Baby Led Weaning Questions

[Greenlea]

My 7 mth old is very into food.  I want to do baby led weaning, mainly due to the fact that he dislikes purees but loves eating finger foods.  But I have some questions...

My sitter keeps asking me about if I'm worried about him digesting all those finger foods, and that his tummy will do better with purees.  Is this true?

Can I give him anything we are eating, or do I need to "bland" it up a bit?  Like I made tuna noodle casserole the other day.  Can I just him pieces of that, or should it be plain noodles & peas without the soup & tuna?  I guess I'm just wondering if I still have to be careful of what his tummy can digest?

Any other advice you can give?  Or first foods you tried for you LO with baby-led weaning?

[osker]

I'm sure that everyone has their own opinions, and I'm not sure about the digestion issue.. but I wanted to mention, on the topic of making it more bland, that the only thing we've had trouble with for DD (9mos) are products that have citric acid in them as a preservative. So, you might want to be on the lookout if you're using canned soups or more ?advanced? foods that are prepared. We were surprised to find that she can eat lentils just fine, but prepared lentils give her a horrible diaper rash from the preservatives.

[Naturallove]

I personally would offer the peas and noodles and possibly tuna (I don't know much about canned tuna in regards to babes) separately and not the whole casserole. This is mainly due to concerns about what the canned soup has in it, specifically the high sodium content. I think that offering babies whole foods in as close to their natural state as possible is the best way to go.

[Erin77]

I agree with PP, my son is 8 months old and we love BLW. I try to hold back some of the ingredients of dishes like a tuna cassarole when I'm cooking so I can give them to him while we're eating, without any high sodium ingredients. So I'd give him the noodles, tuna and peas, but only a smidge of the tuna because of the mercury content. (I try to eat tuna rarely myself because of this issue.) With that said, I occasionally give him a bite of something that has a lot of sodium, just because I'm eating it and he wants to try- yesterday he ate some of my quesadilla with guac and sour cream at a restaurant. As long as the majority of his foods are healthy and whole, I'm not worried.

[Ginger Bean]

In general, I do cook especially for my 8mo son because of salt. Even canned tuna has added salt. I've tried and tried to find canned tuna without added salt listed in the ingredients and I haven't been able to do.

I just try to stick with foods in the most natural form possible -- steamed vegetables, fruits, plain oatmeal, plain yogurt, egg yolks, a bit of meat, etc. I do occasionally give him the full version of whatever we're eating, but just a taste.

Try this website: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

Lots of good information about different foods, whether they're safe for babies, how to introduce them, and recipes.

P.S. I've never heard/read that purees were easier to digest. Not once in all my research. I thought the whole point of them was that they were easier to swallow. But the theory behind BLW is that your baby won't swallow anything they can't handle, otherwise they spit it out. That horrid baby rice cereal constipates babies and white rice has little nutritional value, but it's recommended as a first food, so really the whole idea behind baby cereal and purees makes no sense to me. The first food my son had was avocado, and the first cereal he had was regular adult oatmeal (prepared very thin -- but now I grind dry oatmeal in the mixer).

[andromedajulie]

My LO is 10 months, and we did BLS, and have loved every minute of it. Check out the book, or this great blog 

http://baby-led-solids.blogspot.com/

her baby turned one, so she's not doing it anymore, but you can read about all her introductions for the entire year. plus she has some video, so it's great!

I introduced foods one by one for a while, but then just started giving it as a whole. A eats whatever we eat EXCEPT if it's processed (deli meat, frozen dinners). But, I usually cook most stuff from 'scratch' without pre-made ingredients, so it's easier to just give her what I make most of the time. I personally wouldn't give her the canned soup - too many additives in it. Like the pp said, I would try to stick to the whole foods. and you can definitely just save out the individual ingredients.

You don't need to make it bland. A eats Indian curries, spicy jalapeno chicken sausage, salsa, intense garlic, slices of lemon. 

Some of A's favorite first foods were mango, avocado, fish (questionable to some people), broccoli spears, a rice cake with stuff spread on it (hummus or almond butter). now that she has a pincer grasp she can eat anything - loves chicken, peas, and beans of all kinds! but truly she eats ANYTHING!! it's hilarious and awesome! good luck!

ps: babies start really enjoying solid food at different times, if it takes longer than 7 mo it's not a problem. remember the solids are just mostly for fun for the first year!

[Katico]

We very rarely cook with any ingredients that are highly processed or high in sodium (i,e. canned soup) so I didn't worry about it and just fed her the dish we were eating - i.e. a chicken pot pie with a homemade stock based sauce and vegetables in it would go on her plate instead of pieces of the chicken and vegetables before they were mixed in the recipe.  On the rare occasion we did eat something a little more processed (i.e. a casserole with a canned soup or a pizza), I didn't worry about it, just gave her a bit and then some fruit or veg.

My LO had absolutely no problem with digesting whole foods - we did start with softer things - bananas, avocado, noodles...but she was very quickly eating chicken, raw fruit, etc.  and had no troubles with her belly.

And don't bland your food down!  My girl LOVES spicy or flavourful food. In fact, her favourite foods are curries, thai, sushi, etc.  I cooked with a lot of spices, ginger, garlic, even fish sauce!  In fact, I have trouble getting her to eat plain chicken or meat without some kind of exciting flavour happening!  

Our favourite early foods:  noodles with tomato sauce, avocado mashed on toast fingers, strawberries, meatballs, soups (she learned to use her spoon very early), nori (dried seaweed), sliced pear, lentil curry with rice, broccoli (HUGE hit, she still loves it), scrambled eggs, frozen corn and peas (still frozen, good for teething!), grated cheese

I did find that high acid foods like tomato and hummus gave her some redness around her mouth but that went away by the time she was 1, I would say.

It has been such a success for us and I can't imagine doing it any other way.  DD is the most adventurous eater of all her little friends and is so healthy!!

ETA:  Oatmeal is great too - I gave it to her two ways - in a bowl with a spoon and lots of milk, or I would cool it overnight and cut it into chunks for her to eat cold.  She especially loved it sprinkled with cinnamon!

Also, for some of the harder fruit and vegetables - i.e. carrots or apples, if you want to give them a taste of them raw, you can grate them.  Super fun to eat!

Edited by Katico - 6/6/11 at 1:52pm

[Gucci&Granola]

Great info, thank you.

[P.J.]

We did BLW with great success. DS is now 12 months and eats pretty much what we eat ~he started demanding that at about 10 or 11 months. I do what a PP already mentioned and cook as usual, just omit the salt (we can add it at the table to our individual servings). At first I cooked and gave him only whole veggies ~like carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes and zucchini. Also fruit like apple (peeled) and banana. And he has always loved avocado (although we now spoon feed it to him as it gets soooo messy!). I can't remember when exactly, maybe at 9 months, but we did start giving him grains like pasta, which he loves. Oh, and beans! So yeah, start with cooked whole veggies and fruit, and work your way up to grains and eventually whatever you're eating (provided it's healthy). Good luck!

[nstewart]

Originally Posted by andromedajulie 

My LO is 10 months, and we did BLS, and have loved every minute of it. Check out the book, or this great blog 

http://baby-led-solids.blogspot.com/

her baby turned one, so she's not doing it anymore, but you can read about all her introductions for the entire year. plus she has some video, so it's great!

I introduced foods one by one for a while, but then just started giving it as a whole. A eats whatever we eat EXCEPT if it's processed (deli meat, frozen dinners). But, I usually cook most stuff from 'scratch' without pre-made ingredients, so it's easier to just give her what I make most of the time. I personally wouldn't give her the canned soup - too many additives in it. Like the pp said, I would try to stick to the whole foods. and you can definitely just save out the individual ingredients.

You don't need to make it bland. A eats Indian curries, spicy jalapeno chicken sausage, salsa, intense garlic, slices of lemon. 

Some of A's favorite first foods were mango, avocado, fish (questionable to some people), broccoli spears, a rice cake with stuff spread on it (hummus or almond butter). now that she has a pincer grasp she can eat anything - loves chicken, peas, and beans of all kinds! but truly she eats ANYTHING!! it's hilarious and awesome! good luck!

ps: babies start really enjoying solid food at different times, if it takes longer than 7 mo it's not a problem. remember the solids are just mostly for fun for the first year!

Ditto this!!  DS is 10 mos old as well.  I can ditto everything in this post.  The only time DS doesn't get what we're having is if it's processed or high in sodium or has sugar added.  I mostly make things from scratch, including our bread, so I really don't worry too often.  Some of DS's favourites are far from bland.  He loves anything with tandoori or curry spices in it.  

As to the digestion, this is addressed in Rapley's book on BLW.  It may appear that a puree fed baby digests more as you don't find chunks of the finger food in their diapers.  However, it's really just that you can't see the food in a puree fed baby's diaper.  I've never had an issue with DS getting an upset tummy from anything he's eaten.

[Greenlea]

So far its working great.  We're vegetarians so I've just been doing fruits & veggies right now mainly.  Although he loves rice & beans too.  I've done whole wheat noodles too.  He's coming around some to the purees more too.

[P.J.]

I want to add about spicy food:

I was nervous to give DS spicy food. We weren't giving him only bland, but just nothing with cayenne pepper, for example. I started a thread here months ago, and the overwhelming response was: do it! ....many babies like spicy food, just try.

Well, I made a pretty spicy Mexican casserole ~not mouth-melting, but you could definitely feel the peppers~ and gave him some. He hated it....and it was mildly traumatic. He was screaming uncontrollably for several minutes. It was so bad he wouldn't even take the breast to calm down. I felt terrible. The next time I made that casserole I left a corner of it without the cayenne and he ate it up!

My advice as for introducing truly spicy food (I am not talking about flavors like mild curry, I mean really spicy-hot food) is to do it in steps. Add just a little cayenne and if the baby likes it, next time add a little more, and so on. I would not advise doing what I did and making something pretty spicy and just giving it. If they don't like it, it will be an awful experience for all of you.

....just my experience.