Baby-led weaning help, x-posted in Nutrition and Good Eating

[birdie.lee]

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Edited by birdie.lee - 5/13/13 at 11:46am

[delightedbutterfly]

Pretty much all of those things are ok. There are many ways to go about food introduction and BLW.

First if your families have allergies or a history of allergies then food introduction should be a little slower (1 new food every few days) but without a history of allergies then most parents just tend to follow what the baby is wanting.

Of course just cut up what you are eating into smaller bites, put them on baby's tray and let them explore. If he wants the food it's a good learning experience to grab and pick it up. He'll let you know if he needs help or to be fed by a spoon :)

Hope that helps a little :)

[fruitfulmomma]

The only sticking out to me is the hot dogs and carrots because of their shape. You would want to cut them into matchstick shape rather than coin shaped slices when he ready to try them. 

[HiMumumum]

My daughter is 8 months also and we do the same thing and have a similar diet as you. We don't have a history of food allergies so I just give her bites of whatever I am eating off of my fork or spoon, or I hand her little bits. In the morning when my bowl of oatmeal is half-eaten before I even get a bite, I start to think that I've created a monster. Lol.

[MamaPrincess]

We started on solids with whatever we ate, the only thing was to avoid spicy foods.

We have cut things into tinny tinny tinny pieces at first to make transition from no solids :)

to solids and our LO loved the new tastes and new flavors, of anything that landed

on her plate. I always made sure she had litlte piles of different kinds of food

on the plate so if she did not like one thing she could move on to the next one

and amazingly enough anthing went.. mashed potatoes, tinny cubed glazed carrots,

tinny tinny pieces of steak, chicken etc..

gradually we made pieces bigger but for meat we sticked with small for a longest time.

Be careful with bananas, raw carrots, grapes and bread as well as peanut butter...

those are potential chocking hazards: bananas and peanut butter are paste like

so if a child will load on it it get stucked inside and has nowhere to go.. test it

for yourself, put a big loaded spoon of peanut butter in your mouth and try to

work on it and sawllow.. you will see how it gets clogged on the temple of your mouth

and can easily clog the throath if misshandled, adult can manage, baby can choack.

The same goes to bananas, or and bread.. big pieces of bread can just cause

chocking as any bad toy.

Grapes - always cut in more then one piece for little one to avoid chocking

on whole ball.. we started with two cuts and then to half and then eventually

to whole grape but that was transition, slow one.

Hot dogs.. as someone suggested..

Basically for good few months now do not be tempted to sever anything in slices..

or big chunks.. it is good to start with the size of quarter of the grape size I would say

and bulid your way up. Cutting up things is so easy for an adult, it takes only

a sec and child can safely eat it..then as he she grows you can go to bigger pieces..

[birdie.lee]

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Edited by birdie.lee - 5/13/13 at 11:46am

[katelove]

You could have a look at babyledweaning.com We did as recommended in the book and cut things into large pieces so that when she held them in her fist some food stuck out on either side that she could chew on. Cutting things into tiny pieces doesn't let them learn what size bits of food they can manage in their mouths and can also make it hard for some babies to get anything in at all. Contrary to what you may sometimes read on this forum, BLW does not require the develoPment of a finger and thumb "pincer" grip before starting solids. They only need to be able to reliably pick up objects and transfer them to their mouth. At 6 months most babies are still using a full fist grip for this.

What you're eating sounds fine. You don't have to give her some of everything you eat. We delayed grains and dairy so we would just give her the meat and veggie components of the meal. If I was cutting veggies very small for us then I'd sometimes cut some larger bits for her but usually there was something she could eat at each meal.

[HiMumumum]

I started with large pieces that she could grip and take bites from and then when she learned the pincer grip, I started cutting food into tiny pieces she could pick up like that. She likes that better now.

[HiMumumum]

By the way, I didn't come up with that on my own, I read it somewhere on babyledweaning.com. There are some good tid bits on there but I don't like the recipes or anything. I'd rather just feed her what I'm eating.

[birdie.lee]

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Edited by birdie.lee - 5/13/13 at 11:46am