Anyone doing BLW currently?

[element2012]

I know there is an old thread on BLW but I wanted to start a thread for those of us doing BLW presently.  DD is 6 months and we have been giving her little things here and there to gum on but we're ready to let her try more as she expresses interest (she does get mad sometimes if she can't eat when we eat).  So, how are we doing it?  I'm going out this weekend to get a high chair and commit to giving DD at least one food a day to play with.  Her pincher isn't great, but she can just smear the food everywhere now to practice.

I feel like this is a silly question, but when first starting, do you use any bowls/spoons?  I'm pretty sure they would go straight on the floor, but I guess I should get some for when she is ready. How are you doing?

[dyani]

i'm glad you started this thread!  i planned on blw my now 8 month old around 6 months.  i gave him big pieces of banana.  he put them right in his mouth, bit off a huge piece & i had to fish it out of his mouth!  i was scared he was going to choke!  since then i've been mashing up bananas, avocados, sweet potatoes & giving some jarred foods ( i know, NOT blw!)   i love the idea of blw, but it scares me a bit!  hopefully others will offer their advice & experience!  at this point, he eats one "meal" a day & still nurses like crazy!

[MrsGregory]

Hi there!

I did so some purees off spoons, but with her at the helm of "how much", and letting her use the spoon whenever she wanted.  We have tiles floors, a hard plastic high chair, and feed her in her diaper or naked, or a onesie we don't care about.

The purees were just in the very beginning and they were in tandem with some whole bits of the food. 

I started her just after 6 months.  Now she is 10 months and just eats off my plate as appropriate.  She loves zucchini bread, mushrooms, whole eggs, pancakes, sweet potato, cheese, pasta with pesto or pomodoro, yogurt... well really you name it, she eats it.  The only things I have held back are undercooked meats (we eat our meat very rare, but I cook hers to doneness), milk as a beverage (she gets cow's milk in her oatmeal), peanut butter (because ours has honey in it) and honey.
 

Yesterday her lunch was blue cheese, steak and mushrooms.

She is 10 months.

At first I thought I would give her hunks, but she over stuffs her mouth and choked quite a bit.  I personally got sick of that heart-stopping pants-pissing moment when she looked at me, wide-eyed, and I realized she was choking and I'd have to finger swipe her, so now I cut her meal into bites and give her one at a time of things she will cram, and a pile of things she can be trusted with. 

Also, I found with meats that aren't ground, it helps very much to moisten them with olive oil or something like that.

Good luck!  Happy eating!

[element2012]

Yes, my dd has gagged on a few things on seperate occassions.  She gagged on a piece of toast so badly that she threw up a lot before we could fish it on her mouth.  Very scary for us.  I think that means she still has a strong gag reflex and therefore not totally ready.  We are going very slow.  She does well with well cooked pieces of sweet potato with no skin. I'll let her keep practicing with that for awhile.  I'd like for her to be eating some egg yolks too, but in reality she's not really ingesting much of what's given to her, lol.

[MrsGregory]

Yes, it took my Little Miss a month or maybe even two before she was really getting much nourishment from the meals I set in front of her.  On the bright side, we are saving on cat food.

 

[element2012]

Originally Posted by MrsGregory 

 On the bright side, we are saving on cat food.

 

Haha I love it! Send your kittie over here too!

We're finally getting a highchair today! That will make things a bit easier than her smearing avocados all over the dining table in my lap, lol.  Anyone use the Ikea highchair? Do you like it?

[tank]

we have the ikea high chair and I love it.  It is so easy to clean. I love that it is so light because I move it from room to room multiple times a day.

We do BLW and love it.  My son is almost 9 months.  We bought bowls and spoon but we dont use bowls because he tips them immediatly.  The spoons are just a play toy.  He feeds himself with his hands only.  Actually he lets me spoonfeed him coconut yogurt because he loves that. 

At first we started with huge chunks of stuff so he could hold it easily and feed himself.  He now likes to eat small things because he can pop them into his mouth easy.  I give him a lot of chunky foods.  He also really likes toast fingers with pretty much anything spread on them

[LivingSky]

We started with steamed veggies and fruits - steamed pear, broccoli, carrots, and then overripe plum or peach or avocado. Things that were soft enough that even if he crammed too much into his mouth, he wouldn't choke. He gagged fairly often at first until he learned how to move food around in his mouth. I sat with him, watched him closely, and made sure he was making progress with getting the food forward when he gagged. I didn't take the food out of his mouth unless he seemed concerned - that happened maybe once or twice - so that he could learn to move the food. I wanted that to happen while his gag reflex was still strong - that's why older babes that were BLW tend to choke less than puree fed babies. They know how to not choke, and they learn while their gag reflex is really far forward so they're less likely to have food get far enough back to choke..

Anyway, we started with those solids around 6.5, 7 months old I think. Not every day, just if he seemed interested, and he really didn't eat much, just played with it. It wasn't until just ebfore he turned one that he started to WANT food, and now he eats like crazy! He gets big hunks of peach, pear, melon, plum, chicken, avocado, broccoli, carrots (steamed), sweet potato, and muffins that we make for him (dairy free gluten free). He doesn't eat most things off our plate (unless we're having chicken) only because DH's side of the family has a lot of food allergies, so we're still avoiding all common allergens in DS' food. Oh, and we season/spice most of his food, as DH and I both love spicy stuff so figure DS may as well get used to it now! He loves salsa or curry on his chicken

I still have people in public sometimes come running up to us to stop us feeding DS a food that they think he will choke on. I appreciate the concern, give him the food anyways and show him how he does with it - they're usually amazed! It's great to see them, sometimes, change those preconceived notions on babies and how they're fed.

[element2012]

So what would you say, in your experience, the advantage to BLW over purees are? I know I much prefer the ease of just giving LO what we are having, and I like giving her that autonomy to feed herself.  The gagging stresses me and DH out to no end, but we did have success this morning that let us know that we were on track.  Baby girl seems to like egg yolks. She got a little too much in her mouth at one time and struggled a bit and we scooped some out of her mouth, but she did manage to swallow some. She's kinda meh on avocado and banana, but sweet potato and egg yolks are in. I can work with that...

Oh, what should I be watching for digestion wise??

[LivingSky]

For me, the big benefit is now that DS is a bit older, he moves food around in his mouth really well, much better than any other puree fed babe his age that I've met. So he can eat most foods without any signs of gagging. He is also very game to try any new food we put in front of him - not sure if that's because of the BLW or if that's just him!

[MrsGregory]

Um, digestion wise...

(My whole morning has revolved around poop, just so you know.)

Little Miss has a change in her diaper contents prior to starting solids.  She was 100% breastfed (with the exception of some fro-yo I gave her at about 5 months on a whim because I am the worst mother ever, and she loved it.) and was having the very "mustard-y" poops every 10 days or so until about 5 1/2 months to 6 months, when it went more solid and a little more often.  So I kind of took that as a sign that her guts was ready for some paneer curry.  OK, I kid about the curry.  Once we started solids we got back most of our deposits, if you catch my meaning - things came out whole is what I'm saying here - but unless she was fussy or her bum got red I cared not one whit.  I figured, sometimes adults get back what the put in, so it seems normal babies will too.  Aaaaaaanywhoooooo... right now, we usually get the recommended "firm clay" like mess about twice a day... if she starts giving us any firmer than that I get some plums or prunes or pears or peaches into her on a 2-1 basis with the BRAT (banana, rice, apple, toast) foods.  I have found this very, very helpful - so for example if she's giving firm, formed stools and she had toast for breakfast I give her no more BRAT foods that day and 2 of the "P" foods, and the next morning she's right as rain.  Foods she is used to are "fully processed", foods that are new do tend to come out much as they went in.  But seriously, as long as she eats it, has no signs of pain and has no redness in her diaper area, we just keep stuffing it in her.  She is...  well, "not picky" would be the kind way to put it.

Is that what you meant by digestive issues, or did I just go on and on about poo for no real reason?

[element2012]

Yep, definitely fixated on poo right now!

DD tends to go awhile (like sometimes 10 days like you said), tbh I'm not 100% sure when her last bm was. But just now she was really straining hard a just a little tiny bit of poo came out. I'm thinking to give her a little glycerin suppository as she looked quite uncomfortable just now... Anyone used one before?

[smiles2012]

Ive never had to do that. I gave DD Just a few oz of apple prune juice (Gerber sells tiny bottles of it) every few hours until the deed was done. She hadn't gone in seven days and that's what the ped told me to do.

[tank]

the benefit of BLW for me is mostly that he learns to feed himself.  I don't force him to eat anything he doesn't want and it is easier for him to control how much he wants/needs to eat.  Also, I am lazy.  I don't want to struggle with trying to spoon feed him.  He won't really let me put anything in his mouth.  He is getting better because like I said before he loves coconut yogurt and I can hand him a spoon of that and he is happy.  He also lets me actually feed that to him.

[MrsGregory]

element2012, I would try prunes before I tried glycerin.  I have the glycerin at the ready, but I have never had to use it.  Before Little Miss had really mastered chewy things I would soak 2-4 prunes in boiled water for a while, then cool them off and give them to her.  Now I just give her the same number of prunes straight from the baggie, cut up.  She poops within 4 hours of prunes-away.  And vitamins from the prunes, bonus! 

Yes, not having to "feed the baby" is a big plus to BLW!  I eat while she eats... we both have a nice, relaxing meal. 

[element2012]

Thanks for the recommendations, luckily just the threat of a suppository was enough to turn her into a poo monster for the last 2 days.  I will try prunes first, should I get desperate again lol.

[LivingSky]

When K starting really eating solids, he started pooping again. When he was EBF he would poop maybe, maybe once a week. Now that he's eating solids it's 1-2 times per day. And it's that clay-ish texture. It smells more than the EBF poop did but it's SO MUCH nicer to clean! No poop exploding up his back - YAY! Pears and plums are a regular part of his diet, and I include organic prune juice in his water sometimes, and always if he's having a bottle of breastmilk.

[inkslinger]

Originally Posted by MrsGregory 

Hi there!

I did so some purees off spoons, but with her at the helm of "how much", and letting her use the spoon whenever she wanted.  We have tiles floors, a hard plastic high chair, and feed her in her diaper or naked, or a onesie we don't care about.

The purees were just in the very beginning and they were in tandem with some whole bits of the food. 

I started her just after 6 months.  Now she is 10 months and just eats off my plate as appropriate.  She loves zucchini bread, mushrooms, whole eggs, pancakes, sweet potato, cheese, pasta with pesto or pomodoro, yogurt... well really you name it, she eats it.  The only things I have held back are undercooked meats (we eat our meat very rare, but I cook hers to doneness), milk as a beverage (she gets cow's milk in her oatmeal), peanut butter (because ours has honey in it) and honey.
 

Yesterday her lunch was blue cheese, steak and mushrooms.

She is 10 months.

At first I thought I would give her hunks, but she over stuffs her mouth and choked quite a bit.  I personally got sick of that heart-stopping pants-pissing moment when she looked at me, wide-eyed, and I realized she was choking and I'd have to finger swipe her, so now I cut her meal into bites and give her one at a time of things she will cram, and a pile of things she can be trusted with. 

Also, I found with meats that aren't ground, it helps very much to moisten them with olive oil or something like that.

Good luck!  Happy eating!

This is pretty much exactly what I've done with all 3 kids :)

[rainface]

We're doing BLW, have been since she was 4 months. She'll be 10 months old in, holy cow, 3 days! She doesn't eat much. At All. She's just too busy and distractible. She will chow down on refried beans, and cream cheese off a veggie chip or toast. She'll try and taste lots of things, and seems to enjoy them, but in terms of getting some substantive calories into her, it's not happening. I'm cool with that, since she nurses on demand and we have no plans on stopping but sometimes I feel like all I do is put food in front of her, clean her off, and clean the highchair off...all day long At her 9 month appt, she had grown two inches and lost two lbs from her 6 month appt (effectively dropping from the 95 to the 90 percentile for weight) and her pediatrician, who is pretty cool, recommended I "get more fats in her". Really? Should I duct tape in into a highchair? I've never seen such a busy kid. She's constantly moving...

[element2012]

Rainface, this is what my concern is now!  DD has been at 18 pounds for a month now, and I feel that she could use more fats.  She's not really interested in eating from a spoon, at least the once or twice I tried it.  She does like to play with food when I put it in front of her, but I really want her to actually *eat* more egg yolk.