BLW check in

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

Sorry I forgot to post this yesterday. How's it going? Any new recipes this week?

We've been battling a bit of constipation. So I've been backing off regular meals a bit and focusing on peaches, prunes, blueberries, etc to try to make them go. I feel really bad for them when they grunt and strain and turn bright red from the effort.

We've made a few new things this week... Lentil and cheese wedges (mine were fingers) from the BLW cookbook were a hit, but I tried not to give too much of that due to the cheese. Last night we had pork and veggie burritos and I gave them some of the pork and veggies and they really liked it.

I find breakfast to be the most challenging. I'm trying to get ready for work so I find myself giving them more Cheerios than I'd like (although I bought Cascadian Farms O's instead of Cheerios this week as they have no salt or sugar and less additives than real Cheerios). What are some of your favorite baby-friendly breakfast ideas?

ETA we also made the Thai chicken green curry from the BLW cookbook and it turned out great!

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

@sarabelleATX, I saw your post yesterday and I'm sorry your LO is losing weight. How is she taking to eating solids? Are you finding bits of food in her diapers? If you want to continue with BLW I would offer as many good fats as possible - lots of avocado, cook with butter and olive oil, give whole milk yogurt... Maybe some other ladies have some other ideas.

Kashy · January 2014

We have tried a couple new things recently. Peas, fish and beans. He loved it all.

I am making up a meal list for the next few weeks or so. We have been pretty boring in the meal department lately so I want to get a little more adventurous and try different spices and flavors.

And this is what happens when he is full and getting lazy

Kashy · January 2014

So we have a pretty good meal schedule going lately. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are his main solid food meals. But this kid seems SOOOO hungry lately that he will be a cranky beast until you give him something to eat, so he has been getting a few little snacks in there as well. Even after eating all of this he will still nurse before and sometimes right after he eats.

Now I'm hoping this is just a growth spurt because this seems like a lot of food/milk for one day. Any one else have a LO who eats so much?? I should add he consumes a lot of the solid food as well.

He is also WAY more active these days so maybe that is another reason he is eating so much because he is burning it off with being more active.

bumpuser8130818 · January 2014

Kashy said:
So we have a pretty good meal schedule going lately. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are his main solid food meals. But this kid seems SOOOO hungry lately that he will be a cranky beast until you give him something to eat, so he has been getting a few little snacks in there as well. Even after eating all of this he will still nurse before and sometimes right after he eats.

Now I'm hoping this is just a growth spurt because this seems like a lot of food/milk for one day. Any one else have a LO who eats so much?? I should add he consumes a lot of the solid food as well.

He is also WAY more active these days so maybe that is another reason he is eating so much because he is burning it off with being more active.

Absolutely. He eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacks in between. And still nurses before his meals and after half the time. But he's huge, so that's just his way I guess.

Blueyed228 · January 2014

Can I ask what meats you all started with?

I can't bring myself to do the meats in the jars. Blech.

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

@kashy, I also have a big eater. She's my smaller baby too (I'd estimate she weighs about 16.5 pounds at nearly 8.5 months and is 75th percentile for height). She nurses before and after meals although often she is too busy/distracted to nurse (she nurses a lot at night still). Anyway, she eats everything I put in front of her and eats really quickly too. I can barely cut it up and drop it on her tray fast enough. I really hope this behavior sticks and she doesn't become a picky eater or one of those toddlers who barely eats anything!

bumpuser8130818 · January 2014

We have fallen off the BLW wagon this week. Pre-loaded spoons became spoon feeding and fruits and veggies became purees. His freaking teeth are throwing a wrench into things. He bites off huge chunks of things and just shoves more and more in until his mouth is just exploding with food and then he doesn't know what to do stop we have to scrape it out. And then he gets frustrated because he just wants to eat. So then I end up mashing or pureeing so many things to satisfy his appetite. We still attempt blw foods at every meal, but not to many things have been a success this week. He hated salmon, peas, & kidney beans and last night we had tacos. He likes each thing separately but when I put them together for him on little strips he acted like it was the most disgusting thing ever.

If you have any advice about the biting off chunks (still working on pincer so can't really do small bites) i would appreciate it!

Kashy · January 2014

@Trish625 We have been working on G's pincer grip too. So I have been chopping things up into small pieces but also keeping some larger chunks in case he gets frustrated with trying to pick up the small pieces. As too biting off chunks no help there. G does it too because now he has 4 teeth and he has learned quickly that he can bite big chunks with his teeth so I'm scraping food out of his mouth sometimes too.

We also did softer things that can be spoon fed too because he has been teething lately so his mouth was sore and he just didn't want to eat because of it.

Kashy · January 2014

PumpkinAndThePeanut said:

@kashy, I also have a big eater. She's my smaller baby too (I'd estimate she weighs about 16.5 pounds at nearly 8.5 months and is 75th percentile for height). She nurses before and after meals although often she is too busy/distracted to nurse (she nurses a lot at night still). Anyway, she eats everything I put in front of her and eats really quickly too. I can barely cut it up and drop it on her tray fast enough. I really hope this behavior sticks and she doesn't become a picky eater or one of those toddlers who barely eats anything!

My guy is almost 22lbs so he's a big boy. I'm glad he is not a fussy eater and likes pretty much everything so far. We really hope he stays like this.

KLXVI · January 2014

Trish625 we had the same problem I think. L gets too excited to eat and just shoves things in his mouth. He only has a nub of one tooth, though. I've been making the pieces we give him smaller (thinner and shorter) so that he can't get a huge piece. I'm scared to put little chunks because I feel with the strips he can still control the bite size. He has been getting purees at lunch time, but I also give him Cheerios to practice with. L also gets good amount of oatmeal after he attempts to eat his dinner.

Maybe you could put less on his plate so that he has to concentrate on only a few pieces? Or, you could offer purees/oatmeal with his food pieces so that he has sustenance, but can also play with the food.

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

@blueyed228 - for meats, I started with chicken/turkey in large finger/stick shapes that they could suck on. That was around 7 months. Now that they have teeth, and can bite chunks off, I give chicken and pork in shredded form (cutting along the grain). I give small pieces because they have their pincer grip.

After chicken and turkey I gave meatballs, crumbled into small chunks. Meatballs are great because you can sneak extra veggies into them (shredded carrot, cooked spinach, etc.). You could probably make meatballs in a finger shape for them if they don't have the pincer grip.

I've given fish too, in little shredded pieces (not sure how else you could offer that if they don't have the pincer grip down).

@Trish625, sorry to hear that he's not enjoying things. Maybe @cromie713 can offer some advice on the chunks? If he's stuffing his mouth and not spitting out the excess, I'm not sure what I'd do either.

Blueyed228 · January 2014

Thank you. I have a lot of questions but I don't want to threadjack your check in so I'll look into BLW for newbs.

I saw you mention cookbooks. Can you recommend your fave?

They are decent with pincer. We don't practice a lot. No teeth either but strong bite urges.

Kashy · January 2014

PumpkinAndThePeanut said:

@blueyed228 - for meats, I started with chicken/turkey in large finger/stick shapes that they could suck on. That was around 7 months. Now that they have teeth, and can bite chunks off, I give chicken and pork in shredded form (cutting along the grain). I give small pieces because they have their pincer grip.

After chicken and turkey I gave meatballs, crumbled into small chunks. Meatballs are great because you can sneak extra veggies into them (shredded carrot, cooked spinach, etc.). You could probably make meatballs in a finger shape for them if they don't have the pincer grip.

I've given fish too, in little shredded pieces (not sure how else you could offer that if they don't have the pincer grip down).

@Trish625, sorry to hear that he's not enjoying things. Maybe @cromie713 can offer some advice on the chunks? If he's stuffing his mouth and not spitting out the excess, I'm not sure what I'd do either.

We did the same for meat as well. We have tried chicken, turkey, ground beef, ham and fish.

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

@Blueyed228, the only book you need is the BLW cookbook by Gill Rapley (it has a great summary of the whole BLW concept and the do's and dont's of it, plus loads of baby/family friendly recipes. If after reading that, you still have questions, I'd read Gill Rapley's full book (called simply, Baby Led Weaning) and check out her website. However, that's probably less helpful to you because it assumes the reader is starting at 6 months and skipped purées altogether, when I assume what you are actually doing is introducing finger foods at around 8 months.

As for the cookbook, I use the BLW one but I mostly just modify regular recipes to eliminate as much salt and sugar as possible. The keys are to cook from scratch, avoid salt/sugar as much as possible, avoid honey until 1 and nuts, popcorn etc (choking risk), know what your baby can/can't handle and watch them very carefully. And take an infant CPR course or learn infant CPR on you tube if you haven't already, so you are prepared. That's about it!

Blueyed228 · January 2014

Introducing finger foods at around 8months is exactly it. Especially since we started solids at 4m. I'm not even sure we could be considered BLW starting at this point?

Thanks for the info! I'm gonna see if I can get it on Amazon and give it a go.

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

You wouldn't, but the cookbook will have some good meal ideas and the safety concepts of BLW are still applicable.

sundaesprinkles · January 2014

New things this week were chicken (first meat), mashed potatoes, peas, and yogurt. I don't think he actually got any chicken in him (still no teeth) but he made the attempt. He really liked the peas, potatoes, and yogurt. The yogurt was also the first time we gave him a pre-loaded spoon. He did really well with it!

sundaesprinkles · January 2014

@nech0606 Your little girl is so adorable. I love her pony tail!

KLXVI · January 2014

I guess I should do my check-in, too. We haven't tried many new foods lately. He's been eating a lot of yogurt and zucchini. We did plan our New Year's meal around BLW, though. DH made ratatouille and risotto that were baby-friendly.

PumpkinAndThePeanut mentioned!

fancefpp · January 2014

Just started BLW because he was refusing purees from the beginning. Hated them! I think he basically ate a teaspoon and was just nursing like crazy, which is fine but I needed to switch. He has had peas, avocado, mashed potato, puffs, yogurt, toast, pears, blueberries and a little grilled cheese. I might give him some chicken tonight. His favorite so far is definitely avocado. He loves them! The rest was just ok

bumpuser8130818 · January 2014

@PumpkinAndThePeanut are the recipes in the book given with US measurements? I've been wanting to make the lentil and cheese wedges from the blw site, but I am so lost on converting to US memeasurements

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

^@Trish625, I think they were in US measurements. Now that you mention it, the book must have been modified for the US market because all the oven temps are given in Fahrenheit.

@littkek, I think the recipe was just one cup of cooked lentils, 3/4 cup of cheese (I used shredded cheddar), 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (I use spelt bread for V and E because I read it was easier for them to digest than regular bread, so I just toasted a piece of that and tore it up), one egg and maybe some dried herbs to taste. Mix all that up until well combined, and press the mixture into a baking pan (I used a small square casserole dish and my "wedges" ended up being about an inch thick). Bake for 30 minutes, I think on 375 degrees.

c-elizabethf · January 2014

I'm new to the check in and have only started puffs, I would like to start shredded chicken sometime this weekend and maybe mashed potatoes.

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

^ we've mostly been doing yogurt on pre loaded spoons, but I recently bought some of those plastic bowls with the suction cups on the bottom. I stuck those on the trays and gave V and E the spoons to dip with. After a few decent attempts at dipping into the bowl with the spoon, they ended up putting the spoon aside and dipping into the bowl with their fingers, and sucking the yogurt off their fingers. But if I your LO would let you, I'd just try to spoon feed her the yogurt. Occasionally I'll hold the loaded spoon out to E and instead of taking it from me, she closes her mouth around it.

ETA good luck with the power nursing/ pumping!

bumpuser8130818 · January 2014

2013sarabelleATX said:
Question for the group: other than a preloaded spoon, how do you get LO to eat yogurt?

My bff let's her lo eat it with her hands, but I have always done on a loaded spoon or smeared on something like fruit wedges.

sarajim06 · January 2014

New to the check-in!

What kind of yogurt are you ladies using?

And what types of things are you sending to daycare? DS still gets purées at daycare bc I'm stuck on what to send.

Thanks!

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

@sarajim06, I use Brown Cow plain full fat yogurt (it's really good!) but you can use any plain whole milk (full fat) variety. I'd avoid the flavored kind because they tend to have added sugar, but if you want to sweeten the plain kind, I'd just stir in some mashed up or puréed fruit.

KLXVI · January 2014

@PumpkinAndThePeanut We actually picked up the BLW cookbook on your (and other BLW mom's) recommendations. Last night we tried the mild lentil curry recipe. It was too bland for DH, but L and I liked it! When I was a kid I would always see my parents cooking a big wok full of curry and they'd always say, "That's not for you. It's too spicy". So, I was happy to share our curry with him.

Lolalipsy · January 2014

@pumpkinandthepeanut I made the lentil wedges and they were a hit. Thanks for posting.

Kashy · January 2014

I'm confused as to what would be in the BLW cookbook and why you would need one if the babe just eats what you eat? Does it just give you more ideas and variety on things to make?

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

@kashy, the BLW cookbook isn't really necessary. It just provides low sodium/sugar recipes and makes suggestions on how to cut/serve the food so that the baby can handle it easily. Otherwise, the recipes themselves are just simple, real food that the whole family can enjoy. As I said above, I often just use regular recipes and modify them to cut out as much salt and sugar as possible.

Kashy · January 2014

PumpkinAndThePeanut said:
@kashy, the BLW cookbook isn't really necessary. It just provides low sodium/sugar recipes and makes suggestions on how to cut/serve the food so that the baby can handle it easily. Otherwise, the recipes themselves are just simple, real food that the whole family can enjoy. As I said above, I often just use regular recipes and modify them to cut out as much salt and sugar as possible.

Hmm it may be something I might look into. We are pretty boring with dinners so this might shake things up.
I also want to start adding some bolder flavors for DS so this might help me with that.

bumpuser8130818 · January 2014

@PumpkinAndThePeanut is there a meatloaf recipe in the BLW cookbook? I found one that I liked the other day, but I never bookmarked it and can't find it again. And I am so horrible at just winging it.

pnutg · January 2014

We started purees at 5 months but he basically eats what we eat these days. This thread has some great ideas. Thank you

PumpkinAndThePeanut · January 2014

There is a meatloaf recipe in the cookbook, @Trish625. We made it and it was pretty good - although I think we modified it a bit (I always add oats to my meatloaf to thicken it up and I think I did that time too). If I remember, I'll PM you the cookbook recipe when I get home tonight.

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