Baby led weaning (BLW)

[dna]

hi, can anyone share your experience on this BLW? there are not much information on BLW. i saw the videos from youtube on BLW, wondering whether baby will chok when swallow the food in such big pieces. What is your first food introduced for BLW? Any cautions need to take note? Thanks. 

[Skylark]

Baby led weaning is allowing your child to lead in introducing solids to her/him, and gradually wean herself at the time she will be ready for that. Each baby is different, and they become ready for solids at different ages. Usually, they are ready when they are able to sit on their own, got their first tooth, able to hold the food on their own and to indicate if they want or do not want a certain food.

BLW is a good approach in a way of being sensitive  to your baby signs of readiness and being willing to follow his/her lead. Usually what it would mean is that you will make different age appropriate foods available and if baby is ready and interested she/he will eat them. It also means that you will not be weaning your baby forcefully, but will make breast available for as long as he/she needs it as well.

babies are different, some mommies that I worked with, had babies nursing till 2-3 years old and they would self wean at that point. Some other babies would do that much earlier. My daughter self-weaned herself quite early, at 10.5 months ( I was hoping to BF her till much later). So just being sensitive to your baby's needs and responding to them, will help you to know when and what to introduce to his/her diet. Usually the longer they are able to BF the better it is for their development and immune system. In the beginning all the new foods you will introduce will be just for experiment to the baby, in no way they will be her/his main diet. In fact for quite a long time after you will introduce some solids, your milk will still stay main food for her.

As far as choking, simply don't rush it, when baby is ready for solids she/he will be able to manage swallowing pretty well. It is something they need to master.

I noticed your baby is still pretty young, but it is nice to start researching all this info and get your ideas in advance.

[Skylark]

Oh, and I forgot to write some ideas for the first foods that are great and worked good for us.


Avocados are one of the best foods to start with...

They are low in sodium and cholesterol-free, contain quite a bit of vitamin A (which is good immune booster), vitamin B-6, folic acid, niacin, phosphorus, magnesium, and iron. Ounce-for-ounce avocados contain more potassium than 45 other fruits, juices, or vegetables, including bananas, peaches, carrots, and green beans, and they are one of the only fruits that contain monounsaturated fats, which are essential for baby's development.

Avocados also are higher in calories than any other fruit or vegetable. This is a plus for babies, since feeding infants calls for foods that contain a lot of nutrition per unit of weight and volume.  For variety, avocados can be mixed with apple or pear sauce, cooked squash, or sweet potatoes.

Some other good first foods are :

steamed apples, bananas, carrots ( steamed, mashed), pears, squash, zuccini ( steamed, mashed, favorite of both of my babies!), sweet potatoes ( great for iron content!)

Hope it helps! 

Here is also the link to the good article about introducing solids:

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T032000.asp

It explains about the time schedule for it, ideas, ways to do it. It also explains the reasons why it is not so good to introduce solids too early due to possible allergies.
There are also some ideas about what to introduce first, and how to know when you baby is ready. Some recipes, explanations why some foods are better then others. Etc

Hope it helps

[dna]

Thanks for the info will start solids to my bb once she hits 6months old 

[Leanan]

I stumbled across this website and the book featured there a while ago
http://www.babyledweaning.com/
Reading it made perfect sense to me so I decided to try it and wait until baby is at least 6 month before introducing solids.

But I wasn't prepared for the reaction of other people. Pretty much everyone from the paedriatician to the health visitor to my friends even my hairdresser had a different idea about the matter.  In the end I decided to not talk about it anymore and if people asked if I gave her solids I just said yes...

Baby is 6 months now and we started solids this week. She tried banana, sweet potato and butternut squash so far. It is quite messy but she seems to really enjoy exploring the different tastes and textures.

[jwp]

I started baby led weaning with my son after he turned 6 months, but I wasn’t strict about following it all the time. I never fed my baby purees, but sometimes I feed him bits of food and other times I let him eat by himself. Usually I feed him things that are messy or when we’re out, and I fed him more during the winter just because I didn’t want to deal with all the mess and stripping him down to clean him when it was colder. My main reason for incorporating baby led weaning was to make sure my son is an adventurous eating, and I’ve been happy with the results so far. Right now he is willing to try anything. Hopefully that won’t change as he gets older. The nice thing about baby led weaning is that it lets babies experience different textures of foods when they are at an age to explore and so I’ve to make sure I include different textures especially as he gets better at holding foods and feeding himself.

We started with avocados, banana, pears, sweet potatose, very soft (boiled or microwaved) vegetables, squash etc. I worried at first about making sure I gave him enough different foods but I was still nursing him all the time, so I don’t think I needed to worry about it as much. Now I just give him whatever I’m eating.

[AraBoo]

Just wondered if anyone else is embarking on BLW at the moment?  My DD will be 6mo on Thursday (my birthday!) and is definitely showing signs of getting ready for solids - hand to mouth coordination is great, she's taking food off me etc. Would be good to speak to other mums/dads who are BLW too

[teachingmykids]

I did baby led weaning with all 3 of my kids. It is very typical for a baby to gag on food when starting the process. Young babies have a gag reflex that is higher in the mouth then when they get older. It helps prevent them from actual choking. In the long run my babies were much safer from choking because they learned how to handle food and how to take appropriate size bites. I saw toddlers that would stuff a lot of food in their mouth without chewing. My babies learned fast how to chew and how to manage food. I am glad I used this method. I liked how I just fed them what we were eating and how fast they learned how to eat. They enjoyed being in control of the process and not having to get frustrated by lit bits of food that are hard to pick up.

It is called baby led weaning but that is a bit of a misnomer. Introducing solids didn't stop my kids from breastfeeding any more than if I gave them purees and took a gradual approach to table food.

[Jenene]

I did BLW though didn't follow any strict schedult/guidelines with 2 of mine.  I found it so much easier to wait to introduce solids.  My 2 didn't have anything other than breastmilk for about the first 8 or 9 months and then they would just have a taste of fruit/vegetable/soup that I was eating.  I never pureed and made up food just for them.  At the most I would cook a few vegetables for them if we were having something I didn't want them to eat.  They really didn't eat full meals until around a year and even then not 3 meals per day.  But for my 2 this has definitely not affected their weight/height.  They have always been above the 95th percentile since the day they were born and never dropped down.  Definitely would be an issue if you didn't have enough milk though.

My son weaned at 6 weeks before 3 years old but I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with the next one and assuming I had no/very little milk.  My daughter I have just 'encouraged' to wean at 3 years.  She would still be breastfeeding if she could.  But considering she happily goes off for the weekend to my sister's without me I figured she was ok to wean although I do wish I could have done the whole self weaning thing. And after 6 years of breastfeeding with only a 3 week break between and waking up every night I'm beginning to get run down (and I have an older child with special needs who doesn't sleep well also).  Unfortunately although I was careful with my children's diets I wasn't so good about mine and didn't look after myself as well as I should have.  So that would be another piece of advice I would give

My children didn't sleep through the night though until about 2 1/2 years old or later.  Not sure whether that was because I breastfed them exclusively for so long and they were used to waking up to feed or because I'm so soft and found it easier just to feed them in the middle of the night than try to settle them without feeding. 

I also didn't introduce dairy/gluten until after 2 years old.  They really just had vegetables, fruit and meat for the first year.

[seastar]

We did BLW with Sophie and are currently doing it with our baby. Have you checked out the BLW forum? I love the recipes section.

[elaida]

We are six weeks into our "introducing solids" experience. We are doing a modified form of BLW (modified from the book anyways), based on what I see our baby wanting, though I still think of it as being BLW, since I think it embodies the spirit, if not the exact prescribed form, of BLW.

The main principles that we are following are no commercial baby foods (with 1 exception explained later) and no special foods made just for baby and the baby gets to decide for himself whether he eats and how much he eats. Our deviation is that I am willing, and do, use a spoon and a food feeder (Kidsme one in this case, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_baby-products?_encoding=UTF8&field-brandtextbin=Kidsme&node=165796011 ).

We started about a week and a half before his six month birthday. Before that, he had been joining us at our dining table for a few weeks to observe us eating. When we started, I wanted to follow "the book" and offered sticks of fruit (banana in this case) in front of him. Nothing happened. So I cut off a small chunk and offered it to him with my hand. I put it in front of his mouth and he opened his mouth and tried to shove my hand in it, so I popped the piece into his mouth. The piece of solid food surprised him but he managed to swallow it. I offered a second piece which he eagerly took and then started crying after having worked on it, so we took it out of his mouth and stopped for the day. Similar experience the second day. On the third day, the food feeder arrived and I put the banana in that and he was much happier. He was able to control the eating himself and was able to eat a lot more of the banana.

As I was starting this, I also read the book "Feeding Baby Green". The main takeaways that I got from that book was that I didn't *have* to wait three days before introducing a new food and that according to one study, babies that were introduced new foods everyday became less picky eaters than babies that were introduced new foods every three days. I still understand the reasoning behind the conventional "three day waiting period" advice, but reading this book freed me from feeling like I had to adhere to that, so I went wild after that and no longer strictly adhered to that advice. Inspired by that book, I am currently halfway through my goal of introducing a new green vegetable to my son every day for a month (though we took a break yesterday since Dad made dinner instead of me).

Back to BLW. I continue to use the food feeder every day and have introduced foods in stick form. The problem with foods in stick form is that my son wasn't developmentally ready for them even though he very much was interested in solids. He's only started reaching for things in earnest these last two weeks and still doesn't pick up anything from the tray (though I'm sure that will change soon since he reached for the food on my tray last night, for the first time, though I didn't think it was appropriate for him yet, so I didn't let him have it). So, what I would do is prepare a few sticks of food and place them in his hand. He would bring the stick to his mouth and bite off the top. He has gotten to the point where, for certain foods, he can now take more than one bite off the stick. But, it took a few weeks to get to that point. When he was done with the stick food, though, strict BLW would assume that's all he wanted to eat, but that wasn't the case at all. Instead, when I offered the same food to him in the food feeder, he'd eagerly grab it and I'd fill the food feeder for him multiple times. It's just that he's still working on how to eat chunks of food and finds it more difficult than the "mush" that he gets out of the feeder. But, he still has to work to get the food out of the feeder, and it gives him a sense of independence and accomplishment, so I don't feel guilty using it. I always offer the stick form before the food feeder form, if it's something that I can put into a stick form.

We have also been doing a lot of soups for dinner, because I love soups. It's also an easy way to incorporate green vegetables (which aren't that great for the food feeder, which I usually fill with fruit). For soups, I take out his portion before we season it with salt, etc. for us. If the soup is thick enough to stay on the spoon, I will often just load the spoon and let him have it after that (using a soft baby spoon so he isn't likely to hurt himself with it). If it is more runny, I use a larger Asian-style soup spoon, but he guides it into his mouth or slurps it from the side of the spoon, like a cup. He likes to help get the food off the spoon and into his mouth. He is not coordinated enough yet to feed himself with the spoon and he doesn't get enough to eat (based on his interest in being fed with the spoon) if left to his own devices (with his hands). So, I don't feel guilty using the spoon or helping him to guide the spoon to his mouth. He will shut his mouth and also stop reaching for the loaded spoon when he no longer wants to eat. At that point, I stop.

The only baby food item we have is baby oatmeal. I have oatmeal for breakfast almost every day and had started by trying to give him some of my oatmeal, but we didn't feel like it agreed with him that much (lots of hiccups on those days). I looked at the ingredients and it seemed like the baby oatmeal was just ground up oatmeal with vitamins/minerals. I'm a vegetarian (no eggs, no seafood, almost no diary), and I know there is a push to be sure that babies aren't iron deficient since they supposedly use up their store of iron around six months. Feeding them iron-rich foods like meat is the recommended first food in Canada now. I am in the States, but we were in Canada for the holidays when we started solids. So, I did end up buying one package of baby oatmeal in order to have some iron-enriched food on hand. I only use it when I feel like I haven't made enough stuff that our son can eat that night (we are mostly only doing dinners right now, since that is when we are at the dining table eating together). He also gets an occasional snack of fruit during the day. So far, he's had the baby oatmeal 4 times in the last six weeks, so we don't use it very often (and not enough to get the daily recommended values of iron from it, but I figure some iron is better than none at all and will get him tested at 9 months).

Now that it seems like stick foods will be more viable, I will try more vegetarian sources of iron (like things made from beans). But that essentially means that I will be making new foods to introduce into our adult diet, since most of what we typically eat isn't that amenable to the "stick food" prescription of BLW, and he definitely doesn't have the skills yet to pick up individual beans.

So, one step at a time is my philosophy. As long as baby seems happy to eat, I let him eat. And when he wants to stop, I let him stop. To me, that's the most important part of BLW. It's been a lot of fun. My son has been eager to try everything and has liked almost everything.

Good luck to you, AraBoo, on your new adventure!

[fatty kiddy]

My daugther is now 6 months plus.  I was also interested in the BLW.  She started her first solid when she was 5.5 months old. (WHO recommends to wait till 6 months) She took a piece of clementine from my hand and put it in her mouth.  Then she started to suck.

I also do not follow strict rules of BLW.  I introduce one new food everyday.  She seems to enjoy it very much.  I am giving her homemade food mainly lentils, fruits and vegetables.  I found using pressure cooker to cook lentils and veg helpful and time saving too.  I would then mash them slightly with spoon before feeding her. 

With regards to fruit, she loves banana, apple, watermelons, papaya and clementines. I do not cook the apple.  I simply 'grate' it with a spoon and feed her.  I also give her cooked boiled egg. I use a fork to mash it into small pieces.  She seems to know how to chew the food in her mouth before swallowing (even though she hasn't had any teeth yet.)

I also give her one meal of baby cereal a day (as a source for iron) as I am vegetarian.

Hope this is helpful.

[jaynay]

We tried BLW and it wasn't really a great success for us. I bought the books (the normal book and the cookbook) and read them all and was ready to try it out. We did start early, however my daughter was already sitting unassisted and had no trouble getting things to her mouth.

At first it seemed like it was going well and she was very interested in trying all the foods etc. We offered various fruit, vegies, rice cakes with spreads before moving onto normal meals. She did sample them but she simply wouldn't eat much. She would take 1, maybe 2 bites and that was all. I know on the BLW forums that they are not concerned about this and state that there was 1 baby who wouldnt eat until 18months old. However, we tried BLW for 8 months - till over 12months old. So maybe we could have continued on, but...

Finally I started spoon feeding her because she would actually eat that way. I didn't make purees or anything like that - i just spoon fed her the normal chopped food, eg chopped pieces of chicken, vegies, rice etc. I did spoon the food in a baby friendly manner - eg not sneaking it in and only giving it to her if she wanted it, and let her decide when she had enough etc. By that time she was already over 12months and well and truly capable of feeding herself, she just wouldn't do it. Even now at 17months she does not eat a great deal. However one thing which does affect her eating is that she nurses during the night still.

She has a very limited range of food she will eat - nothing with the slightest hint of acidity eg most fruits, tomato etc. So whether there is some deeper underlying issue regarding her food, I'm not sure.

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