So I'm sat here getting excited (LO is 24 weeks only 2 to go) and I've started wondering, what exactly does the term 'sitting unaided' mean? Boogybum can sit on my lap (or rather on one knee) with only slight wobbling from side to side, but without me she'd be on her back. See I was hoping to put her in her high chair (cheap Ikea one - you should be on commission) when we have meals purely because she hates being sat in a bouncy chair on the floor where she can't see what's going on. Or is this a form of baby torture?

I sat Munch in her highchair and decided as long as she was upright and wasn't likely to keel over and choke she could be fed. She was padded in her chair until she was about 7 months as she has a dainty butt (unlike her mother) and it used to clide on the plastic seat...

Also she had a cushion behind her for when she randomly decided to throw herself backwards until she was well into 8 months...so....
I reckon sit her in it and keep a wary eye, if she looks comfy, her neck and her back are straight then I would say she is okay....

clide? clide?? I meant Slide of course...

i'd give the chair a try, definitely. Apparently you can buy inserts in ikea that will pad the seat out a bit, although i've never seen them.

I started a bit of BLW from 22wks (naughty me) when Bubs was starting to sit unaided and tried her in the high-chair but she used to flop to one side, her arm/shoulder would slide under the tray and she'd get quite annoyed about it! But would try it for a little bit every few days and within a couple of weeks she was mostly sitting for 20mins at a time and munching on food.....so i say go for it!

And clementines were an inspiration - Bubs enjoyed sucking them this morning. Crumpets also devoured, but only the buttery side....funny that?!

Ah see I think we saw that Ikea insert thingy but because it was called a Clooganthok (or some other random arrangement of letters - no disrespect to Swedes, I'm sure it all makes perfect sense in Swedish) we couldn't work out what it was for. Anyway thanks for your replies, I think we'll try it at the weekend (when hubby is around for reassurance/equal blame) although that random backward flinging sounds slightly worrying....

The Ikea insert is great, a kinda blowup cushion which fits around back and sides of highchair to make seat bit smaller with holes for restraint straps. As Munchkin's tall and slender without it she just slid around and couldn't reach the table. not very expensive either and plastic so easy to wipe clean. If I figure it out I'll email aitch a pic of Munchkin which shows it in action so to speak!
Eli

My LO is almost 24 weeks. He has been almost exclusively BF. I'd never heard of BLW before and wish I'd found this site 4 days ago when I started weaning him with small amounts of baby rice and, today, pureed sweet potato after he started grabbing slices of melon and shoving them in his mouth at the weekend. He loves what we've offered him so far but given the melon experience I'm sure he'd love BLW more and wish I'd stuck it out til 26 weeks as the disturbed sleep didn't really bother me. Just wanted to say thanks so much for setting up the site - loads of useful information and great to know there is another way. I'll let you know how we get on.

Just for fun? Baby is only 18 weeks, so I know she shouldnt be ready for this yet, but she is so fascinated by me eating (and I do a lot of it), that i want to give her some food to see what she does with it. Even if she just licks her fingers after handling it, its all experience isnt it? Can someone confirm that there is no harm in me doing this?

Thing is, no one can confirm that there's no harm in you doing this, to be honest. If the theorising behind BLW is correct, the baby shouldn't be able to pick food up and eat it until they (and presumably their gut linings) are ready to do so. However, no-one's stuck endoscopes down babies' necks to check so personally i would wait a while longer if you can.

My baby is 12 weeks and quite windy/pukey it was suggested to me that starting weaning at 16 weeks might help stop this. I however much prefer the sound of BLW to mush, asked HV about BLW and she suggested i start with Baby rice and move on to finger food later,(talk about missing the point). Any way what I wanted to know was is there any point trying solids early or do we just have to persevere with just milk until 6 mths?

There is lots of evidence and research now why you shouldn't start solids too early, and I am sure 16 weeks IS too early. Can't see the point of starting on baby rice - milk is so much better for them, full of calories and nutritionally complete - why complicate things by starting solids?? Can your HV offer any (research based) evidence that by starting rice it will help the wind/puke thing? If not I would give it a wide berth. Anecdotally from friends who did the traditional weaning thing, babies often get more wind, plus constipation........ Keep persevering with the milk xxxx

the other thing is, iggy, that just being a week or two older might also help. Babybear was quite a pukey child too, but i do remember noticing that things got a bit better round about the 16 week mark. i do think it's difficult for HVs who are used to the old guidelines to separate early weaning from the babies just getting older and their digestive systems maturing. be on the lookout for a BIG growth spurt at 16 weeks as well, so try not to book too many appointments around then as you'll be feeding a lot. good luck with everything.

As I've said above, my LO is only 24 weeks and I am ITCHING to start weaning, but I'm determined to hold off until 26 weeks not because I think 6 months is the magical number, but for my own peace of mind. If LO develops an allergy or intolerance in later years, I'd never know whether it was because I started 2 weeks early and frankly parenthood brings enough guilt without me risking even more. It's the same thing with reducing the risk of cot death. FSID report that the number of parents putting their children down to sleep on their tummies is increasing because people are worried about flat head syndrome. Are these parents mad?! Imagine the guilt if your child died and you knew you'd deliberately ignored the proven guidlines. Anyway, must stop ranting, think I get too wound up about people on mumsnet getting uppity with you Aitch, they know they're going against the official guidlines and it just makes them very defensive.

I know that if I started weaning now, it would be because I wanted to, not because it's in the interest of my daughter. And that's not really a good enough reason is it?

p.s. pancakes - another good reason not to start yet, I get more of them

ps. guidelines

I thought it looked wrong, now I know why

hah! i waited til 6 months (or near as dammit) for the same reason... imagine the guilt... this way if she gets allergies it's her own fault!

josh too was really windy/sicky. we did cranial osteopathy which helped, and it did get better the older he got.

i do think starting solids early helps with the puking as ds2 was a really sicky/windy baby but i dont recommend it. i have 2 older boys, aged 14 and 11, they were both weaned early and we did purees, knew no better then. they are the 2 most pickiest, fussiest eaters you will ever meet. even now, josh eats a wider variety of foods than they do!

Just wanted to add that if your baby is sicky then weaning will not necessarily make life better at least to start with...

Babies with reflux usually get worse not better to start with (wish someone had told me that now!!) whatever age they're weaned at... (although it does get better after a bit - can't remember how long tho, sorry!)

HTH
Steph

I'd be wondering if she was able to sit up well enough? i.e. if a chunk of food went to the back of her mouth, would she have the back and neck control to lean forward and cough it out? Piglet wasn't anywhere near sitting up well enough to do that at 18 weeks, but I do know all babies are different!

ps, that's a reply to Jayne.

Did anyone else do pancakes on Tuesday? Sausage loved them with banana & I will try savoury ones another day. Obviously they don't work if you are avoiding eggs, oh yeah & dairy, oh & gluten too! Frankly they are an allergy waiting to happen but blimey they taste great.

Just trying to decide whether to take Sausage to be weighed as I'm not sure if I can face the HV tutting about not being on the right centile range. Don't they go on? The HV at the 7-9 months check told me to stop breast feeding at lunchtime to encourage Sausage to eat more solids. Also. when I said we were doing BLW she said she didn't know anything about it & seemed rather horrified. She said 'where did you learn about that? Breastfeeding group?' (Imagine it said in the most condescending tone possible.) I did actually but also one of her colleagues recommended it to me. Some of the HV don't seem to know much about anything!

Munch LOVED her pancakes! and she had proper lemon on hers, I just kept the sugar off...little weirdo.

Re: the HV thing, I took her to be weighed at 7 and 9 months as we had to go and see dr but 'forgot' my red book so no comments could be made (she dropped down from 75th to 25th). Went in today and she has shot back up again (she is 1)
so...forget your book and they can't say anything!
AND I was told to stop BFing during the day..you need to practise the ...'Mm, yes I shall give that a try' response..and then promptly forget she said anything!

Well dd wasn't in much of an eating mood on Tuesday (teething plus a bit of a bug), but she still managed half a pancake with mushed broccoli and 'fake' cheese. She's milk intolerant, but we just made them with soya milk.

I did do her a sweet one too, with sunflower spread and golden syrup, but she didn't even try it, so I was forced to eat it instead - such a hardship!

i'm afraid i didn't even make pancakes... bad mummy. i did eat half a packet of chocolate ginger biscuits, though. Babybear had a rice cake. M-WAH HAH HAAAAAH!

i'm afraid i didn't even make pancakes... bad mummy. i did eat half a packet of chocolate ginger biscuits, though. Babybear had a rice cake. M-WAH HAH HAAAAAH!

God that takes me back to when LO was a few weeks old and I used to have half a packet of Hobnobs for lunch. My excuse to hubby was that they were 60% oats, full of fibre and therefore rather good for me! Strangely gone off them since....

Were you BFing? You need hobnobs when you're BFing. Medical fact.

Well would you Adam and Eve it? I'm sat flicking nonchalantly through my National Childbirth Trusts 'Your baby's first year' book when I come across their weaning chapter. I was fully expecting a section of delicious recipes with pureed avocado with grapes or such nonsense, but instead was greated with this;

"At six months babies don't need to start with spoonfuls of purees and then work up to lumps. babies who lead their own weaning seem to prefer to start by picking up a lump of food and trying it for themselves. They dont need a lot of sloppy food and can do much of the work themselves (such as picking it up and chewing it)"

Turn over the page to their 'Weaning: What to start with' section. The recommendation?

"Serve your baby's food in a way that makes it easy for her to eat it. Small bitesize chunks are not easily managed at first - your baby needs foods she can hold in her fist and bring up to her mouth"


I have to say that I'm very impressed and felt the need to share! Or maybe I'm the last one to know that the NCT were so actively pro BLW?

Gah, why is posting a comment with my name so damned difficult?

katie & smiler

Apologies if this is rather unsavoury for a Sunday evening, but today I gave Pumpkin her first dish of raisans and a couple of hours later, they appeared in her nappy. Completely whole. Firstly, do they not at least chew them and secondly, how quickly do they go through a baby for crying out loud? Surely it should be longer than that. Anyone else had a similar experience? Honestly, I got the shock of my life!

Minky appears to spend a lot of time chewing raisins, but they look whole when they come out. I haven't dug around to see whether the inside has actually been sucked out or not! They probably appear the next day. I reckon most things take 24 hours for my girl.

Babybear is 14 months old now and has a mouthful of teeth and yet we do still see the odd zombie raisin. the grapes that would not die...

and what about sultanas??? josh loves them....

LOL! They come out looking rehydrated from my LO!

Was lurking in the parenting section of Waterstones today and overheard a couple of women talking about weaning a baby at 3 1/2 months. Woman 1 was going back to work and wanted to start her baby on solids before she went into nursery. So I butted in and said guidelines are now 6 months, dontcha know, and it's not the best thing for them to start so early and why create puree hassle for yourself months before you have to. Anyway, after me spouting lots of reasons why they shouldn't give the baby solids (and I didn't even mention BLW) the mum toddled off with 2 Annabel Karmel books saying, quite kindly as though to a slightly unhinged person, that she thought she'd give it ago anyway thanks very much.

Should I just have kept my mouth shut? I was a total busybody and it was a waste of time.

Oh well done you! You might not have made a difference in this case, but at least you tried. If you do that 10 times and it influences just 1 person to wait, then that could be 1 child saved from obesity/diabetes/allergies.

I'm not sure that I'd have had the nerve to butt in myself, but I'd have been thinking 'should I have', rather than your 'should I not have'!

i am SO nosy i wouldn't have been able to help myself. hopefully when she gets home she'll have a think about it and decide to wait. i think you did the right thing, okay it was a bit embarrassing in the end but you tried and that's the main thing.

Nah probably not, I'm too chicken, but well done you. I went to my local under ones group on Mon (they're all very nice and friendly) and desperately asked if anyone was doing BLW. I received blank looks and than one woman said that if it helped, she'd started with baby rice. I gave up at that point and agreed mmm, yes isn't Annabel Karmel a weaning goddess (see I'm a chicken). Perhaps one day Aitch, you and GR will be referred to as weaning goddesses(!) Wouldn't it be lovely if there was a sort of regional register where BLWeaners could find out if there were other BLWers in their area so they could maybe meet up and share a communal broccoli smearing experience (hint hint Aitch? I'm sorry I know you do a brilliant job already and are severely overworked).

a regional register?!?

a regional register?!?

Sorry, that sounds a bit w*nk doesn't it? (I'm fluent in W*nkese). I mean it would be nice to actually know who else in my area is doing BLW so we could actually meet up and non-spoon together rather than feel as if Telford is a BLW desert (although enough people in MacDonalds appear to think nothing of just handing their very young child a quarter pounder and chips - a form of BLW I suppose). Sorry, must stop slagging off Telford ... it's unfair and irrelevant.

i could possibly set up a forum, i have done 1 before for a game i played so im sure i could do it again. it would be basic and using a free host but im sure i could do it. do you think enough ppl would use it tho? (invisionfree.com)

Ta all for making me feel less like the sort of interfering busy body that rants at strangers. Soon I shall roam the streets plucking junk food from obese children's mouths and ranting at their parents, no doubt.

I think you're quite right to slag off Telford, GillK. It is a depressing place. I went to school there (in Wellington, god help me).

do you use Netmums? (as opposed to Mumsnet). Netmums is a regional thing, you could post there asking if there's anyone around that area. although i'd post on Mumsnet as well, no harm in doing that.

Overhead my HV who advocated 17 weeks to me because my lo wasn't gaining weight fast enough saying 20 weeks as a minimum for weaning to another lady. Of course this ladies lo was 3.5 months. Still its an improvement!

MSal

I know I should be able to work this one out but I can't think of any reason (given that we don't have to worry about allergies) that I can't give the Pickle rye/pumperknickel bread......... Obviously not in large quantities.

Thanks from the one with severe brain mush this evening

Munch has had granary bread since she was about 9 months. NO problems with it here!

DD had pumpernickel/rye stuff around 8 months with no problem. Like you, I couldn't see any reason not to!

Okay, so Much loves those Organix cereal bars as her snack when we are out but they are soooo expensive!
So....does anyone have a decent recipe for a non overly sugary cereal bar? anyone?

Just wanted to thank you for starting this blog. I've been searching and searching for something to "substantiate" what I wanted to do as far as introducing solids to my little one. Everything has been so helpful. We just started blw about a month or so ago, and even though we started late (8 months old) she took to it like a champ! The only thing she has ever gagged on has been when mommy forced a puree on her, so that just proved that that's not what she should be having! LOL

LOL, thanks. Can I ask you to do me a favour and add your anecdote about the puree and the late start to the How Often Does Your Baby Gag post as that will be really interesting for other people who are starting out. much obliged, see you around.

Hello. Not sure if I'm putting this q in the right place; do all questions follow the "another, another" post? Anyhoo, there seems to be a lot of talk about hummus: is this shop bought hummus, or home made? If it's shop bought, are we just not that worried about the salt content? I'm wondering how sereiously to take the NO SALT thing. Also, in the same vein, mayonnaise for the under 1s? OK, or not OK? Kicky is 9 months and I'm not BLWing her - not brave enough - but she loves any finger food, and I'm going to branch out into it more. I love this blog. Thanks Aitch.

Am re-posting my comment, having now understood the thing about changing the title. Sorry for repetition.

Anyhoo, there seems to be a lot of talk about hummus: is this shop bought hummus, or home made? If it's shop bought, are we just not that worried about the salt content? I'm wondering how sereiously to take the NO SALT thing. Also, in the same vein, mayonnaise for the under 1s? OK, or not OK? Kicky is 9 months and I'm not BLWing her - not brave enough - but she loves any finger food, and I'm going to branch out into it more. I love this blog. Thanks Aitch.

Mrs B

well, josh cant have the shop bought hummus, something in it brings him out in a rash, so i made my own from just chickpeas, olive oil, garlic and lemon juice - wow could u smell that garlic lol. anyway, he was ok with that :) so its something else to add to my list of lunchtime ideas.

have got a cookbook coming from amazon that is supposed ot have recipes for potted beef and chicken in it, fingers crossed they have no dairy or i can at least use a substitute if they do.

Sounds like it might have been the tahini (sesame seed paste) in the shop bought stuff that caused the rash. Might be worth you keeping an eye out for sesame seeds in that case.

could have been any of the number of different additives in ti. he had the same reaction to hellmanns mayonnaise, and cheapo asda's own too, but hes ok when he has any of the main ingredients on their own???

ive come to the conclusion hes just a weird child lol

Oh, lol: Piglet had hummus for the first time (shop bought) and I was watching her like a hawk just in case the sesame caused her any problem. Cue minor panic about an hour later on noticing what looked like a red rash round her mouth ... before realising it was the fluff off her new cardigan where she'd been chewing the sleeve. Doh.

Have now read your bit in finger food basics on hummus, so shop bought it is. Hurrah! Perhaps it's not as salty as I thought....?

ach, it probably is but i choose not to get very stressed about salt as in the grand scheme of things i know she doesn't eat much else and gets plenty of water to flush it out.

i'm looking for a handy portable high chair & was all set to buy the cheapest on line when my husband commented that our babe would have his eye level just about table level & have to reach up to feed himself BL style, somewhat blindly.
please can you tell me if one of these fabric 'strap onto any chair' numbers exists which is a bit higher, or do you sit them on a cushion or what?

thanks a lot

were you initially looking at a plastic one? i don't own one but Babybear has used one at a friend's house and it was really clever. you can raise the seat or lower it depending on the height of the child.
i've got a prince lionheart fabric one (got it second-hand) and it's okaaaay. the last time i used it i put some phone books underneath her and it worked fine. but to be honest if we're going for dinner i often just whack the ikea chair into the back of the car. if i was buying one i'd look at the fisher price plastic one, i've seen loads of people recommend them on Mumsnet.

We used a Mothercare plastic one at my dad's. It seems fine for height (but Mink was 9 months, then again, she is wee). It turns into a step stool when they're older (£16.99). Have used a Handysitt at Starbucks, was also fine for height, but very expensive (£55). Go to Starbucks and try them out! Alternatively, you can get some that screw on to the table, they'd be a good height.

I bought one of the Safety First Booster seats - which has two seat heights on it and is meant to last until Bubs is 4yrs, though i'm going to need to be convinced on that! - which has been quite good: straps onto a chair and has it's own tray. Does fold down, but wouldn't say it goes flat. Got it off ebay for about £8 which was a bit of a bargain, but think it retails at £20 - doesn't turn into a stool though - that's just clever!

To be fair, I think it's just a plastic box you can stand on to reach the toilet etc...

thank y'all vm
it's the fabric type i'm particularly interested in but phone books & some clever knotting would work if i was feeling clever

Dumpling has been on purees for almost 4 weeks now and is 6 months, (knew no better, hassle from HVs etc to get him started as obviuolsy hungry!) he is big over 20lb already! he does seem to love the purees, but also loves eating/playing with the pot and spoon after puree gone. I have now found out about blw and think it sounds great, can i just stop the purees and start blw. he is still bf on demand and currently has breakfast and lunch

i really can't see that it would be a problem at all. maybe gradually drop his purees, over a week say, and so long as you're bfing on demand and can get your head round the whole 'until they're one food's just for fun' thing you'll be absolutely fine.

We changed. I didn't know about BLW until Minky was 7 months old. And then my freezer defrosted itself and I lost all her lovingly squashed food. Sod it, I thought, I'm not making all that again, let's do BLW. Plus she was going right off being spoon fed. It suited her fine to change.

We changed too after battling with the spoon every mealtime got just too stressful. I discovered this blog and off we went.

It really is so easy.

Just wondering if there are any helpful tips for trying to get things started again. My non-BLW friends administer prune puree so I am giving her prunes with every meal. I am offering lots of water all through the day, switched to a mostly fruit diet - even studded the porridge pancakes with dried apricots. This is day 3 of the campaign and there has not been any real improvement. Small isn't bunged solid but its all very golf-bally and hard work for her. Any suggestions?

The Pickle was in a similar situation.....I tried all the dried fruits (figs, prunes & apricots) but what really seemed to help was lentils. There is a recipe on here for lentil patties. Or I just cooked the lentils with some finely chopped onions, chucked in a portion of chopped frozen spinach and when the mixture had cooked/cooled stirred through some philadelphia. This mixture was an absolute favourite on toast, on rice cakes, as a pasta sauce, or just by the handful. I also gave her warm water at every possible moment (I did resort to doing this by bottle rather than cup).

Hope it helps............

Spooky - I have a pan of lentils & sweet potato on at the moment! We'll give them a go for supper & hope they work some magic overnight. How long did it take to resolve the problem for Pickle?

It was after 2 days of lentil meals (both in the evening) that she pooed for Britain.

I too was recommended giving either a little orange juice or diluted apple juice to help soften the Pickle's stools but couldn't get her to drink it.

The thing about dried fruit is that it's also full of iron, which can cause constipation, so I'm never sure if it's a good thing for it or not. Have you tried giving her some fresh orange juice to drink - this is supposed to work wonders.

Prune juice worked for us,,, also some VERY gentle abdominal massage (clockwise)

Still not much happening. Lentils again on the menu today & I think I'll head to the shops for assorted fruit juices. I am going to shift the emphasis from dried fruit to fresh fruit and see what happens.

Lordy - who knew I'd get so obsessed with poo?

Wanders off muttering about how once, in an alternate reality she used to have a proper job with budgetary responsibility....

oh dear. i'm afraid lentils work with brisk efficency on Babybear, so i've never really investigated the alternatives.

The lentils (with an orange juice chaser) seem to have done the trick. We'll do one more fruit based day with frequent application of juice but it looks like we are on the way back to normal service. Thank you so much for the advice.

P.S. The cheese & lentils were yummy - although not so wedge-like as I forgot the egg. Things fall apart.....

As I was giving dd sushi for her lunch today, it occurred to me that I don't recall anyone ever mentioning it in any of the blw discussions, so thought I'd post and ask if anyone else has tried it?

Dd doesn't really go for the raw fish, but she likes the rolls stuffed with cucumber or whatever, and rolled in seaweed or sesame, although she sometimes unrolls the seaweed and leaves it lying around, as it's food she likes to eat whilst roaming the house!

It's definitely the neatest way that I've found of giving her rice, and of course the best bit is that I get to eat the rest of the packet with her!

Anyone else got on well with it?

There's a pic in the photos section of Babybear with her first sushi at seven months. she likes the smoked salmon, tuna ngiri and little cucumbery ones. i don't really eat it so often in winter (for some reason) so we haven't had it in a while but i'm sure we'll be back on it come the summer.

Sorry to change the thread, but have successfully got dumpling off the purees, well I dropped the lunch one the other day then completly forgot to deforst any yesterday and he didnt seem bothered at all. He has had cucumber, cellery, raw red pepper ( should it be cooked?) rice cakes and toast. So forgive my naivity or anxiety (not sure which one it is) what should he be eating, just veg and fruit sticks or can he have cereals, pasta etc? and how about dairy, i only have goats milk due to ecezma, do you use frsh milk on cereal or formula?

i can't remember how old he is, but if he's over six months then he can have anything he wants, really. however if you are worried about allergies it might be an idea to look at the weaning schedules on the right. i've listed everything that i started off with in Finger Food Basics month 1 on the left. good luck.

Thanks, he is just 6 months and i have finally relaxed and had a great day! we all went to the pub for a roasty lunch and he adored the roast potato and even purple srouting broccli or just the fact that he is getting stuff off our plates!!
I think I will leave the dairy alone for a while though

Hi - really new to this website and not sure where this post will end up but anyway, here goes, we've been doing BLW for a couple of weeks and I'd like my baby (6.5 months old) to have some breakfast cereal.... do I just give him a bowl and let him try to shovel it into his mouth with his hands? If he obviously really wants it (as evidenced by lots of shovelling) can I assist with a spoon?

WE give LittleE dry cereal like cheerios (they keep her occupied fro ages trying to chase them around the tray!!). She also like s Shreddies (dry or with milk). Not too keen on Weetabix but likea Oatibix. She will accept it off a spoon if she is allowed to hold it, but won't open her mouth if I try to do it. Anyway she much prefers using her hands so I try not to add too much milk or it gets incredibly messy. Be warned wet breakfast ceral goes a long way and sets like cement if you don't wash it off!! Particulary difficult to remove from hte inside of her ears!!

Have you managed to find a brand of cheerios that isn't packed with sugar/honey - would love to know who makes them if so?

i buy asdas own, not sure whats in them as i tend to buy them for the older 2 so havent really looked at ingredients except to see if there was any milk in them.

am going buying some more today so will have a look and let you know.

If you try something like raisin wheats with milk on until they're soft but not soggy (you can speed up the soaking process with a few seconds in the microwave if you need to) then he should be able to have a good go with his hands.

Alternatively, you could give something like puffed wheat dry.

Or of course there are the infamous porridge pancakes that are the staple breakfast for almost every blw'er!

thanks for the help - very new to this BLW...other 2 kids just got mush! what are porridge pancakes? Do you mean readybrek and just a very little milk?

if you do a search on Hub2dee's Porridge Pancakes on this site all will be revealed!

Mini shredded wheat are great too, with a little splash of cows milk/ yoghurt or rice milk. Also, they have no sugar or salt.

what great recipes! Am going to try them and the pineapple ones - and Enid's chicken nuggets (not for breakfast though)

Ok...another daft question....but what do you put the said cereal etc into? I've read somewhere else that those plastic suction type bowls don't work....and I know that my 7 month old will just tip any type of container straight onto the floor??

Euan gets his cereal the same way he gets the rest of his food - I keep it in a little bowl and hand him a couple of pieces at a time. If I do otherwise it will all be on the floor in an instant.

Katy

i do the same, ceot he now prefers to eat it off the spoon. when hes eaten some i then give him the bowl, but usually hold it down with 1 hand so he gets to practise with the spoon on the bowl but cant launch it.

Hello to all. This working momma has not been about for a while. My baby led weaner is fourteen months old this weekend -my how time flies! She often has cereal for breakfast since she turned one. Cheerios are a big hit - sugary but good. I heat a little milk in micro for 20 secs, pop in the hoops - leave them to soak for a minute and spoon them onto an antibaced high chair tray. She eats loads half of an adult sized portion. She has rice cripies, mini shredded wheat or shreddies at nursery done the same way. I too would love to know about sugar free cheerios......

Oh I need a bowl now...Cheerio.

Thanks....I will stop looking for the launch proof bowl!

Sugar-free Cheerios do exist - in the US! I live in an area of London heavily populated by american ex-pats and our local deli imports US Cheerios at the astronomical price of £7 per box. (Eeek)

Maybe place an order with friends or family holidaying over there?

1. Break weetabix/oatibix into chunks and moisten with a bit of milk of choice, so IzzyMouse can shove said chunks into her mouth interspersed with snatching a loaded spoon from my hand and doing the same thing with that. 2. Pick the really big cornflakes out of the packet and offer dry. 3. Stick puffed rice (you can get whole and sugar free puffed rice now, I've discovered) together with a bit of natural yoghurt (greek is best IMO) and let babe grab fistfuls of it. Works a treat, assuming babe likes yoghurt.

And bowls... We went through a bit of a Gu/Fru pudding binge phase, and the cheesecakes come in wee glass ramekins that appear to be indestructable. So we now provide IzzyMouse with one of those with a bit of grub in, with another on standby for when it ends up on the floor - has the advantage of not risking the whole meal while giving her a bit of autonomy. She's completely uninterested in any kind of baby crockery.

This is probably a really stupid question but I have some left over roast dinner in the fridge for Pumpkins tea. How do you reheat something like that? I just normally give it to her cold but thought I would try it warm but I can't do it in the microwave because the way it heats it is too random and you get nasty hot spots. Or do you do it in the microwave and leave it to cool. Whenever I have done that I have eaten virtually the whole lot in the form of "testing".

What do you all do?

Thanks,
Tracy

Personally i do it in the microwave and then leave it to cool. In fact, i keep Babybear's dishes in the freezer so that the food cools a bit on contact and speeds the process up. that does mean that you need to test it less frequently however...

my MIL always tells me to add some liquid when re-heating food, and if it can be heated in a pan, thats preferable to microwave.

aaah, but why is it preferable to the microwave? show me the science... [wink]

Grizzles is teething and for 10 days we've been having 2 poos a day of such size and velocity, I'm having to hose her down and change all her clothes each time. I'm getting sick of picking poo out of my fingernails.
Any thoughts of how I can restore some solidity? She is having a daily banana and lots of protein but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I've been told that mango and apple (due to the pectin content) are good for making them a bit more solid again.

Alternatively someone posted a link to an article on the yahoo group which I will hunt down.

Sorry, this is on the old post, don't know how to do new one. My little bean has just started BLW (she's 25 weeks) and appears to have been digesting a considerable amount of what I give her - mostly banana, broccoli, pear and a bit of rye bread today - but her poohs have become a lot more frequent - at least six today - they've also gone a dirty green colour. Here's hoping it's not a tummy bug...She seems fine in herself...

I'd be inclined to lay off the bread, in case it's a gluten intolerance. My DD is milk intolerant and reacts like that to even miniscule amounts of dairy (one bite of a digestive biscuit was enough to set her off yesterday). See if it improves whilst avoiding gluten (which isn't recommended until 6 months anyway), and if so, try reintroducing a few months and see if you get the same reaction.

I think you could be right, rye is a pretty heavy substance -- I wasn't really expecting her to eat it! I've just bought some quinoa bread - which is wheat and gluten free - has anyone tried their baby on this before? I'd be interested to know. Thanks

My 11 month old BLWer loves brocolli and always has green pooh the next day. Banana has potasium (sp!!) in and firms up sloppy poohs a treat! I've found dried fruit equals exploding nappies. Not heard of quinoa bread. What is that?

Hi

Has anyone got any ideas to help us please? We've been BLW'ing for just over 3 months, LO is 9 months old. Generally it's gone really well, she's tried all kinds of things and isn't fazed at all by anything new. Recently though (say the last 4-6 weeks), she's pretty much stopped eating vegetables at all. She will happily munch bread, cereals, all kinds of fruit (except banana!) meat and fish. But vegetables? Nope, nope, nope.

I can't figure out why because when we first started she was quite happy with eating things like roast parsnip, asparagus, broccoli, roast sweet potato, pepper strips etc.

A couple of weeks ago she also had a phase of not eating very much, just chucking things on the floor, until we figured out that she actually wanted the food in really quite small pieces, not chunks - i think she just wanted to practise her pincer grip. So i thought that might solve the vegetable thing, and have tried her with small pieces, peas etc, but it hasn't made a difference.

Can anyone help? Thanks!

Liz

might i direct you to search for a post i wrote called 'now they get to have an opinion, dammit', which i wrote when Babybear was, guess what? nine months... the search box is on the right at the bottom. remember to look at the comments, generally the best bits.
don't worry, keep offering and they come back round. Babybear's back on the broccoli now (in fact i think what tipped her over the edge was when we were at a friend's house and she wanted to show off to the other children) and likes carrots as well. Mangetout, however, still gets spat out.

Hi there
I'm doing BLW with Baby Boo who is now 7.5 months. She's going great guns, but I'm back at work and I'm struggling with the breakfast thing. I don't have a huge amount of time in the mornings and the childminder is not yet convinced of BLW (although she has started letting her feed herself) so she spoons Weetabix into her if I say she hasn't eaten. Any ideas for good and quick breakfasts? Also she recently had a BAD bout of constipation so nothing too starchy. I did give her Weetabix in her hand, just moistened a bit but I'm sorry to say I couldn't bear the mess as it had set when I got home 10 hours later. She's not in a high chair yet, I give her the food in her Bumbo in the mornings. Thanks.

mini shredded wheats? shreddies? cheerios? altho they might be a bit small for her to grab.
what about toast, i do toasted fruit bread as well, and crumpets. at that age josh sometimes would just have pieces of fruit, he didnt really start eating alot until he was nearly 10 months.
have a look on here for porridge pancakes, apparently they go down really well but ive never been that successful at making them.
speaking of pancakes, what about drop scones/pancakes or whatever you want to call them. you can make the mixture up the night before and cook them in the morning.

That's great, thanks Aitch. It's really helpful to know we're not alone!!

Although we had an interesting lunch of broccoli and cheese soup today - half blended, half lumpy. She was more than happy picking out the lumps and scoffing them, she ate loads. So now I'm wondering if it's just because the normal veggies I give her are not soft enough (she doesn't have any teeth yet) and the lumps of potato, onion and broccoli in the soup were well-cooked.

Bit more experimenting to do, I think!

Hi there

I would like to get my LO to eat more rice and cous cous - previous attempts have been rather unsuccessful when I have given it to him loose and wondered if anyone had any ideas of what I could do with them to make rice cakes, patties - as I am unsure how to make them sticky...do I overcook to make glutenous?? I would love to add other things too to flavour them up a little.

Thanks carrie

Hi

Now, I've not tried this myself but it was the first thing that sprang to mind when I read your post,...
...what about egg? You could kind of make a rice / cous cous omelette - heavy on the rice, using just enough egg to hold the bits together. A bit like egg-fried rice but with less stirring?? For special egg-fried rice you could add peas etc. Also reminiscent of a Spanish omelette without the potatoes!

In fact I might try that myself next time we have rice!!

Thats a great idea - will definitely give that a go - thank you!!!

Hi, risotto can work quite well once it's cooled a bit as it sticks together, and thai sticky (I think it's called thai Jasmine rice) forms quite nicely into lumps when cooled as well. Also have you considered polenta?

Thanks Gail

I did think about risotto, but never thought about binding it to make a patti shape - great idea!

For sticky rice do you just cook jasmine rice and it sticks together or do you have to do something else to it - I will google it and have a look.

I did try a polenta recipe from another BLW blog but it turned out a disaster but did smell nice - have not had the guts to try again...

Thanks for the tips
carrie

Hi Carrie, both the thai rice and polenta I just cook with a no-salt stock cube and give them to Freja once they've cooled down a bit. I do tend to cook them especially for her because she eats before us, and she gets the leftovers for lunch at the CM the next day. The rice I spoon onto a plate in lumps to cool down, and the polenta I pour into a bowl and it sets into a big lump. I should get a bit more creative but we're still avoiding dairy as it was giving her rough skin on her face (she's 10.5 months).

thats a nice idea to give it a bit of flavour - the polenta recipe had spinach, mushroom and onion in it - that may be good for your dairy free diet - poor thing...my LO Xavier is 10 months too. It must be hard work trying to think of things that have no dairy in - so many things do - mind you we try to do left overs as much as possible - but sometimes really spicey food just calls! Just given X tortellini with jamie oliver tom sauce and parmasan gone down a treat - can you get dairy free pasta at all?

all dried pasta is dairy free isnt it? well, the 1s i buy from asda are cos Josh loves them.

i didn't know if they had egg in them - thats good!

ah, i dont class egg as dairy, maybe it is, i dunno. i know the fresh pastas have egg in them, not sure about the dried stuff.

Hi Carrie

Do have ago with the risotto rice. Little balls of risotto are a traditional food in Rome. They're called suppli and they are absolutely delicious. They tend to coat them in breadcrumbs (gluten free bread makes good breadcrumb if you're staying away from wheat) and then they shallow fry them so they've got a crispy outside - nice and easy to pick up - and all soft and gooey inside - yum! There's a similar recipe in Jennie Maizels' book 'Finger food for babies and toddlers' - but it's quite straightforward... Marks & Spencers used to sell ready made suppli but they stopped for some unknown reason - sigh...
Cloviscat

Thats a brilliant idea - will defo give the risotto balls, egg fried rice and polenta a go - I am so glad I posted the question. Thanks everyone!

Carrie

Just wanted to say that I made some suppli yesterday, having never heard of it before this post, and it went down well with dd, so thanks for the idea.

Hi Gail - you mentioned dairy was giving your LO rough skin on her face. Is that a common reaction to dairy? The Pickle has very dry cheeks and I've been going through E45 like there is no tomorrow. I've asked my HV, and a pharmacist specifically with regards to a food sensitivity - and most people I bump into it seems - (not asked the Dr however) and everybody has said no to food sensitivity but a combination of teething and the weather............ Just wondered if you linked the 2 or had info from somewhere.

Thanks

Ahhh suppli, takes me back to living in Rome. Truly yummy - especially with a big blob on mozzarella in the middle.

Snap, Scary! or a surprise olive in the middle.
ooooh, the luxury of being able to pop out and buy a greasy bag of suppli and pizza slice for lunch. I often use up old risotto like this, shape them into balls and toss into a bag of breadcrumbs. (my freezer's full of breadcrumb's at the moment). they freeze well and then a quick fry up and you are good to go.

oooh sounds too good aitch will have to make them again. What I wouldn't give to be in Italy now . . . snow's forecast for tomorrow, it's just not good enough!

Another risotto thought: we had roasted red pappers stuffed with courgette risotto on Sunday night. I cut a strip of pepper for BabyB, just wide enough to still act as a scoop for the line of risotto it contained. This went down very well: one end of the strip went straight intro the mouth, and the three and a half teeth scraped off the risotto and the soft pepper flesh, so that just the skin emerged.
These are a nice easy make because you do the risotto in advance, then just bung them in the oven. Works well with big tomatoes as well as peppers, but the tomatoes tend to be a bit more floopy.
Cloviscat

I'm interested to read your post as The Sausage has dry skin & a bit of eczema on her face but it appeared before she had had any dairy I did wonder if it had anything to do with banana as there is quite a lot on Mumsnet about banana allergy (apparently banana is the same family as latex which is a common allergy). Mind you, when I stopped giving her banana it improved but then came back again anyway so she's back on bananas as she loves them. I asked the Dr if he thought eczema/dry skin was linked to food & he said it was very unlikely. He said babies skins are just very sensitive to hot/cold/windy/dribbly conditions. He has given me some hydrocortisone cream to use sparingly on the area that is most red/dry. Dr said to apply E45 etc as often as you can as you cannot use too much.

Wonder if Dr is right or if food plays a part.

Hiya, F started getting hives on her face at mealtimes a few months ago and I worked out it only happened when she had dairy, such as yoghurt or cheese. She also had quite dry skin on her face round her chin and I thought it was to do with not washing off the shampoo properly or something (DH got blamed!) but when we stopped giving dairy it cleared up. Every now and again I try little bits of yoghurt or something to see if she's grown out of it, and although the hives dont seem to come up anymore the rough skin still does come back. Don't know if it's a common thing, just found it works for us. HTH, Gail.

E45 is fine as long as they're not sensitive to lanolin - or rather, according to a dermatologist I spoke to, it's not the lanolin itself but the chemicals sometimes used on the sheep fleece in producing it!

I tend to attribute Piglet's dry cheeks and chin to a combination of teething dribble, the fact that everything available goes in her mouth, and the weather...

Babybear quite often gets patches of dry skin around her nose, but it does tend to be when the weather changes so i've never thougth about food intolerances. i am a mean mummy, however, and just put vegetable oil on her face as we're usually in the kitchen when i notice...

Being an aromatherapist I would normally reach straight for a bit of veg oil, olive oil or the best for littles sunflower oil, but the Pickle is REALLY good at rubbing whatever I put on her face straight into her eyes.

I was also recommended a cream called 'Allergenics' which is relatively natural based with plant oils. So far it has been working quite well.

Euan has milk intolerence that gives him eczema. However he doesn't get it on his face much, more on his body. When it first started though, it did start on his face, but that was when he was just weeks old (and reacting to the protein coming through in my breast milk). The eczema tends to start a few days after exposure to milk - and in his case after lots of vomiting in the meantime!

E45 isn't necessarily the best cream for eczema type dry skin - I found diprobase works the best for everyday dry patches (I have more heavy duty cream for when it gets worse).

Katy

Hi there,

As the subject line suggests Pumpkin has virtually stopped eating and it has been this way now for about 3 weeks (she is 11 months). The hv suggested cutting down her milk so she will eat more but there is no way I am doing that (she has between 20-24oz a day). Intellectually I know that is is fine and it is probably just a phase but emotionally I have her pegged as a difficult eater and can see years of meal time angst ahead! I have stopped making lovely recipes because anything I give her just gets dumped on the floor. Unless its raisins and even those went pretty much southward tonight!

Has anyone else experienced this? I suppose that magic age of 1 is also fast approaching which is causing a modicum of concern.

I am trying not to stress about it but its not easy when every meal you make gets chucked off the high chair tray in disgust!

What do you all think?

Thanks,
Tracy

Hi There

Do you think your little one might be teething or under the weather - my son is 10 months old and had a two week period of not really eating and recently got two new teeth and has been a little ill? I generally find this is the reason for not eating.

It is hard not to get dispondent, particularly when you have prepared lovely food, just stick with it and see, as you say it could just be a phase.

Another thought is - is your LO needing more comfort - has anything changed at all - been away, new visitors etc - this can affect eating patterns.

Best of luck and hope you turn a corner soon

Cx

Apologies for putting this question randomly in the middle of a completely different conversation, but I don't know how to start a new thread... Also, sorry if this is already covered somewhere else on the site,I couldn't find anything specific

We have a nanny starting in about a month, by which time madame will be 6 months old. I am *so* keen to try blw and asked every nanny we interviewed whether they would be supportive of this - most looked blank and in fact the nanny we chose, whilst appearing superb in all other aspects, was unable to prevent herself from rolling her eyes in a "bleeding middle class hippies" sort of fashion at the blw question. My question is, will the baby get terribly confused if 3 days a week the nanny is spoon feeding her and the rest of the time she's doing the blw thing with me? Should I insist on the nanny not spoon feeding when we're not there, or take path of least resistance and let the nanny do what she's used to since it's not actually going to be me making the damn purees? Also, the standard nanny view seems to be that no baby sleeps through the night beyond 6 months unless it's fed baby rice (seems a teeny bit like putting one's own short term comfort before the long term health etc of one's child, but do I need to prepare myself and husband for a reversion to interrupted nights?).

would be really grateful for anyone's views on this

Hi there, I was a nanny before I had my angels, and to be honest any nanny worth her salt would fully take on your opinions on raising your child. She may take a while but maybe you could
give her loads of info on BLW and say that you realise it may not be what she s used to but it would make her job a bit easier( I assume if you're not making the purees she will be!) You never know you may convert her and think of all the people she'd tell, then BLW wouldn't be seen as so "odd"!

good point, thank you, and as Aitch points out, i've not yet broken the baby despite having sole charge of her for 5 months, so perhaps I should be a little less timid about the whole thing.

the thing is that BLW at its most elementary means no purees, so what you are talking about is doing a mix of finger food and puree - which is fine, but it's not BLW.
i've no experience of baby rice, but i'd have thought that the nanny is employed by you so should be happy to go along with your wishes. you are the child's mother and it's not like you've broken her yet, so shouldn't you be allowed to do what you want? i recently met a friend's nanny and she was utterly rude about BLW (and astoundingly ignorant, imho, of the latest guidelines) so you have my sympathy. why, if you're a professional, would you not want to know about the latest developments and trends in your 'industry'? if it was me (and this is not what you want to hear, i fear) i'd be quite clear about what i wanted and would give her the address of this site and the others to have a look at.

i'd keep looking for a new nanny. goodness, even dd's nursery staff are on board with it, less work for them after all!

I do kind of want to stick up for nannies a bit, they only know what they know (if you know what I mean?) I am a mother and I've only just discovered BLW (mine are nearly three and 4 m) so we can't expect even the most professional nanny to know everything. After all, reading some of the stuff on here HV 's don't seem to know much about it either and they have the care of hundreds of babies in their hands. Really I think the word needs to be spread about BLW and hopefully it will get included in teaching for child carers and even to the ears of the holy HVs!!

a big clap for my area then. the bfc t my support group at the hospital actually has a copy of the babyledweaning dvd and is doing blw with her lo. she also tell the new mums that go to the support group all about blw :)

just to be clear, i'm not saying that nannies should already know about BLW, but i think that if the mother who employs you has just said 'aitch, my good friend, tell Nanny about the BLW thing, will you? i've tried to explain it to her and she keeps pulling faces' and she responds by making it perfectly clear that she's not interested then that's rude.

i explained blw in the simplest terms possible and she responded by telling me that, yawn, not all babies make it to 6 months (which i do not dispute, necessarily) and then that babies fed on formula get too fat if they don't have purees. Well, yeah, if you've got them jammed into a routine rather than demand feeding then they are no doubt going to swallow every drop they get offered.

i nannied, you know, for a good few years. i never thought i knew anything that wasn't subject to change when a better idea came along. and i was always very clear about the fact that i did what my employer told me and not the other way around.

"the standard nanny view seems to be that no baby sleeps through the night beyond 6 months unless it's fed baby rice"

Piglet is 7 months+, has never had baby rice, and quite often sleeps 7.30 to 7.30 with one waking for a late-night breastfeed before I go to bed... or would nanny not count that as "through the night"?

Anyway: it's your child and you have every right in the world to want her to be fed your preferred way! And once the nanny gets the hang of it and sees all the upsides she'll become an evangelist like the rest of us ;)

that is wonderful to know, thank you! certainly counts as through the night in my book (indeed, it's where we are right now). Without wanting to count any sleeping-through-the-night chickens, good to know it can be done when facing all those hv/nanny/nct gang warnings.

gawd, babybear slept through the night from about 8 weeks... and i'm loathe to tell you this, macaroon, but weaning screwed up her sleeping for a few weeks while her tummy got used to it.

Isn't there some sort of issue with combining spooned stuff with BLW along the lines of:

When spoon fed a baby sucks the stuff off the spoon straight to the back of the mouth...
When having solid food baby chews, mashes and munches the food before moving it to the back of the mouth with the tongue to swallow it...

And there's something to do with the tongue thrust reflex too...

Therefore it can happen that a baby doing both may try and suck finger foods to the back of the throat with a higher risk of actual choking (we're not just talking gagging here unfortunately)...

I think there is info about this on the official guidelines (see link to the right)...

Having said that Isabelle has done fine!

Although it would also make progress much slower on baby learning to feed him/herself.

Hope that helps!

Steph xx

babybear does go right off her food when she's teething, i must say, but she will always do her best to eat pasta, pesto and peas. so if she's off her food i do the pesto test and if she doesn't eat that i conclude that she's Not Well. By the way, she was definitely having more milk than Pumpkin at that age, in fact it's only in the last couple of weeks that she's started cutting back on milk and she's over fourteen months. and remember, you make the lovely recipes for yourself and DP, not the baby. soooooo much less depressing if the baby doesn't eat it when you can say 'mmm, more for us.' good luck, don't sweat it, just give her the milk. and try frozen peas, dd loves the cold on her teeth when her mouth is sore.

Thanks Carrie and Aitch. This morning she has woken up with a really snotty nose but has wolfed down mini oatibix and a crumpet and is looking for more as we speak. She has been teething and for the last few days she must have been coming down with this cold.

Thanks for the reassurance. Sometimes you just need someone else to tell you not to worry about it! And I will try the frozen peas....

Tracy - having the same problem with DD, who is ten months. Here's my post from MN :)

"The doctor totally reassured me about DD's eating - or lack thereof - she said that if I lived in Africa or India she would only have milk until she was over one year old and that I should just offer food at every mealtime, as I have been, but if she doesn't want it that's fine and the same goes for drinking water. She said that even though only a baby DD knows what she needs in her body.

DD is extremely constipated and the doctor expects it to take three months to 'clear the backlog' so she'll probably take that long to get back to normal with eating I guess.

I've got to get her weighed by HV and then take her back to the doctor in six weeks for a review."

You are most welcome - we all need reassurance sometimes us mothers have to be mind readers - glad to hear that things have picked up though!

Carrie
ps - here here aitch!

Hi All,

Bub's is now 7.5mths and going great guns on BLW eating everything from ham sandwiches to sausage (from the local butcher, I hasten to add!) mash & veg. The question that I have is do any of you sometimes worry as to whether or not your little ones have an 'off' switch on their hunger???

From reading some of the threads this may well be an opposite problem to what some of you are having, but I sometimes feel that Bubs would just eat all day if I put enough food in her line of vision!!! And she's not even crawling.......!!!

She's following her growth line so i don't think that she's getting overly chubby but in line with the whole BLW philosophy of letting them regulate their own feeding, I sometimes wonder if I should be offering more food or not....

Apologies for the ramblings, just wandered if anyone else has had similar thoughts?

Yes, I worry about the same thing. Kicky is a pretty good eater, and all the guidance says just carry on feeding until your baby refuses to eat any more, but I'm not sure about just giving larger and larger portions. I think she's like me and just enjoys eating for eating's sake. She'll never refuse when offered food at any time. Nobody will ever say what a standard amount is, because all babies are different, but I wish I had some idea!

a standard amount would be useful! It seems a bit early to be worrying about obesity but I sometimes can't help but wonder if i'm setting up bad habits for later....

So peanut and I started BLW full force this past weekend. We started with Broccoli. Not the best choice I am afraid. It seems to have given the little guy so much gas he was horribly uncomfortable. But the next day I noticed it was whole coming out. Would that be why he was so uncomfortable? So we ate some prunes the next day to try and work everything out. I just want to make sure that we are doing this right. Also what are some good high iron foods for him. Since we don't do cereal with BLW. Thanks!

Sausage is now 10 months & lots of food still reappears whole, I think this is entirely normal. Probably lots isn't digested with purees too but you just can't tell!

I believe that the 'they run out of iron supplies' is based on older research & newer stuff indicates that there is plenty in the milk they drink until the age of one. However, that said millet is high in iron & you can buy it in pasta form. Also, dried apricots (un-sulphured ones) are good too. Red meat is the obvious one but I haven't had any luck in getting Sausage interested yet.
You could also try Weetabix that has been softened a bit with milk/rice milk.

Bear in mind though that lots of iron can cause constipation!

yes, it does come out whole. and for A Lot Longer than you'd think, in my experience. maybe hold off from the broccoli for a wee while if you think it gave him wind, but as i recall Babybear's stomach sounded terribly gassy when we first started. i dsuppose it is literally a shock to their system!
and don't be afraid to give fresh fruit like apricots etc, i know some people say you should start off with vegetables but given the sweetness of milk that's doesn't make any sense to me. good luck.

Thanks so much! We did some carrots today and WOW did he like them! Another question, he does great with a cup but what shoudl we put in it? I am doing water right now and the little guy's grammy gives him super diluted juice. Should we do breastmilk?

i'd stick with water, tbh, so long as you are bfing still. there is a slight case to be made for offering weak fresh orange to encourage absorption of Vit C but Babybear refuses and i'm happy about that.


wait til you see those nappies tomorrow...

I remember reading, in the dim and distant past, someone talking about cottage cheese pie. Was that one of the recipes that disappeared in the '2006 too many comments so emails disappear' disaster? Any chance it could be reposted? Or anyone got any other suggestions of what to do with cottage cheese (within reason and legality, of course...)?

do you perhaps mean my delicious (although completely ignored) Cannelloni? do a search for it on the right, and i promise it is nice...

Aitch, I haven't been ignoring your delicious sounding though as yet untried cannelloni, I did spot it, but for some reason in my addled brain I had a snippet of a memory of a pie, rather than pasta. But it's probably just me. It usually is. I can make up whole conversations sometimes...

Mij,

This is a pretty late reply but your cottage cheese thing has been niggling me as I knew I'd seen something somewhere. I have eventually tracked it down in a cookbook compiled by a friend to raise funds for her kids school. I haven't tried it myself so I take no responsibility for it, but I know the recipes were submitted by the kids & mums in the school so I am guessing it is someone's staple.

Cottage Cheese Bake
1 onion
3 eggs
herbs
250g/8oz cottage cheese
100g mushrooms, finely chopped
seasoning (as desired)

Fry onions and mushrooms. Mix, cottage cheese, eggs, herbs and seasoning. Combine everything together and bake in a well-greased dish for 30 mins at 400F/200C.

Let me know how it turns out if you try it!

Aha! Ask and ye shall be answered eventually! Thanks, will try it. But Aitch's cottage cheese cannelloni was pretty good.

and yet i see no comment to that effect at the foot of the recipe... very confusing...

Hi. Have been reading through this site & found it so interesting. SweetPea is 6 months old now and we're wanting to go for BLW. I did try her on babyrice last week (she's quite sicky and I was hoping it would do the job of gaviscon without resorting to gaviscon) but she wasn't having any of it (whereas quite happily sucks away on apple/pear segments)
She's got quite nasty eczema, which seems to have improved a fair amount since I cut dairy out of my diet a couple of weeks ago (she's exclusively breastfed) - so I'm guessing that she has a dairy intolerance at the very least - and possibly other sensitivities/allergies (my sis is very allergic)
I've read the info on here about allergies, but was wondering how it worked in practise - if we were going down the puree route then we'd offer the same new food in isolation for 3 days before moving onto the next new one. Does the same go for BLW (ie I offer her sweet potato chips for the next 3 days then try something else) or is that not proper BLW? Would be interested to know what others have done in a similar situation.
superhoop

Moomin's your gal, here. hopefully she'll see this. i'll buzz a pal of mine as well for you. like your name, superhoop.

bumping for moomin and jen.

Hi superhoop - my dd is milk intolerant, but the only allergies in our family are eczema and a little bit of asthma, so we haven't been overly cautious with leaving things for 3 days. DD did have silent reflux though, which was aggravated by something in the early days, so we slowed down a little right at the beginning. As your dd also has reflux, you might want to check out lists of acidic foods to delay introducing (things like tomatoes, cauliflower, the otherwise ideal broccoli).

Ideally, yes you would do single foods for the same length of time as you would with purees. It doesn't go against the blw ethos at all IMO, as long as you're just putting the food in front of her and leaving her to get on with it.

The only problem we've had so far (dd is 13 months now) is with tomatoes, which brought her out in a contact rash on her face, but we continued to give occasionally, and she seems to be outgrowing this now.

Hiya superhoop. Am currently covered in baby sick. A second lot of gastoenteritis in our household - blimmin nursery, it's currently going around there (there's a reason not to send Babybear). Anyhoo, I will try and reply in more detail later. Suffice to say, I'd do one food at a time for three days, I'd pick an order to introduce major allergenic food groups and I'd be aware that eczema is a tricky one. I find that weather, teething and the phase of the moon effects Minky's skin. Difficult to disect other things out.

Okay, BLW and allergies. I shall start by saying I didn’t start with BLW, I started with purees. Didn’t know BLW existed. We changed over when she was around 8 months due to the freezer defrosting (“My beautiful purees!”) and Minky’s preference for no spoon(ing). I shall BLW the next one (the one that is immaculately conceived). The next one will, of course, refuse BLW and demand to be spoon fed until the age of three. I digress…

I was very cautious/obsessive/slightly crazy about allergies and weaning. I did one food every three days. I would do this again. I also decided on a time to introduce allergenic food, with no restrictions on other foods.

Six months: Started with root veg and fruit. No citrus fruit, berries or tomatoes.

Eight months: Tomatoes

Ten months: Dairy, wheat (was going to leave it until a year; the dietician said there was no evidence it made any difference after six months)

Twelve months: Egg, fish

Minky has a true allergy to egg. She is intolerant to cow’s milk. She won’t drink any sort of formula and I’m no longer breastfeeding, so she has yogurt and cheese. Her skin would probably be better without them but she can tolerate them.

I’m glad I went slowly and that I can identify what she can and can’t have. I’m glad I introduced dairy gradually using the order suggested on here, so that I’m happy giving her yogurt and cheese, but milk is a step to far. I’m pleased that she was one before I gave her egg, so that she was bigger and stronger when she reacted to it.

When you begin weaning, SweatPea can just have a bit of veg/fruit from your plate. Very much in keeping with BLW. You can then make very plain casseroles for you all for example lamb and root veg (keep the bouillon powder on the table for sprinkling on the grown ups portion a la Aitch). I often make a casserole and take out a few portions for Minky. If you’re having pasta, and you want to keep her wheat free, you’ve got the option of rice, corn or buckwheat pasta.

As I mentioned, I find with eczema that there are many, many things that affect it. At the moment she is ill and, consequently, her skin is perfect. Top eczema causes in our house are teething and changes in weather. All we hope for when she is trying new food is that her skin keeps going up and down rather than up and up, if you see what I mean. I expect the back of her knees to be sore, when it starts spreading to the front of her legs, I know we have a problem.

It’s actually very easy to avoid dairy and wheat, until you introduce it and then you don’t know how you survived without cheese sandwiches! Good luck, it can be a fun time. I can see how BLW is actually easier for babies with allergies as everything isn’t whizzed up into a gloop, but individually foods are eaten and reactions can be seen.

Do post any other questions. It's good to feel my obsession might help someone else!

Gosh - thanks Moomin & CSWS - some really helpful advice there. It's so good to hear from people who have gone through a similar experience.

Moomin - your order/timelines sound good - I think I'll stick to similar. I'd love to be able to offer her anything and everything, but common sense dictates caution.

SweetPea's eczema also seems to be affected by high tides/roadworks as much as anything tangible. The only thing that seems to have really made a difference is me cutting dairy from my diet. And I'm already craving cheese enough to be seriously considering buying some vegan alternative ("sheese") so I'm not sure I'm quite selfless enough to cut much more out of my diet.

My sister (16 years younger than me so I remember this stage with her) had horrible eczema and lots of food sensitivities/intolerances/allergies. Is my Mum right when she says the difference between the intolerances and the allergies is that the sensitivities make the eczema worse, whereas the allergies just get vomited straight back at you? I remember rushing my sis to hospital a couple of times due to mouth swelling/repeated vomiting and am terrified of going through the same with SweetPea. Still - the other option is keeping her on breastmilk alone indefinitely, which isn't really an option.

Anyway, we're now a week in and SweetPea has sucked/gummed on pear and sweet potato (proper tastes) and sucked raw apple & carrot (probably gets a hint of a taste but not much). I think it'll be a slow process, but that's fine.

chaps, can i ask you for a favour? i've copied and pasted your conversation so far into another document in the BLW and Allergies section. if you wouldn't mind continuing your conversation there then it means that other women searching for allergy stuff will find it easier to benefit from your wisdom. cheers.

With an allergy, they react within 30 minutes (rash, vomit, hives etc...); with an intolerance it's greater than 30 minutes. That's the definition that's been given to me and I think it makes sense.

aaaaargh! i missed this. be a sport and re-do it on The New Allergies Thread, will ya?

loooook, over on the left. brand new for you.

Just wanted to pop on and say hello - I've been lurking here for AGES!

I'm a part-time SAHM to my cloth bummed, breastfed, BLW'd, baby Isabelle Fleur who was six weeks premature - only long term issues from that are a touch of reflux, very sensitive skin and sensitive lungs (every cold gets her wheezing fit to burst!) but otherwise she's generally very healthy! She was born 8th April so is just coming up to her 1st birthday, has 4 teeth but not interested in crawling, standing or walking yet, too much other stuff to do!!

We wanted to do BLW straight away but were advised due to her being prem we should start with purees...
Well nuts to that - so we did what I now know to be bad which was a combination and her first food was the slightly bad choice of a slippery tinned peach slice!

Now she's fully BLW'd and the only things she has on a spoon are porridge or yogurt...

Favourites at the moment are peas and sultanas with crumpets and cheese chunks coming a close second!

I love feeding her this way as I can just leave her to get on with it - and means we can eat lunch etc together!

The nursery she's at three days a week are thankfully very supportive and she feeds herself there too as they don't mind the mess!

I really didn't think I'd becoming such a "hippie" mum but being quite environmentally conscious as a person anyway (although not very virtuous about it!!) I have just been doing what came naturally...

What else - oh yes we also love using slings but use the buggy too... (DH included - he now prefers the sling!)

I'll probably continue to lurk lots but having signed up for a reader account can comment now!

Steph

welcome steph, you old hippy...

Just listened to the interview with AK & GR. It made me shout at the computer. AK seems like a fool. Does she really think we just give our babies lychee stones to choke on & then wonder out the room! Her comments were all rather inflammatory. Still she does have a multi million pound career to protect! Plus, I wonder how she got that stick up her arse?

she is quaite poshe, isn't she? that interview makes me hoot with laughter, i must say. gill rapley just seems so sensible and clever in it and annabel... well, she does get rather worked up about that lychee stone.

It was a very funny interview. AK was enraged at the thought of people failing to give their babies pureed butternut squash with pear (I mean, who would actually eat that?). Gill was wonderfully calm and intelligent. Yay!

Funny, I listened to that interview this weekend too!
AK was clearly not listening to the findings...and seemed not to notice that this research was conducted by GR through UNICEF - not some crackpot super-hippy naturist!!
Shame it was such a quick piece - GR had to talk very quickly in order to get the good info in!

Sounds hilarious - what was it on? BBC so I can 'listen again'? I usually hate those 'let's get two people at such extremes of a subject in a studio together and see if they splutter themselves into a fist fight' interviews, but when it's something so close to my heart... ;-)

Lindygirl - it was a Woman's Hour piece. Aitch has added a link in the 'Some Interesting Links' box ----->
x

I listened to the interview too - really interesting and positive that BLW is being discussed more in the mainstream.
AK comments to BLW are that of someone who does not understand the facts and principals and therefore her reactions were knee jerk and uneducated! I am sure if she was to give it a little more time she would understand the benefits and understand that we mothers would not put our babies at risk on a trendy hippy whim.....

Or am I being too optomistic...

Maybe it is fear that is driving her comments and the possible reduction in book sales?

Either way at least she is an advocate of healthy eating for babies/children and that is a good thing!

It was the first time I had listen to GR, extremely articulate and very very interesting.

Hi

I have just started BLWing (been doing it for 1 week, ds is 6 months and 1 week!).

A couple of times (with pear and toast) he has gummed off really large bits into his mouth. I have panicked a bit - especially with the piece of pear which was practically the size of his mouth! In fact with the pear I tried to get it out, but then was worried about pushing it further in - he clamped his mouth shut and wouldn't let me in (sensible child) - got him out of the high chair and gave him a clap on the back and then 30 seconds later calmly pushed it out. I think he was fairly calm, I was so worried I wasn't really noticing. Is this a normal part of BLWing, as he is so new to it I wasn't sure what to do. With the toast it broke into bunch of bits and he gagged a bit and I was worried. Am I panicking too much!!! I thought they would gum a small bit off in an orderly fashion!

Thanks (hope this question is in the right bit)

Hi there Palekatya.

Pretty much everyone here knows exactly how you feel - we've all had long discussions about gagging and choking-related panic!
Personally, I would say if your son is still at the early stage of breaking off big bits then you are doing the right thing by watching him like a hawk...but if he is calm and seems reasonably in control, then don't worry about jumping straight in. The gagging he does is a reflex to prevent big pieces from moving to the back of his mouth, thus keeping him safe by preventing him from getting into a choking situation. As he grows bigger and more experienced that gagging reflex will be triggered further and further back. At the moment he will probably gag quite a bit because the reflex is still quite close tot he front of his mouth. Don't let it worry you - he is learning to move food around in his mouth and break it up. He will get better at it surprisingly quickly! Suddenly one day in a couple of months you will notice that he just seems to have stopped. (also see Aitch's article 'That Gagging Thing...')

If he starts choking it will look very different, and you will know. If you're really worried, then make sure you've at least read about what to do, or see if you can do a basic infant resus course. Your HV might be able to point you in the right direction.

For now, just make sure his food is reasonably squishy, so that if he bites a big piece off he will be able to break it up - e.g. ripe pear rather than firm pear, or if it is very firm food like meat, give him big pieces that he can not fit whole into his mouth. You can experiment more as you and he become more confident and experienced.

Hope that helps.

(And guys, does that sound about right??!)

Size - as they say - isn't everything. But I found it did make a difference with early BLW. If you give your baby really quite astonishing large bits of food, they're easier for him to handle, and he can gum away at them to explore texture and taste without too much of that tricky bits-in-the-mouth business. I found that food worked best if it was at least as large as my thumb (is this in Gill Rapley? I think so...) So pear or apple, lightly steamed or microwaved would be a quarter of a small one, a sixth of a large one, but not too tapered. Carrots - a 2-3 inch length of the end of a FAT carrot.

I have a clear memory of a friend's baby between 6 and 12 months with an entire peeled apple. He could pick it up with both hands, suck juice out of it, grate tiny fragments off with his budding teeth, but no way could he get chunks into his mouth. Kept him busy for AGES...

sound perfect thell, altho i have to say that josh could cram virtually anything in his mouth, and did lol - think whole baby rice cakes etc lol

cloviscat, i hadnt thought about giving him apple like that, shame cos josh would have loved that when he was just starting out, hes always liked apple. thats after dinner sorted for today tho, should keep him busy while i carry on with a bit of cleaning!

Hi there,
like the rest of the ladies, i found that Babybear did better with larger pieces of food in the beginning. I think that the temptation is to interpret the chip size as a french fry, but no, an enormous great hunk is often better, somthing that they couldn't get in their mouth whole but can nibble and suck bits off. try not to fly into a panic if they've got something in their mouth though, certainly in Babybear's case as long as i left her to it she just let it drop out when she realised it was too big to go any further.

Thanks for all your help and advice ladies. It is reassuring as my friend who is also BLWing here says her little one has only been getting little bits in her mouth. I guess my boy is just a bit over-enthusiastic - he really goes for it - the bit of pear I gave him was bigger than my thumb but he just broke a bit off - he has only been eating solids a week and he has loved everything I have given him and really goes for it. Today he had a banana and gummed off big bit and then another immediately after so I took a deep breath and he just pushed them both out one after the other!!!

For an experiment I put some mashed up avocado on a plastic plate for him to stick his hands in and scoop it up (like he has enthusiastically done with hummus) but instead he picked up the plate to his mouth and sucked the avocado off like the plate was a giant spoon!!!!

Anyway thanks, I feel better and more positive and I am going to refresh myself on the re-sus stuff and stay calm!

Kathryn/Palekatya

Just listened to this. GR was VERY good she managed to make a lot of interesting points. AK was totally obsessed with choking. I was interested in what she had to say about a babies diet but it's a wonder any of her children ever ate real food at all with the choking obsession. I think she should come to see all our babes merrily chomping away - although she'd probably pass out when one of them gagged a piece of food back. I thought it is a good sign that BLW is reaching Radio 4 as it's clearly becoming more mainstream. Although I do think I'm quite a mainstream mummy myself, just a rather lazy one!

I probably should have made a new post on this, but has anyone visited AK's site? There is a thread on there about BLW (lol) I only joined so I could join in on this thread!

I'm just listening to the interview and I'm :o by it! She really is right the way up her own backside isn't she?!

Is anyone going to the Babyshow in May at the NEC? I'm thinking of getting a BLW T-Shirt for it and heckling her demo :>

OK, I wouldn't be that bad, but it sounds like fun! Anyway, a BLW meet at the show could be fun...?

I saw her at teh Baby Show in Glasgow when Babybear was about three months old and I'd only just heard about BLW. being honest, seeing her was one of the things that made me more determined to find out about BLW, she was just sooo bossy. I mean the accent would get on your nerves for starters, but there were lines of women queuing up to ask her the most arcane questions about sieving apricot purees. and i just felt... i dunno, like she wasn't my kind of person, like she was making things needlessly complicated while preaching that hers was the easier way and preferable to jars. (this was before she'd brought out her own range, i hasten to add.) her way is prefereable to jars, i'm sure... but it struck me that just iving the baby some food was probably the easiest of all.

I saw her at the Baby Show in Glasgow when Babybear was about three months old and I'd only just heard about BLW.

being honest, seeing her was one of the things that made me more determined to find out about BLW, she was just sooo bossy. I mean the accent would get on your nerves for starters, but there were lines of women queuing up to ask her the most arcane questions about sieving apricot purees. and i just felt... i dunno, like she wasn't my kind of person, like she was making things needlessly complicated while preaching that hers was the easier way and preferable to jars. (this was before she'd brought out her own range, i hasten to add.)

her way is preferable to jars, i'm sure... but it did strike me that just giving the baby some food was probably the easiest of all.

This has nothing to do with the previous posts, but I kinda need the rant, and thought maybe someone has some useful tips...
I am getting a bit frustrated with the whole feeding thing, because it always seems that my Bebe isn't eating quite as much as I'd hope/believe he needs. We always let him dictate how much is enough, but many times he just plain refuses any food we put in front of him. Or, frustratingly more so, he will only take sweet stuff - yoghurt with fruit, rice pudd... Very infuriating!!! Help! Please! Anyone...

Sausage is the same in that she doesn't eat a great deal unless it is pears/raspberries/grapes/sultanas/peas/sweetcorn etc etc. As you can see she is much more inclined to eat the sweeter foods too.
If I worry about the amount she eats I try to remind myself of the 'until they're one it's just for fun' thing. I keep offering up savory food & I think eventually she will start to eat more of it. Maybe I'm just being an eternal optimist but I think me stressing is not going to change anything anyway. Obviously next time she is weighed I will have a bit of Mummy anxiety 'oh, she doesn't eat enough' blah blah blah but then it subsides. I think it's probably more important that they enjoy the experience of eating & the rest will come. Hopefully others will write supporting messages agreeing with me or failing that they have some bright ideas/magic wand to make our babies want to stuff themselves silly with roast dinner & such.
How old is Bebe? Sausage is just over 10 months.

i can imagine that is stressful for you, but you know that as long as you're not cutting back on milk then the baby will be okay with bits and bobs. did you have a look at the FAQ? it says there that a lot of the babies from the Yahoo BLW group really didn't get the hang of it until a year.

oh, and EBM and formula is so sweet that i am always surprised when babies eat anything savoury at all. Babybear did, to be fair, but her preference is generally towards sweet. However, i do count peas as being sweet, or roast veggies, if you know what i mean, so i put loads of them in front of her. have you tried roast sweet potato?

There are good reasons why babies love sweet stuff: BM and formula are sweet because babies neet all those sugars (and the fats that go with them) to do that very unique developing trick in the first year: tripling their body weight in 12 months. Doubling their brain size and forming all those neural links. Expanding their skull. *Creating* muscles from next to nothing. There is no other period in their lives when they will grow like this. The growth spurts of puberty just expand what's already there (oo-er missus). But this is forming body, brain and bone, and it needs a different diet than we're used to: tons of sugars, loads of fats.

Plus... it's thought that by being so sensitive to sweet things (even a baby's taste buds are different) it helps babies avoid getting poisoned. 6-12 months is when babies start eating. It's also when most start crawling and in caveman days they'd start finding bits of plants etc and putting them in their mouths. In nature bitter=poison and babies will tend to spit out bitter things faster than anyone. Survival mechanism.

Like Aitch and the others, I try to trust my baby and work with her instincts. Carrots and parsnips can be as sweet as any fruit. Roasting veg always makes them taste sweeter. Cherry tomatoes make a pasta sauce which tastes like you've shovelled sugar into it (I based mine on something by Nigel Slater - I'll look it back if I ever survive the Easter holidays). You can make little sandwiches with things like banana to get a bit of bread into them, and don't be afraid to let them mix and match their foods: Beeble can go from strawberries to broccoli and back again during the course of a dinner.

Oh - and like so many others around here, she adores Clementines and even ate Ugli Fruit this week! I see that as positive, because she's having a go at something sweet and a bit tart at the same time.

Off for a jolly holiday - speak to you all soon.

Cloviscat

Minky has always had a preference for the sweet. It wasn't until she was one that I really worried about it ("once they're one, it's not blimmin' fun anymore"). My wise old mum suggested putting bits of gravy with her mashed potato and she got the taste for meat that way. She ate it off our forks (always far more tasty from Mummy's fork!). This morning (at 15 months old) she has just eaten half a rasher of bacon! They get there when they are ready. I think molars have helped Minks, but it may just be a coincidence.

Bebe has just turned one, and I live in the eternal hope that one of these days, he'll wake up and eat... He actually waits for me to get home from work to have a drink of milk, having had no more than a few sips of cow's milk or water during the day! He is a bit of a nitpicker... Thank you for the support! I will try the gravy for the taste of meat, and guess will just continue to plonk food in front of ds and hope for the best... His daddy is a meat and potatoes only kind of guy, and I don't want Bebe to grow up with that inclination. But I also don't want to make food a battleground.

Me again. I feel that I was a bit flippant in my earlier post. I think cloviscat's post is very helpful and sensible. There is a whole thread around here somewhere entitled "Now they're One" or something similar. I think most of us had a little think about what we were doing when they hit their first birthdays.

I know 15 month olds that are still basically surviving on breastmilk. Minky is a grazer and will have five similar sized meals a day rather than the traditional three meals/two snacks. And she's much more interested in eating from our plate even though her's contains the same food.

You seem to be doing all the right things particularly in not making food into a battle.

Hiya
The reason babes often favour sweet things initially is because of an inbuilt safety mechanism lol Anything edible that is poisonous has a bitter taste which is why babes are born liking sweet things and ergo breastmilk is sweet.

Bitter tastes often take longer for baby to accept and get used to due to this natural defence system (ie and learning they are safe).

Often you will read in typical weaning books (and I think the NHS 0-5 book mentions it) that you may need to offer your child something new upto 20 times before they like it. The mistake I made with my first was to avoid cooking things not liked because of the waste. Obviously this is much more likely to happen with mush weaning (which is how my first met solids) as chances are you're not going to be sitting down yourself to several cubes of spinach and butternut squash puree!
Once on finger foods where meals were served regardless, the not liked stuff was licked and discarded, then licked and nibbled until gradually it was added to the like list.

Breastfed babes are often more open to bitter tastes earlier because they experience them via breastmilk before solids are introduced. As formula fed babes dont have this there is a lot of weaning info stressing not to give sweet if baby rejects sour as this can lead to a sweet palate. I haven't read enough to know whether this is a genuine issue with AF babies or whether as I suspect it takes longer for them to accept bitter tastes due to their unchanging milk prior to that (and if you've tasted it you will know exactly what I mean lol)

As long as a balance of both is offered I wouldn't stress, these babies change so quickly this weeks hot favourite can be next weeks wont touch.

I've noticed that IzzyMouse, who loves tomatoes as much as I hate them, seems to get red patches round her mouth when she's eating them. This isn't juice staining, it's like sunburn. It goes quite quickly after she's finished using them as a face pack, and doesn't seem to have any other symptoms. A mild allergy? Intolerance? Something else I haven't thought of yet? Anyone else come across this?

You mean like Madelief on this photo? She's eating aubergine there and she does get red mildly irritated cheeks when she does that. I've never worried about it - it's probably just irritation, caused by the juices. Or does it look much worse than this?

Hi Mij,

BabyRed gets this with cherry tomatoes and strawberries - but not with strawberry yoghurt (with real strawberries in it!), ordinary tomatoes or sauces made with tinned tomatoes. Not sure what to suggest. I did think about avoiding them but I don't think it's an allergy/ intolerance thing because of the lack of symptoms with similar ingredients. Maybe the ascorbic acid is just a bit strong in some veg/ fruit? According to my Dad (a keen gardener and tomato grower) some varieties of toms have a lot more vit C than others. which could explain the specific cherry tomato problem we have.

Will stand corrected though if allergy experts can shed some light!

We haven't tried tomatoes yet, but Megan has eczema and since we started BLW she's developed almost 'fangs' of eczema around her mouth - just little red circle patches - two above her top lip and two below her bottom lip, all near the corners of her mouth. Bizarre.

This is very, very common. I think tomato is particularly acidic and lots of babies react in this way. We avoided it until Minky was 8 months old. Sometimes she reacts to it and sometimes she doesn't. She certainly doesn't like it very much.

Tomato is part of the deadly nightshade family along with potato, pepper and aubergine. Some parents avoiding giving little ones these vegies until they are one.

I've never had it with Babybear, but then if I hand her a raw tomato she licks it and then drops it as it she's been scalded... so I don't know what that means. Maybe she feels it might cause a reaction, maybe she just hates raw tomato. Bless her, she usually goes back to try it again four or five times during the meal but it's the same reaction every time.

That's really helpful everyone, thank you. I didn't read the allergicky sequence until it was way too late and had pretty much introduced everything already (oops - negligent parent... again). IzzyMouse's red patches aren't nearly as pronounced as wee Madelief's, and it really doesn't seem to bother her which is why I was so loath to cut tomatoes out. Particularly as Tomato is the new Courgette in our house, and we're currently going through a Only Tomato And Maybe Some Pitta Bread With Philadelphia If I'm Really Pushing The Boat Out phase.

Moomin, well I'll be darned, deadly nightshade family? She hasn't reacted to the other veg so far but I'll be keeping an eye.

I guess this sort of qualifies as a 'poll type question', but it's also a current issue for us. Bat's fabulous sweetcorn pattie things, lovingly crafted by yours truly, was just swiped off the table with a look of disdain (I'll admit they were a bit eggy, totally my fault, but they weren't *that* bad). As that was pretty much all I had in the house, having just returned from Easter break, I was forced to fall back on those outrageously expensive Moon Biscuits, which IzzyMouse laid waste to.

So, I guess my question is, when the meal you've planned is refused, do you offer more stuff? What, and for how long? Until you hit on the thing the LO will eat? Do you fall back on the thing you know they love? If madame was a toddler, I'd be saying 'well I'm afraid that's all there is', assuming I was fairly confident she usually liked said meal, or at least its constituent parts. I know we're not supposed to worry about quantity, but the 'well that's it, you'll be going to bed with no supper' approach felt a little harsh. Particularly as she'll probably make up for it with feeds in the night (saints preserve us, will they ever end...)

Shut up shut uuuuup. am re-posting as a poll type question Right Now.

Sorry Aitch, suitably reprimanded, I now understand how the random thoughts folder works, was looking for a 'poll type questions' folder. But it's a post. In my defence, we're not getting a whole load of kip here.

If she won't have anything at all, I tend to offer something else. But I do go for something to replace the meal like bread and cheese. If she's had a go, then we move on to pudding. Then we wait until the next snack/meal.

She did refuse to eat any lunch the other week (stuff I knew she really likes) and then got out of her highchair, saw a museli bar and shouted for it. She didn't get it and was very cross (tantrums here we come).

pay attention at the back, moomin. there's a poll now, specially for Mij.

Not when I posted...harumph! I shall copy and paste immediately.

Oooh, what a good breakfast! As Mink drags her sppon through the bowl, the damp krispies get stuck to it. How satisfying for a new spooner. She's got really bored of porridge so we are experimenting. Corn flakes, okay, but a bit BIG for tiny mouths. Weetabix, okay, but not so easy to spoon yourself. I'm going to get some puffed wheat, too.

Sounds like a great idea. Am toying with the idea of giving minimoo a spoon but not sure I can deal with the mess. Rice Crispies would be a good start. Gave him cornflakes on holiday as it was all that was in and he loved them, sat there happily picking them out of the bowl.

I know you're way ahead of us in the blw experience stakes, and your post is about spooning (go Minky, btw) but we discovered IzzyMouse could do weetabix and cornflakes by hand (by accident, she made a dive for a bowl we though was out of reach. Twice.) and thought might be handy for anyone else running out of breakfast ideas.

Break aforemention biscuits into chunks, dampen with milk of your choice (getting really lazy at expressing so tends to be soya - oooh, how controversial at only 10 months...) and voila! Flakey bits just sticky enough to not be like eating cardboard and just dry enough to stay in one piece. And cornflakes - just fish out the smaller flakes and wash around in a small pool of milk on the table. Although that's less successful, I have to admit - they tend to just go round the mouth washing-machine style a few times before coming out again and being deposited on madame's bib. You know, for later...

Proud mummy moment! We were having a picnic in the park, Weeble had his lovingly prepared organic lunch (OK, philly sandwiches and a banana) and we raided M&S. He made an attack on the chicken and bacon salad I was having, and plowed through about half a bowl - USING A FORK!!!!

Given that I never feed him with a fork (well, the puree falls through the prongs...) and he's barely seen one, I was very impressed.

Of course, then he combed his hair with it and stuck it in his ear, but it's a start!

How clever of Weeble to comb his hair with the fork! I'm impressed and not just by his combing his hair but of course by his actually using the fork to eat. Well done Weeble!

I'm slightly scared of committing this to text in case she was just a figment of my imagination, but our new HV was over the moon to hear that IzzyMouse was feeding herself and always had done. So sympathetic HVs do exist. And madame was slap bang in the centile she was at birth, when weighed this morning at her development assessment. So the two mouthfuls of grub she has at eat meal plus BF is clearly doing the trick.

Feel slightly anti-climactic now. Was quite looking forward to the argument I was anticipating.

How fantastic - they do exist and well done IzzyMouse!

My health visitor (I have now narrowed it down to a choice of one or two that I will see out of the ones at my clinic) has been fantastically supportive of BLW, BF and all the other choices I have made - I must be one of the lucky ones....But Xaviers results can not be desputed - he is still on the percentile he was born on - so they can't argue really!

Mind you I did have one mad old cow of a health visitor to begin with who told me when my crazy little one did not sleep at night to stop breastfeeding and to feed him a bottle (at 6 weeks!) - when I argued NO - she tried to press it, until I told her to politely SHUT UP!!! Luckily I am part of the very friendly local breast feeding mafia and she is well known for this malarky so that made me feel more sane and now we warn everyone not to see her!

Congrats again!

Hello everyone.

Hope this is ok here.

I've been coming up with some designs for clothes that I want to stick onto Cafe Press for different things - for example, a premature slogan for Tink who is so tiny yet doing what she should "Don't judge a baby by her clothes size" and I have a cute pic to go with it.

Anyway, I want to do one for BLW. I've drawn a kewl picture of a baby holding a stick of brocolli and need some ideas for slogans to go with it.

Tinkerbelle's Mum

oh gawd i'm shite at this sort of stuff. my norty self says 'BLW - giving purees the finger' but not only does it barely make sense i wouldn't dare let a child of mine wear it...
you know that bunny has a BLW t-shirt on her mileformaude site? i'll get her to post the link.

Tink's Daddy said I couldn't put "Say NO to spoons!" Not sure why. I like the norty one, but not sure I'd put Tink in it either lol.

Did someone call? ;-)

Lots of BLW stuff (and some groovy bags!)

All proceeds to FSID, by the way

not sure of the exact wording but maybe something along the lines of 'Trees vs mush? no contest!

probably hasn't helped at all!

S x

that's a good idea. what about a pic of broccoli and the caption 'my baby eats trees'? or something...

what, like "my baby eats trees and leaves". No, that doesn't make sense, what am I on about?

Oooh - I'd been thinking of the 'Spoon-free Zone' road sign thingy.

Mush free zone?
Puree free zone?
Baby Led Weaning - It's Quite a Mouthful
Baby Led Weaning - You've Got to Hand it To Us (Hmm...)
Baby Led Weaning - Giving Feeding a Big Hand! (Double Hmm)
I can feed myself - how about you?
If I can hold it - I'll eat it!
Be Baby Led - It's Weaning with More Meaning

Now you can see why I'd never have made a career in advertising...
Cloviscat

Oh, I love "You've Got to Hand It to Us". I'd buy one of those.

just had a brain wave whilst feeding Bubs (takes a while for me brain to warm up these days!) - what about 'Trees vs pulp....' more in keeping with the tree theme than mush!

S x

pmsl at 'if i can hold it, i'll eat it.'

Seconding pmsl at that one

cloviscat, I think you've missed your vocation.

Adding a slight variation on the 'say no to spoons', to the more wishy washy but less controversial 'who needs spoons?'

shame you didn't have a picture with peas, cos then you could do the 'give peas a chance' old favourite.

Possibly 'Think babies need mush? Stick this in your blender and puree it'. Hmm, doesn't quite work. Back to the drawing board. [wanders off muttering about how she used to be able to whip up an elegant phrase at will...]

Wow, I got a few replies to that one! The one I drew (that SO doesn't like the wording to) is "Say NO to spoons!" with the O crossed through and a spoon inside. Plus a really cute drawing of Tinker Belle holding up a stick of brocolli. Underneath I put "I'm a Baby Led Weaned Baby!" and for the brave (two designs) "Just ask Mummy!" to give an opening to talk about it.

I searched BLW on Cafe Press yesterday and didn't come up with anything. I like those designs though :)

I just thought I would add Tesco are selling a sleeved bib with a pig on and words along the lines of "I can feed myself"! I had to buy it lol!

I posted this as a reply to another blog post, but thought this might be a better place for it, as it is a bit of a new person hello too.


Hi, I'm new to the blog, but just wanted to add something. I have noticed the odd comment about people being worried that their babies are getting enough to eat when they are refusing food. Well my son Euan is 9 months old and has been falling down the grown curves since about 5 months. We have been seeing a paediatrician about it, and I point blank asked him if it was anything to do with the fact that he has always refused anything off a spoon, is very fussy about texture, and he spits out the vast majority of what he gets into his mouth.

He said, no.

He was more concerned that something else (like a gluten allergy) might be causing both the poor weight gain and the lack of appetite/avoidance of certain foods. If it were a simple fact that he wasn't getting enough calories from solids, he would be dramatically increasing his demand for milk - which he hasn't done.

So we can stop worrying and just let them eat if they are hungry and not eat much if they are not!

I really hope its not anything to do with gluten though, as those gluten free diets look a right pain - especially as he also has a cows milk intolerence.

Katy

cheers, katy, thanks for that. welcome to the site, we'll see you around hopefully.

Hello Katy
I read your post with interest as Sausage has also been sliding down the centile charts since about 8 wks! She is now 11 months & has gone from 75th centile to 10th. What does the paediatrician do, is it just a case of monitoring or do they run a load of tests or what? So far I have ignored the HV's withering looks at her chart as the Sausage seems generally well & alert/I was small as a child etc. What made you decide to go to the DR?

They are doing some blood tests at the moment for Coeliacs disease (gluten intolerence), as my brother has it, and if he had that it might mean he is not absorbing much nutrition from his food. If that turns out to be negative, I'm not sure if they will want to do more tests for other stuff. Will just have to wait and see.

I do think I will ask for him to be referred to someone about his eating though, as I wonder if he has a problem with swallowing, as he loves putting food into his mouth, but he spits the vast majority out. I wonder if the vomiting from the milk intolerence he has might have caused irritation in his gullet?

Katy

oh the poor poppet, katy. i was a bit like that myself when i was wee, i'm told. it started when i was a year old and i would cram food in and then spit it out. they took my tonsils out (a very 70s op) and my glands stopped being so swollen and i started eating again. even now if i get sick my throat hurts to buggery if my glands swell up. maybe that's worth asking about too, along with the other stuff? good luck.

Has anyone got any ideas how to get fluids into a baby that isn't too bothered with drinks and not asking for the breast?

Ice! Babybear loves nothing more than an ice cube, it's a great source of distraction when we're out at a cafe or whatever. also things like cucumber, which i'm glad to say that she now likes again, are intrinsically very watery, or frozen slices of orange etc. to be honest i used to worry about Babybear being dehydrated when we first started but it took a bit of a heatwave last year to encourage her to get the gist of it. also no valved cups, just freeflow, or sit the baby on your lap and let them drink from your cup. they'll get soaked, but some will go in.

This slightly sore point, not long started BLW, dd is just short of 6 months (25 weeks) but as can sit up totally unaided and was trying to swipe my food i figured we'd try. However I had started with just the 1 meal a day because she stuffs so much food in her mouth that she fills her tummy up for hours, dropping 2-3 bfeeds during the day,more than 1 meal and she wakes up starving often during the night (having previously slept through)and her nappies full of the undigested stuff next day. However, due to unforeseen emergency hospital trip yesterday she stayed at her grandmother's for the day. Trying to explain about BLW over the previous few months was bad enough, actually basic child nutrition (honey icecream, chocolate and mint vienetta to a 4 month old?!!) So was nervous but needs must. MIL so proud that she'd eaten 4 meals! (they picked her up at 7 and we fetched her at 4). Needless to say she'd not had much milk and woke me 5 times in night for feeds.

Did this sort of thing happen to anyone else?
Should I wait til stuff seems to be being digestedat least a bit before upping no. of meals?
On slightly unrelated point is it defeating the point of BLW if the MIL is sat handing each piece to her instead of letting her pick it up herself?Doesn't that partially bypass the protective developmental thing? On this I am confused

sorry so long, kinda upset and tired
still won't let me register to log in {what'm I doing wrong Aitch}
Eli and Munchkin

gawd i've got no idea, but your name came up so i assume that you were secretly logged in...

i wouldn't worry about passing food etc, principally because i wouldn't worry about any of it... that's the truth. it's not a hard and fast system, all this, it's all about how you want things to be and how your baby responds so don't stress about it At All.

Personally speaking, Babybear didn't cut back her milk for ages but then it took me months to get me up to three meals a day. clearly you're not in that much of a hurry yourself. On the other hand, had i given her 4 meals (!) i'm quite sure that she wouldn't have had much room left. it sounds like your MiL was being a bit of a show-off, if you ask me. my mum's kinda the same, but Babybear loves her and in the scheme of things it's not a huge problem if she comes back covered in chocolate (ggrrrrrr) but who cares, we can go back to doing our own thing.

maybe don't wait til stuff seems to be digested, i wouldn't have thought. if she's anything like my child you'll be waiting a long time. but equally, don't be in a massive hurry, just suit yourselves.

I hand Tinkerbelle things sometimes, usually when we've not got a high chair where ever we are or to encourage her to eat some more - I play a game when she slows down, I pick something up and say "can Mummy have this one?", usually she takes it off me and eats it. She then speeds up the rate so that I can't nick any of her food! For some reason though, she is more than willing to share with my sister!

Thanks. thats very reassuring, much appreciated. I've always handed her a piece of food once if it's something new she doesn't recognise, she doesn't seem to understand that if its on the table in front of her its most likely food and thus edible! After that I leave her to her own devises. Though to be fair she was so clingy yesterday we ended up back at dd on my knee for meal and basically she ate mine and I ate hers! I like your game Tinkerbelle,might try it in a little while. This site has been a godsend.
I got my name to come up by putting it in the box that says 'if you want to post contact details on comment put name here and email here'still not logged in though, heyho never mind

re the waking up, it could be a developmental thing, theres usually a huge growth spurt at around 6 months i think. ive noticed josh waking up earlier in the mornings, ive put this down to it being light earlier.

On slightly unrelated point is it defeating the point of BLW if the MIL is sat handing each piece to her instead of letting her pick it up herself?Doesn't that partially bypass the protective developmental thing?

according to the Gill Rapley research, yes it does bypass the 'if they cant pick it up they are not ready to eat it' although, i have to admit that i have handed stuff to joshua, altho thats normally when hes being fussy and its stuff i know hes had in the past and can pick up. i always let him pick up new stuff first, and if he couldnt i would try again at a later date.

I only hand her stuff I know she is capable of picking up. She seems to want the reassurance that thats what she's supposed to be doing, after that she is fine picking it up herself.

see, i think i've always interpreted that as 'if they can't manipulate it into their mouths' rather than strictly pick it up, if you know what i mean? although i'm not sure that i've ever handed things to Babybear apart from the odd time... but i know my mum has as she simply cannot resist fussing over the baby. in the absolutely nicest possible way, of course.
in the scheme of things, i think that having grandma as on-side as possible is much to our benefit so i don't bother much what she does so long as she's not being dangerous or hugely counter to the BLW thing.

i suppose its all down to our own interpretation of Gill Rapley's words isnt it.

exactly, jeni, it totally is. that, and what we're comfortable with doing as well as what works for us and the babies. my gut feeling is that Gill Rapley wouldn't want anyone getting upset about doing BLW, if you know what i mean? so i try to keep that uppermost in my thoughts.

Hey there. I've been 'lurking' on this site for a while and have finally decided to dip my toe into the water so to speak and ask a question.
We bought a highchair without a tray so that Poggle can sit at the table with us for meals. He's just turned 9 months and is getting pretty good with the whole finger food malarkey, but I'm finding that more and more often he just scoops his lovingly prepared food onto the floor as there is no lip on the table the same as you would get on a highchair tray. I've tried a variety of so called suction bowls, but Poggle has so far made it his mission 'unsuction' every one of them in record time.
Any ideas/tips would be greatly appreciated!!

hello fuerte, welcome to the site.
i've tried the tommee tippee suction thing, it's rubbish so don't buy it if it's one you were thinking of buying.
i have a cheapo ikea chair with a lip, so i can't comment really. but if we're in a restaurant i find it best to ask for a really big, really flat plate, like a pizza plate if they have one as that has a slight lip but isn't too tip-uppable. hope someone else comes along with a better idea.

blooming marvellous do a table mat thing which is like a pelican bib for the table with a pouch. this means food thats swiped of table is caught and can be salvaged.haven't experimented with it yet, thats next week hopefully, if it arrives! will report back.
Eli and Munchkin
P.S. how big should a splatter mat under highchair be, ours was purchased by MIL, (appreciated greatly but turns out to be ineffectively small, hmm) just wondering how big a wipeable surface I really need to be looking for

ours was over a metre squared. don't panic, the devastation gets less horrifying as the weeks pass...

Splatter mats - I got a length of plastic runner from Wilkinson (the sort of thing you see protecting the entranceway carpet in church halls, if you know what I mean) for £1.99 and cut in half to give two mats about 1m by 80cm. This is big enough to catch most jetsam; the odd bit goes further, but I think that might be the case however big your splatmat!

Fuerteturtle, I love your name!

Our strategy so far has been just to give a small amount of food at a time and replace once it's been (mostly) eaten or when she obviously wants more (staring at her out-of-reach plate and going "Ba!"). If she has a lot in front of her - say, more than about four or five pieces - she seems to see the pile as play material instead of foodstuff, and just bats it about and swipes it off the table, while if she just has a few bits at a time she concentrates on them more.

Oh and I agree, don't bother with the Tommee Tippee suction thing - about as much use as a chocolate stairgate.

i there,

agree about the tommee tippee thing. Utterly useless. I have got a blooming marvelous mat thing but that only stops food that they swipe in front of them. I just use a largish plastic plate and don't pile it up with too much food. I have found thought, as time goes on, that the urge to lurch and swipe has lessened. We have had two meals today with nothing on the floor which is a blooming miracle. I don't think it is just a problem with highchairs like this. My friend has a highchair with a tray and her little boy drops things over the side with a "bye bye". Very, very funny (not for her obviously).

Good luck,
Tracy

Thanks for the ideas. Will try a large flat plate and only put a few bits on at a time.
As for the splatter mat, I just got a very cheap tesco value shower curtain and I throw it in the washing machine when it gets really icky!!

When could your LOs be trusted with crockery? IzzyMouse is going bonkers when denied the joy of waving a bowl or plate around. I don't mind the inevitable mess (I've taken to using two recepticles - one with a few bits on for her to tip over her head and the other for me to keep the rest of the meal safe), it's the breakage possibility. As she won't entertain the idea of eating off anything that doesn't look like what I'm using, I'm currently using regular china. And I don't really fancy eating my tea off plastic plates. Hmmm.

I've bought a stack of very cheap melamine plates in a similar colour/style to our china ones and (so far) this has fooled DD. She also likes the sound they make when she bangs them against her seat.

Are those the ones like picnic stuff? Where did you get yours?

I got my melamine bowls from Sainsburys and I think they were 89p each - Tesco sell them too.

How funny, I read that as "that made me think about bowels". I just had to click. I too have two plates but pumpkin just wants what I have and recognises that I haven't got a blue/pink plastic number. Great idea about buying some plain white plastic plates that just look like normal ones. I have to say though, recently, although they still go on her head, they don't often end up on the floor.

Ummm in case anyone did as we did and followed the HVs advice and bought BABY RICE and now has it sitting in the cupboard, I have discovered it works the same as cornflower for custard/sauces etc.

And you thought it was only good for gluing up wallpaper

Thankyou. I've been staring at that packet all week wondering what to do with it!

I mixed mine with milk and ate it for dessert!! It's like a creamy semolina pudding. Yummy. :o)

I've borrowed a copy of the Gill Rapley DVD on BLW and I've just watched it.

I thought it was ... excellent!!!

Nice shots of real babies acting genuinely in real situations. Good explanation of the concepts of BLW and of the ages and stages.

A good, pain-free way to introduce the concept to HVs and a great resource for mums thinking of trying BLW and wanting to know more.

Only problem is the price: £30 for the single user version, £80 for the version licensed for showing to groups. Maybe people could persuade their local libraries or NCT branches to fork out?

Interested to know what anyone else thinks...



http://www.nctsales.co.uk/prodshow.asp?id=1197&cat=231&scat=290&parent=231

there's a small excerpt on the right hand side 'film clips' link, i think it looks good but it's far too expensive.

What do you do about yoghurt? Do you mix it with something or just leave it out all together?

When we first started I dipped a biscuit in it, she then gave it back to me to dip again. Eventually she got the idea and held her hand over the pot so I could turn her hand and dip it. This was a lot of effort and we haven't done it again.

I keep logging this blasted thing in and on the next page I'm logged out, shall wait and see if I am logged in on this post.

Tinkerbelle's Mum

This goes back to the spoons/spooning thing, doesn't it? For us, I reckon that anything I habitually eat from a spoon, the Nome can have from a spoon, but she does self-feed - I load yoghurt on to the spoon, hold it up, and she takes it off me and shoves it into her mouth. Sometimes she tires of this, but will continue to eat if I start to place the loaded spoon on her high chair tray. She's really getting the hang of feeding herself with the spoon, and I reckon that's still in the spirit of BLW.

Alternatively, you can add yoghurt to thickish pancake batter - it's really nice.

i've just waited until she could feed herself, to be honest, as i am so pathologically lazy that i couldn't even be bothered loading up a spoon for her. i figured, calcium-wise, that she'd just keep drinking milk on demand. she's been feeding herself youghurt for a few months now and she's 17 months old.

I've always offered her the spoon to play with, and loaded it for her and let her grab it. She's doing really well now (just turned 1) at loading it herself and eating yoghurt - don't get me wrong though, we've gone through an INCREDIBLY messy journey with this one and still it often descends into 'I'd rather just put my fingers in it and feel the texture' or turn the yoghurt pot (full I might add) upside down and chew on the pot. Bless her, when she gets hold of her fork and the yoghurt pot that is really quite funny..............

We also do the 'load the spoon and hand it to babe' method, and a lot mores goes in now than used to, although I do find greek yoghurt is by far the best for this as it's so much thicker. I felt it was worth sticking with as I can stick all sorts of fruit that defeat IzzyMouse otherwise (like passion fruit) into it and turn it into a really good pud. Oh, but I do my best to restrict yoghurt to tea time, or days on which she can eat almost naked. Otherwise we both spend the day smelling of slightly off dairy products.

We too try the 'loading up the spoon' method. LittleE though much prefers to stick her hands in the pot and scoop it up in her palms, or failing that she puts her facein and tries to drink it!! Can anyone tell me when this BLW thing gets slightly less messy???

I've tried loading spoons and handing it her, but she is still trying to hold the food, so that doesn't work! I've given her a spoon to play with or to keep her occupied while she's waiting for her food and she brushes her own teeth, so I'm hoping it's all training for using a spoon!

I'm thinking of mixing it with fruit or putting it on her Weetabix.

Tink's Mum

Here's a Random Thought: BLW means that I'm eating better than I would have done if Piglet was mush-fed. If our lunchtime routine was "defrost a pot and spoonfeed the baby", I don't know how many days of the week I'd be bothered to have anything more nutritious than a piece of toast or a chocolate bar myself. But because I have to sort out something relatively varied and nourishing for her, I can easily do the same for myself too. Not one of the benefits I was anticipating from BLW, but a good one all the same.

good though, eleanor. i bet you're right, you know.

Me too - partly because I'm finishing the half of a piece of fruit she doesn't eat, but also because she keeps going much longer if I'm sitting next to her eating a meal, as opposed to just sitting next to her. And I'm starting to feel guilty about the Nome seeing me adding salt to food - as I'm a bit of a junkie for this, there'll be some tough thinking to come...

Have very sore sides from laughing so much. Took DD to see HV (who is very strict power hungry bully IM(notsovery)HM).

DD still on 98th percentile. HV refrains from rebuking me on this matter since I told her last time that if she didn't stop going on about it I'd make sure we never came to see her again.

She asked about weaning. We explained that we were doing BLW. She'd never heard of it. So we told her it means that DD eats what we eat.

"I'm not sure that will work dear" (I nod my head)
"But you puree it surely?" (head shakes)
"Well you must at least mush it?" (head shakes)
"But babies can't eat real food" (head nods)
"But surely she chokes" (checks baby for blueness, baby is very pink and smiley, head shakes)
"But, but, but...honestly?" (head nods, pics of DD eating spag bol are whipped out.)

"Oh FGS I give up" (HV writes in red book 'mum has given baby human food)

We scarper, and retreat to the car to read what she's written....and laugh till our sides hurt.

HUMAN FOOD - what EXACTLY did they expect and what are the alternatives? Whiskas perhaps?

That's hilarious! Not sure Whiskas is appropriate - tends to be really quite lumpy these days (since they discovered cats can chew). Maybe some fish flakes?

On another matter - what's wrong with the 98th centile? Why is she rebuking you? The Nome has been on 99.6th or thereabouts since birth...

that's the funniest thing I've read in ages... are you waiting for the call from social services when she reports you for daring to give your baby 'human food'?
Blimey, some of these people are in the dark ages. It makes me seriously concerned, it really does. The nhs shouldn't allow HV to practice with such outdated ideas.

i love it. My HV just says that she hasn't heard of BLW and i say 'but i told you about it when she was four months old, remember, when you came down to give us our weaning talk?' I think i've told them all about it at the practice but if i see them (when dd goes for jabs, etc) they act as if it's Brand New Information every time. i know an HV wrote on here recently that she felt like HVs were getting a bad rap but really, we're only reporting the facts to be honest. some hvs are good, but some are idiots. human food... [derisive snort]

That's priceless! Must admit I chickened out when asked about weaning by the HV and said we were just doing finger food and she didn't bat an eyelid - just had an inkling that if I gave it a 'name' it would become a 'bad thing'.

By the way, what is the problem with 98th percentile? Minimoo has always been up in the 90s but the HVs never suggested it was a problem.

Off to show DH that we give our son 'human food'!!

She started on the 50th centile when she was born (with a calcified placenta)

I still don't get it, then - if I understand a calcified placenta right, it was it maybe not giving her as much nutrition as it might in the womb, so you've been feeding her brilliantly since birth and get rebuked?! Bah humbug...

Exactly! So she would have been 10lbs odd at birth had the placenta been okay, which is why I don't worry about her weight. But the HV does. She says it's her job. I replied: what, it's really your job to try and stress out mothers?

[************************ ] read that as jaw hitting ground, not knowing what to say, then laughing uncontrollably. Cheered my day up enormously - that is truly hilarious. Human food....ha ha ha ha ha.

(Right I'm pulling myself together now to prepare some human food for the Pickle).

On the 98th centile comment - I don't understand that one either. Surely that's a wonderful improvement on birth centile and proof that things are going well??? I thought the real worry was when centile kept dropping and dropping...... but then I think that giving human food to a child is normal and Robbie Williams is a god, so what do I know?!

Oh fantastic, it just gets better and better with [some] HVs, doesn't it. I'd be more worried about social services knocking at the door worried about cannibalism, with that comment...

I've been lurking on this site for a while but thought I'd tell you about my HV experience. DD is 5 months and I went to my health visitors 'weaning talk' - i was hoping she could provide more info regarding BLW but the talk was given by the cow and gate rep who she had invited along. He was more interested in promoting his beef and veg casserol slop (how do they manage to get it looking sooo much like pureed faeces???)than anything else. I was horrified as I looked around at all the new mums listening intently as he was saying that the jars were better than home cooked food as it keeps longer in the fridge.... I'm a midwife and know it's illegal for formula companies to have contact with patients directly... In the end I was so angry listening to the rep preaching out of date and wrong information that I had to lay into him with research and pro's of BLW. I'm glad to say that I had him stuttering by the end. However, my HV looked very pissed off with me. The good news is that a couple of the BF mums have spoken to me since in M&B and are really interested in BLW and are thinking of giving it a go.

More and more health professionals are becoming more aware of BLW - I went to a study day on Monday where Gill Rapley presented her work and recommendations on weaning - it was really well received. I honestly think in the next few years BLW will be more actively encouraged by HV.

i am HORRIFIED, absolutely horrified, that a C&G rep was at a weaning talk. did you complain to the practice manager? did i say i was horrified? i'm so not joking about this... that is a sodding disgrace.

I agree it is simply disgusting that the C&G rep should be involved. But then I was also horrified that when pregnant the midwives gave me a big pack full of free samples & flyers etc for products. At the time it seemed like I was being bombarded with advertising, though other Mothers I spoke to didn't seem to feel it was unethical. I think it is wrong that the nhs allow this type of thing.I wonder what sort of 'deals' the companies offer them in exchange for such direct selling.

Whilst doling out Small's pasta parcels of the little shells and lovely sauce (oh boy, the trouble I go to...), the thought struck me that these things come ready made in the form of yer tortellini / raviloi family.

So tonight I tried some tortellini. She picked one up daintily between finger & thumb, sneered at it and dropped it over the edge.

Anyone given these with any success - or are they too human?

Penne seems to work with us (actually DD will now wolf down any type of pasta, with or without sauce, it's the slurping she's interested in). Store bought tortellinis are too smooth for easy grips, penne have stripes down which makes them easier to handle. I've also been using the wholemeal versions because they are slightly coarser and easier to hold. Hope that helps. URL below shows DD eating lasagne.

Oh apparently you have to click on my username to get to the link.....

Penne is definitely a goer with us - easy to hold, but happy to report that Xavier loves tortellini, I tend to stir in a moderate amount of napolitana or arriabata sauce (whichever we have made) and finely grate some parmasan cheese. Mind you he is a fussy so and so at the mo, recently loving eggy noodles and now hating them with a passion!

Good luck!

We tried the shop bought variety and it went down fine, but it did have quite a sticky sauce with it (creamy cheesy kinda thing) which made it easier to hold and also great for squishing between fingers before dropping on the floor. Haven't got the patience to make it myself TBH. Fusilli still a firm favourite with IzzyMouse though, as it's very easy to hold and can be ripped apart with a satisfying ping, firing sauce in all directions.

Hi I haven't posted on here before so may make a mess of it, if so pls bear with me!!!
My little Bean is 4mnths and I had my HV over last fri for The Weaning Talk. Anyway I let her go on about purees, spoons etc for a while nodding politely throughout (Bean spent most of it sat on my lap actually yawning lol) After which I explained that Ive been doing loads of research into BLW and that is the avenue myself and DF have decided to pursue, when Bean gets to the 6 mnth mark. My HV was v supportive and said she thought it was a great idea and particularly suitable for BF babies etc.

I was pleasantly surprised, until she said "but you really MUST give baby rice for a few days at least, spooned in, as their first taste of solids MUST be bland". This seems to me to be completely & totally against the whole idea of BLW, so Im not sure she really understands it, anyhow, she went on to explain that if you dont give something basically bland and tasteless to start off with then babies can end up rejecting solids altogether. I dont mean to sound stupid here but I am a 1st time mam so have no experience at all of weaning of any kind....is this just complete clap trap or is it a possibility? I was under the impression that breastmilk changed tastes with whatever we eat so surely it is not bland?!?
(She also said if you dont spoon feed mash or baby rice BEFORE starting blw there is more of a risk of choking, but I know that is rubbish!!)
Just wanted to hear peoples thoughts really, thanks.

god looking at it now thats so loooong!! sorry! :(

LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Claptrapissimo! dumbest thing i ever heard, but you knew that already. Love the powerpuff girls by the way, buttercup's my favourite.

mine too! yes it did seem somewhat ridiculous to me to be honest! Had just never heard it before (prob because it is so ridiculous).

Really love this blog/site/page (whatever is the correct term!!) by the way, its brill :)

Nah, Piglet much prefers strong tastes and has done right from the start.

I am confused by this thing that a few people seem to have heard from their HVs, that there's a danger of babies "rejecting solids" if you get the early stage of weaning "wrong". As if they'll be on milk for the rest of their lives? Do those HVs honestly think that's what will happen, and if not why are they saying it?

In fact I do know one 9-month-old who is totally uninterested in solids, either mushed or fingerfood, but she's been given puree by the HV book all the way... (but she's quite healthy on formula, and luckily her mum is unbothered and says she'll eat when she's ready - which I have no doubt she will).

The Nome's first taste was an accidental orange segment. I thought I'd "pre-wean" by letting her smell and maybe lick whatever I was eating - had a battle on my hands to get it back off her once she'd snatched it, and she pretty much sucked it dry. And she eats absolutely anything she's given (apart from this morning's breakfast, but let's draw a veil over that)

Just want to return to this post about HVs telling people there's a "window of opportunity" for getting babies on to solids, because my friend whose 9-mth-old isn't interested in food (only formula, and she's fine and healthy on it) has been told that she "only has one month left" to get her baby eating, otherwise she's in danger of refusing food in the future (I mean wtf???). She has been told to restrict milk feeds to half their current level - that is, to give milk only half as often as usual and offer a bottle of water the rest of the time. This just sounds so dodgy to me!

no eleanor, the hv is right, it's been Scientifically Proven that children still on mostly milk at 10 months will Never, Ever Eat Human Food. i'm sorry but that's the truth of it. Lolololol. Absolut bolleaux.

Powepuffgirl - that clearly came from the 'absolute tosh' section of the HV handbook. Ignore her, she's clearly mad!

My DS (almost 10 mths) lurrrves strong tastes and would, for instance, eat garlic bread daily if I'd let him. In fact, pretty much the only food he rejects is bland stuff. So as everyone else has already said, just ignore your HV. Have fun on the BLW journey :-)

I thought that to begin with - babies wont like strong flavours, but what a load of old nonsense - Xavier hates bland food and as you will soon see, most of the babies here love hummous - so defo ignore her well meaning but misguided advice. OF course all babies are individuals like ourselves, but I would give everything a try!

Have fun and welcome to BLW

Thanks everyone!! I'm really excited about the whole idea of BLW & can't wait to start to be honest (obviously will however, as Beans only 4mnths at the mo!) Thanks again for the replies :)

My DD started in utero showing a strong preference for curry and garlic, which developed further when she was born. If I'd had a curry she was mad for my milk. Now she's quite happy to eat anything spicy. So if I were you, I'd follow your own instincts on this and ignore the health visitor. I'm pretty sure that in India babies aren't introduced to food through baby rice and they seem to cope somehow!

I agree about the pregnancy curries, I went mad for them and was having three scans a week, Tink would have her tongue out next day everytime I had been eating curry!

You are right, your milk reflects the tastes of foods you have been eating, just so they learn to accept different tastes!

Tink likes strong tastes, she has strong cheese (because I forgot one time and she liked it so why use something different?) she'll even polish off a curry!

You know the idea of BLW, no spoon, no puree so just let what HV says go in one ear and out the other!

Who had the Sri Lankan HV? Was that on here or mumsnet or rl? Upshot was, at the end of the weaning talk consisting of "Give baby rice and bland food", the HV was asked what babies were weaned on in Sri Lanka. She answered "curry".

I was making pizza yesterday and handed Minky a piece of pepperoni. It was infused with chilli and was slightly hotter than I realised. She polished it off (well, I haven't found it in any of her usual hiding places, anyway).

apparently according to dd the method is put end of chip shaped item in mouth, let go with hands, suck/gum itfor a while, accidentally (it would seem) open mouth to far in process of chewing, food falls out, dd gets annoyed! or the new option is remove hands, reach for new piece and try to stuff that in as well, getting annoyed whenit doesn't fit!
Is Munchkin the only 1 that does this? Most pics seem to show hands involved! Wanted to post a demonstrative pic but dh won't let me, says it makes her look too gormless!

Ideas gratefully recieved as its not that much fun at mo, frustration all round
Eli and Munchkin

I can't really picture what you're saying but i do remember ditching the chip-shaped stuff quite quickly as Babybear found them a bit tricky to hold onto. what's the Munchkin like with a bit of broccoli? Or half a peach or apricot, skin on? i know it's heresy but sometimes i think the chip-shaped thing is a bit bogus, to be honest, and realy babies would rather hold onto something a bit more textured.

I think that the chip thing may also be bogus. DD has never had anything chip shaped except a chip and she's never had any problems - actually I think it's better for them to develop their pincer grip if they have more challenging shapes. Also it's hugely funny watching her trying to pick up cold, smooth lumps of melon and having them wriggle round the tray out of her reach before she finally swipes them up and starts munching!

I can imagine, it sounds like Tink! She gets so excited that everything goes in at once, sometimes she has more in her hand than you think she could put in her mouth, but she manages! She doesn't get upset, she just keeps ramming more in!

Let her keep playing and eventually she will work it out. I agree with the others, ditching the "chips" was the best thing we did. We don't have to make something seperately and she will eat anything. Mash is great for encouraging her to eat other things, she just mixes things in with it and it stays stuck to her hand so she can eat it off of the spoon.

thankyou everyone, broccoli trees shes a bit indifferent towards, mostly upside down method though! will try apricot today. she likes dried apricots though can't seem to get into them, they just get sucked to death then dropped! will also try mash, this very good idea as its one of my favourite foods!

I'm trying to translate that and it's my own message! I have a form of dyslexia where I substitute words, I do it when talking too. I think what I was trying to say is she eats it off of her hands.

I gave Minimoo two prawns yesterday whilst out at lunch. He loved them, chewed for ages, then spat out the bits that he couldn't swallow. He's a year old. I am a Bad Mother and have no idea if he's not meant to have shellfish until he's at least fifteen. No untoward effects today but just thought I'd check before he starts getting them on a regular basis. Come to think of it he also ate a bit of my mum's pate. Is that a no no too?

Oooh such a bad mother for following your instincts and being guided by your baby!

Here's the government's ultra conservative weaning guide:

http://www.eatwellbewell.gov.uk/agesandstages/baby/weaning/#cat227298

(Sorry I can't get the proper link thingy to work)

It's pretty cautious and spoony, but you can feel pretty confident that if they say a food's ok by a certain age, then you're well in the clear - and they say no shell fish before six months, but fine after that.

Interestingly, they class fish and shellfish together, but I bet we'd all have said the first was safer than the latter...?

BUT - the borstvoeding says wait till a year for shellfish - in which case you're still in the clear, but isn't consistency wonderful? Mind you, borstvoeding also says no pate till 3 YEARS OLD - so much for Aitch posting a lovely chicken liver recipe up only a few weeks ago. borstvoeding's big issue with pate seems to be the additives, rather than food safety.

Pates and shellfish are risky to vulnerable groups because they are easily contaminated or likely to go off. It makes sense to be twice as certain that you're happy with food prep and storage, reheating and cleanliness, and to be a little bit extra cautious if you think you're baby's immune system has recently been stressed or compromised. Fresh, home made pate seems a better bet than something that's sat in the supermarket deli counter for an indefinite period...

Cloviscat - off to the supermarket for some more pre-wrapped germs for her beloved family

i'm petrified of prawns, they're like little food poisoning grenades i always think. i think this despite Never having suffered food poisoning, so it's something approaching a phobia, tbh.
Despite this, I regularly order massive Scottish prawns in restaurants becasue i kind of think that a big grown-up chef isn't going to kill me (which is actually much more likely than me screwing it up myself so completely thick...)
I've not given Babybear prawns yet, is what i'm trying to say, but my mother has been happily feeding them to her for months and she's suffered no ill effects. i think she waited until she was about 10 months old as i recall...
and i did explain that the chicken liver thing wasn't for everyone, but personally i think there's nothing nicer than fresh pate. i wouldn't necessarily give Babybear deli counter stuff because, well, you never know how long it's been sitting around, do you?

Aitch, I think you may be mistaken on the pate front. It's not about food poisoning but that large quantities of (is it vitamin A) well whatever vitamin is in pate is toxic to the developing brain. I am pretty sure that's why you can't eat it in pregnancy as well.