Blw ask away :)

[evie_smith]

I blw all 3 of my kids and it was a wonderful experience and I've noticed lots of posts on blw. I thought if you have any questions I would be more than happy to answer with doing this for over 5 years

Some pics of blw with chloé

 

[evie_smith]

 

[tweetyfoo]

Brilliant Evie!

I just know very little about it other than the developmental advantages

How does it work in practice?

I don't think it helps that I have no idea how to wean a child in general!

I really don't have a clue what to feed him. I really wanted to go down the route of he eats what we eat ... Is that possible.




Please excuse any typos from my fat fingers!
Tapatalk madness!

 

[Loula]

Currently doing tw as the thoughr of blw horrifies me coz of the mess and the fact she dont pick food up n eat it. anything else but food lol x

 

[evie_smith]

Yes it is possible Chloe's first ever food was pizza! She loves it and ate 5 slices! (Baby size slices) but still I was very very impressed! That pasta meal is her next meal she ever ate and as you can see she is enjoying it. Try not to give them anything too hard or anything too small. Larger things they can suck at such as rice crackers and soft toast are fantastic soft pasta and pizza she ate all the topping and base as I made it thin. You could also start out small and not so herb orientated but giving mashed up banana and a spoon - you will be surprised how quickly they learn to spoon feed themselves I start off with dinner once a day to start with

 

[Lolly85x]

What age do you recommend starting blw???xxx

 

[evie_smith]

I would wait if you could till 6 months. Normally babies will have at least 1-2 teeth by then which helps and they are dealing with chunkier foods so its better for health and safety reasons such as chocking to wait until they have at least a tooth to brake down the chunks.

 

[MrsR]

I would wait if you could till 6 months. Normally babies will have at least 1-2 teeth by then which helps and they are dealing with chunkier foods so its better for health and safety reasons such as chocking to wait until they have at least a tooth to brake down the chunks.

This isn't true. It makes no difference whether they have teeth or not because babies have really hard gums. Their gums are completely able to break food down and mush it up, especially since at first you give softish food. I think it's dangerous to say things like 'for health and safety reasons of choking its best to wait until they have teeth' as its scare mongering. It will scare people who have children with no teeth off BLW. If I had waited until DS had teeth we wouldn't have weaned until he was 10 months old! The issue of choking is all about how a baby learns to move food around their mouths and a baby who is BLW will gag rather than choke. Choking is where food gets stuck in the throat, a rare occurrence with BLW babies as a baby who is BLW has a gag reflex very far forward on their tongues which prevents them swallowing food big enough to choke them as it would make them gag first.

 

[evie_smith]

Alright calm down! Jesus I was asked for my opinion and teeth do help. And I was told this by my hv and just to confirm chloé started blw at 6 months but didn't have one tooth till 9 months.

I asked if people wanted to know they could ask me - no idea why you are getting all offensive. If it was me I would wait if I could till 6 months

 

[Hope81]

the 6 months has more the ability to sit upright unaided i think with BLW rather than having teeth and also with the group of foods. as babies digestive system dosent mature enough for some food groups until 6 months it would defeat the whole purpose of BLW to start earlier as while BLW you are jut supposed to feed them things of what you have.

saying that, those are only things i read about BLW and i have no experience. i think i will go down the TW route for personal reasons with introducing finger food at close to 7 months old.
but as always amelie surprises me big time so i am completely open minded with that and if she hates purees then finger food only it is.

 

[evie_smith]

Yes it helps wonderfully when they can sit up unaided and the digestive system is also fully developed as you said
I think with mine Ive always waited to see their hand and mouth co-ordination as well as they were all really over due I figured if they were born at 37 weeks which is full term they would be about 7 1/2 months at "6 months" as I went 3 weeks and 6 days over with my first. So her tummy would be fully ready for any solids
I think blw over spoon fed is a fantastic way to help the baby control the amount they eat as well and even tho there is risks with gagging there is also that risk when spoon feeding in fact I spoon fed my first for about a month before I switched to blw and I found she gagged on food allot more than the others when spoon fed and when she moved on to blw she found it allot better gagging wise.
I think the one thing I will say against blw is allot of food gets mushed up and so you can't exactly see sometimes how much they have eaten. So in the early days I did always wonder how much they had actually eaten and if they were getting enough nourishment down them.
But this soon passed as I seem them getting bigger and thriving

 

[MelissaLindley]

Well I have given seb the odd taste of porridge from 4 months ( by odd taste I mean maybe once a week lol) so I wouldn't say I'm weaning yet he just had a little go. He's never been a big milk drinker which worries me as at 4 1/2 months he's still only taking around 25oz a day but for the last few nights he sat on my lap and just stared at hubbys food.
It's likes he's saying stop giving me this crappy milk and give me the fun stuff!

Anyway when I do come to wear I would still like to offer pureed meals too. Can I mix blw and tw? Would letting him feed himself a pureed meal still count as blw as its not solid?



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[evie_smith]

Yes they are fantastic combined and allot of mums do this it still 100% counts as blw even if its a purée as they are feeding themselves and if your not 100% about him feeding himself as it can get rather messy its always nice to feed puréed food and introduce finger foods later or around the same time

 

[KarenC]

Hi Evie,

We are doing BLW and it's amazing. So much fun! One thing I was wondering if you or anyone else could help us with is breakfast... I don't want to give LO too much bread-based stuff like toast or crumpets because I'm a bit concerned about the salt content of things we buy in. I've tried LO on porridge fingers but she doesn't seem to like them much - she'll eat a bit, spit it out and look for something else on her tray to eat, like banana or pear. I noticed a lot that other people are giving their babies porridge for breakfast a lot, but LO can't manage a spoon very well yet so I can't really give her that, even if I load the spoon first and give it to her. Any other suggestions for breakfast that don't all involve wheat? I've done omelette and she loved it. I don't think she can manage scrambled eggs yet either. We've only been doing it for just over 2 weeks.

Thanks! xxx

 

[Hope81]

karen obviously i have no BLW experience but why not to treat breakfast like any other meal? its very common nowdays in western culture to eat 'breakfast food'' but it wasnt always like that and certainly its not like that all over the world.

so i would think that fruit, vegetable sticks, cheese sticks, home baked muffins or cookies where you know the salt contents and you can always buy non gluten products that have no wheat, maybe home made coconut flour baked things, a crustless quiche that its very solid and you cna cut in finger size and can pick it no problem and can have egg and cheese and spinach or whatever other vegetable inside?mango to dip in yogurt? i am pretty sure even if she dosent have the dexterity yet she cna have some fun with that already you can probably roll the mango in oats or cornflakes or sth similar to make it less slippery so she can pick it easier.
sorry if i wasn't of any help i just didnt want to read and run.

i think i will give amelie for breakfast non traditional breakfast food lol.

 

[KarenC]

karen obviously i have no BLW experience but why not to treat breakfast like any other meal? its very common nowdays in western culture to eat 'breakfast food'' but it wasnt always like that and certainly its not like that all over the world.

so i would think that fruit, vegetable sticks, cheese sticks, home baked muffins or cookies where you know the salt contents and you can always buy non gluten products that have no wheat, maybe home made coconut flour baked things, a crustless quiche that its very solid and you cna cut in finger size and can pick it no problem and can have egg and cheese and spinach or whatever other vegetable inside?mango to dip in yogurt? i am pretty sure even if she dosent have the dexterity yet she cna have some fun with that already you can probably roll the mango in oats or cornflakes or sth similar to make it less slippery so she can pick it easier.
sorry if i wasn't of any help i just didnt want to read and run.

i think i will give amelie for breakfast non traditional breakfast food lol.

Hey sweetie. Thanks for the great suggestions. I am Chinese, so I'm really used to eating unconventional stuff for breakfast, so actually OH and I eat all sorts of things for breakfast, from steamed Chinese buns, savoury turnip cake, to Mexican wraps! I just wanted to make sure she gets balanced meals without too much salt, and a good variety of foods - so your ideas sound great. I give her fruit at most meals, and cooked veg usually once a day at the moment. I made an omelette/pancakey thing for her dinner today with chopped spinach, red onion and a little cheese and she loved it. She gets frustrated by slippery foods like avocado and melon, especially once she's tasted it and likes the flavour but can't get a grip on it, so I'll try the coating idea.

Thanks again, hun. Will you give BLW a go? Or mix it with a bit of TW? xxx

 

[Hope81]

Karen I don't know what to do really.

I was happy to try BLW but then the little pickle stopped drinking her milk and started dropping centiles. I was ten told by the doctor and the hv to introduce some whatever kind of purée so I try to mix some milk inside to get some more in her and hopefully to up her calories a little and maybe her her drinking again.
I tried that at 13 and 14 and every week practically. She is just not ready for purées. I will not say weaning because that's not what we want here certainly not to wean her from her milk lol. She Dosent open her mouth for the spoon and she Dosent really swallowing much if you manage to get a spoon in her lol.
Then when she started teething things become even worst so I got a special baby rice from her pediatrician to mix with her milk in her bottle to up her calories a bit. So she has that now before sleep and hopefully she stopped dropping centiles.
I am not sure what to do now?
I should probably try to spoon feed her sth when she will finally want it and give her finger foods too from very early? I already put at every meal that we have all together some food in front of her just for her to play (she barely can pick it never mind put in her mouth lol) she tried some banana while I was holding it and she was making funny faces lol I left the banana down as my goal was just to make her interested to food not to actually give her a banana and she was keep petting the banana and then licking her fingers lol.

I have a question about mixing BLW with purées. With purées she will practically move the food right on the back of her mouth and swallow it. Finger foods require chewing that happens in the front part of the mouth. Will she figure it out that things have to happen there first before she moves them back and swallow them or she will jus try to do the same with purées.
Hopefully her gag reflex will stop her hit no sure about starting with purées and then give finger food before lump purées?
See I have no idea and I doubt i can ask around as I don't think in Norway there is even the concept of BLW lol.

You know what I am going ahead to buy the BLW book and see what it says there but it's probably a little preachy about BLW so no idea if that will be any helpful?

Ideally ofc would be that she starts drinking her milk, stops dropping centiles so we can eliminate the need of early purées all together and wait until 6 m and BLW but I kind of not seeing that happening...

That turned in a random woe sorry for that.
Looking forward to hear what other goodies gorgeous tilly had for breakfast and ofc pictures are always welcomed!!!! Probably that's the best way to market BLW anyway! Gorgeous buba you have

 

[KarenC]

Hmmm, you're in a bit of a pickle, aren't you? I've read about your troubles getting Amelie to take her milk! I can't really suggest anything that nobody else has said. I remember Tilly being awful with feeding when she was going through developmental leaps - she'd refuse EBM in a bottle sometimes, and other times would refuse boob. I was at my wits end some days, and her leaps lasted for up to four weeks each!! Luckily for me, though, she never dropped centiles as she would feed eventually and sometimes quite frequently instead of every 3 hours. She still only goes about 2.5 hours between feeds regardless of whether she's had any solids or not.

I don't really know what to suggest!! Is she happy within herself even though she's dropping centiles? Maybe stick to the rice in her bottle and forget the milk puree thing for a couple of weeks if she's not taking it, and see if her weight stops dropping. If she's refusing to take the milk purees, that's a pretty clear sign that she's not ready. It must be quite horrid seeing her dropping down the centiles, though.

I think the thing about introducing finger foods when baby is more used to purees is that maybe she will gag on things the first few times she tries the finger foods, but if you try not to worry about that, she'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. I'm sure she will learn the difference between purees and finger food immediately and will learn to chew as well as swallow very quickly. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but I don't really know anything about TW and lumps etc.. Tilly still gags a lot because she hasn't quite learned how to chew properly yet, and she has a tendency to fill her mouth with a huge lump of whatever she's eating! I just let her get on with it. On the baby weight/wrist roll thread someone was saying to spoon feed purees but also to start putting pieces of broccoli or cooked carrot etc. on her tray and she will pick them up and take them to her mouth when she's ready to try. Maybe start offering these around 5 months alongside a puree meal (I started around 5.5 months) but don't be discouraged if she doesn't pick them up for ages. I was wondering when T would start to do it and she just did, out of the blue, two days after she turned 6 months. And she's been improving every meal time. xxx

 

[Spammy]

This is a very helpful thread. Thanks girls!!

Will have plenty of questions soon I'm sure. Just done a massive online shop and got plenty of bits I can use for finger food so going to give them a go starting Monday!

 

[TaffyRose]

It's very exciting seeing them eat and try new things. This evening max had homemade lasagne followed by fruit and scoffed the lot. His favourite game at the moment is pinching food off my plate!

Karen, what about homemade pancakes for breakfast? Max loves banana pancakes and tomorrow morning I'm planning on cooking us all savoury ones probably mushroom and spinach xxx