619:
We are kind of doing a combination of BLW and purees BLW makes DH super nervous, and me too sometimes when she gags, so we give her a puree to start and then something safe to 'play' with a mashed banana, avocado, sweet potato. We preload the spoon and she feeds the purees herself, which is a big huge giant mess, but I figure it still gives her good food practice without so much of the choking worry. She had scrambled eggs this morning. The more we give her things with texture the better she gets at figuring out what to do with it, so I think in a few weeks we'll be giving her more regular foods. We will still do purees at daycare though, because I don't trust them to watch her with real food.

Wow eggs already that's normally a big allergy concern and no introduced until a year or close.

nicole0066 · November 2012

bellelamb:
lucylove619:
We are kind of doing a combination of BLW and purees BLW makes DH super nervous, and me too sometimes when she gags, so we give her a puree to start and then something safe to 'play' with a mashed banana, avocado, sweet potato. We preload the spoon and she feeds the purees herself, which is a big huge giant mess, but I figure it still gives her good food practice without so much of the choking worry. She had scrambled eggs this morning. The more we give her things with texture the better she gets at figuring out what to do with it, so I think in a few weeks we'll be giving her more regular foods. We will still do purees at daycare though, because I don't trust them to watch her with real food.
Wow eggs already that's normally a big allergy concern and no introduced until a year or close.

My pedi said the only thing to avoid was honey. Peanut products, berries, eggs, etc she was fine with. I know other pedis that say no peanut products until 2. I truly think it is really interesting that there is such a wide range of advice when it comes to these things!

elviebird · November 2012

We started at 5.5 Months. She had, in order, avocado (yuck), broccoli (yum), green beans (yum), and carrots (yum). I think she didn't like the avocado because it was the first solid we tried and she was confused, and because it was too slimy to get a grip on. We will try it again later. She's "eating" pretty enthusiastically now. We also give her oatmeal with a spoon and usually mix it the veggie that she just mashed up. I'm going to continue with veggies and maybe try salmon soon, and also start adding spices so she can try new flavors.

My pediatrician didn't bat an eye, just said no honey and no choking hazards like nuts or raisins.

lucylove619 · November 2012

Yeah, our pedi just said no honey. She said many allergists don't even say to wait on nuts, except for them being a choking hazard. We don't have any food allergies in the family so I am not super worried about that. I am much more nervous about the choking!

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