Dec 132011
*update 10/10/12* I apologise for no photos – I deleted my piscasa account on google and it took allllll my pictures!!
If you would like to talk to me more about BabyLed Weaning / Feeding please email me I am happy to answer questions/queries!!
Why I chose to feed MasterS the ‘Baby Led Feeding’ way instead of Purees as first foods.
When MissC was 5 months old, I started feeding her purees of rice cereal, baby cereal, pureed apple, banana, avocado, pears, potatoes, fish – you name it I pureed it! I tried feeding her everything under the sun.. pureed. I had such a hard time that I was still feeding her pureed food at 10 months old because she refused to have any lumps in her food, of what little food she had.
As a 1st time mum – I did everything the Child Health Nurse said to do and still had trouble. Finally at 11 months old she started eating finger food, but very little fruit, vegetables and meat. To this day she still will not touch any fruit except an Apple with the core cut out, and vegetables consist of frozen beans and peas (still frozen) and sweetcorn out of a can. That is it.
At the age of 2.4 years. I am at my wits end, which is why I give her Bento Lunches - trying to make lunch and dinner fun with lots of different flavours/shapes.
2nd time round as a Mumma.. I thought, right I know what foods MissC did and didn’t like, so hopefully MasterS would be different (plus he’s a boy and they say they have bigger appetites).. I was so wrong. MasterS was worse than MissC!! He refused the spoon straight away.
I fought for about a week with him to get him to take the spoon, before I asked my friends on facebook what to do. They suggested BabyLed weaning!
What on earth is that I asked!!!!??? This is where you just feed your baby whatever you are eating on your plate (within reason) and they eat it with their hands.. they learn to chew before they learn to swallow, rather than learning to swallow before chewing (which is why lumpy food often gets rejected by pureed feed babies).
The Mush Stops Here! is the first website I ever read. Babyled weaning.
And my response was WOW… I never realised this was something we could do! As I read more and more blogs, websites and facebook groups, I realised that this would be a good thing for me to do with MasterS – considering the pain and anguish I had feeding MissC (and still do) and the fact that he has already rejected spoonfeeding.
I was a little nervous starting MasterS off on finger food, and boiled carrot and apple. Apple was rejected, but Carrot was loved!!
Avocado was next which was a little slippery but was absolutely loved!
After that it was bread (toast), pasta, strawberries, watermelon, cucumber, piklets and anything that was on our dinner plates that he could hold (as long as it wasn’t too spicey). MasterS’s favourite food at the moment Lambchops!!
I even gave him a whole hard boiled egg yesterday (cut into quarters)! With MissC they said no egg white until 1 yr old, but within 18 months they have changed that and said as long as it is fully cooked it – you can give them whites now!
Every month nutritionists change their mind at what you can and can not give due to allergies. There are no main allergies in our family and so we can give MasterS everything (though staying away from peanuts for the sake of you just never know!)
MasterS has thrived with his food, hardly anything gets rejected (if it does, its because its too slippery to pick up) and I have noticed that he is swallowing alot of the food now too! I know this because his poos are full of little bits of carrot and broccolli!
Yes he may gag on his food, only seen it a couple of times so far – and it wasn’t as bad as people might think, but that is just because he is learning to chew bigger lumps. They say gagging is natural and noisy, choking is silent.
I am much happier and relaxed feeding MasterS compared to when fed/feed MissC. I hope MasterS will continue with loving his food like he is at the moment!
How did you feed your babies? Are they picky eaters as toddlers now or do they love everything?? Let me know your childrens favourite food (besides takeaway!) Do you have any tricks of the trade?!
ohhhh I love that last photo. That is one for the 21st.
I used to feed my kids everything and anything. The italians have the right idea, expose your children to a little of everything and they will learn to love food with gusto. xx
Some children are just harder to feed than others. Glad you're now having some success.
Hi I just discovered your blog and am now your newest follower. I am also a fellow aussie blogger from perth, I would love for you to check out my sewing/crafty/family blog and maybe follow along too! sewloveit.blogspot.com
BLW only came on my radar after my kids were past that stage. I know many friends who did it though and wonder if like you it would have led to better experiences – who knows. It certainly would have saved time in the kitchen!
favourite foods – 8yo = peanut butter and 6 1/2 yo = pizza and apples / most fruits
He is so cute! Love his fat little cheeks!
My kids are ok eaters, but I'm fussy, so I can understand. I've never had issues with the spoon though; glad you found something that has worked for you.
Two of my 4 children had a horrific time with extensive food allergies … but I think that modified baby led weaning techniques helped them get over their phobia of food by making food fun again. Before that, food was often associated with pain and vomiting. Great post!
My little girl had a terrible reaction to egg so I've been a bit cautious, but I think I will definitely go down the same route for number 2! I just remember how much fuss and trouble we used to go through with the spoon, and now my little girl prefers to do it herself…. so I think baby-led feeding is the go!
OOO This sounds like fun! I think I might start with a similar technique when we start solids in the new year!
@Sara – oh the stress of purees plagued me for the first 6 months of MasterS's life.. stress of all those icecubes taking up freezer space!!
Its so much easier this way and he's really taken too it!! he loves all types of food from curries to eggs from salads to pasta dishes! Anything and everything!!! its great I love it and am SO much happier!!
I kind of did BLW with my eldest without really knowing what it was (or that that was what i was doing). Mush didn't fill her up and she was eating it so quickly i really couldn't spoon it in fast enough. i tried her on chunkier and chunkier mush until i realised she just needed the actual foods. She was nearly 7mths old at my birthday and in the photos you can see she is holding a whole (peeled) banana and feeding it to herself and had been for a while. I think you just have to do what suits your child. By Christmas she was nearly 9mths old and she had the same plate of roast meat, roast veg and cauliflower cheese that we all had.
Babies gag all the time, pretty much whenever they get a new taste or texture, it's normal and actually good, a gag means they didn't choke. Sounds horrid though!
My second wasn't that keen on BLW, she liked chewing on pieces of meat but preferred her veg mashed/chopped.
We do BLW for the most part. I feed stuff like porridge and yogurt with a spoon. I start with the purees and then at about 7 months go the BLW.
At 10 months our baby boy (out 2nd) pretty much eats what we eat. But OMG the mess! The mess! Argh!!!!!!!! We need to get a dog.
My eldest is picky, more so as she's gotten older, but she's had lots of allergies along the way so that probably has something to do with it. My littlest has always eaten everything put in front of her though.
Both of them loved when we got to the finger food and have always enjoyed their vegetables. Frozen peas are still a big hit around here!
BLW makes so much sense to me. I wish there'd been more of that when mine were small.
great you found what works for your son Yvette. Some practitioners can scare women into not impotence instead of encouraging them. Glad you found this process.
What a lil cutey! My lil one has what we think is a dairy intolerance, the only 3 times she has had something with dairy she has reacted badly with vomiting about 4 hours after eating it
She got really fussy for a while there and would only eat plain old farex and would screw her nose up at everything else! But she's a bit better now. But I'm still breastfeeding and I know she's getting all she needs from me.
I've started giving her toast in the morning, but I break it up into small pieces for her and will do so until she learns not to shove a whole handful in at once… I can't stand the gagging/choking :S
Glad you found something that works! Each kid is different and sometimes it can be hard to find out what will work for them.
My oldest, Monkey, had a condition called Dysphagia, which basically means inability to swallow. His issues were muscular, coupled with sensitivities and severe gag reflex. He also had quite bad silent reflux. Feeding him sucked, almost every meal ended up with more coming out than what I got in. We ended up going through a specialist feeding and swollowing clinic just to be able to start finger foods, and later we moved on to speech therapy. He has always been fussy due to this, but at almost 5yo he is becoming braver and trying a lot of new foods. He may not like them, but he will at least try them. My youngest, Bear, was much easier to feed as a baby and would eat almost everything. That was until he learned to listen to his beloved older brother saying things were yucky and then just like that, he refused most foods. At 3.5yo he eats a few more things than his older brother, but his diet is still quite limited. I'm confident though that as they get older their fears of new foods will start to ease up, just as billions of other fussy eaters around the world have grown up to become older kids and adults with diverse tastes. I'm sure your little girl will end up the same. Until then, offer her everything. I give the boys the same food we eat at dinner. If they don't like/want it then they don't have to eat it, but they also don't get anything else to eat instead.
Brilliant! He looks so cute!! x
My little boy is almost six months and has taken to a spoon and purees beautifully, I would like to try him on more solid foods alsom but I'm afraid he will choke. Avocado seems like a good one to start with…