What the heck is baby led weaning

I'd be interested to know from those who did do BLW - what happens when the children are older and eat with the family - do they still have a tendency to 'play' with food?

All kids do BLW.... at some point! Its just a matter of whether or not to skip the puree stage. They will at some point have to be allowed to go through the process of learning to do it themselves. Spoon feeding a 5 yr old who doesnt have disabilities is shocking!

BLW doesnt = no cutlery either

For anyone actually interested in learning about BLW (not just slagging it off) here's a tip if your GC are doing BLW:

A big bowl of something that all looks the same, or large lumps of 2 or 3 things doesnt work as well as a selection of smaller tasters, so invest in an ice tray and use that to put "samples" in:

Eg if you're doing roast dinner:

A cube with a spoon loaded with gravy and mash
A couple of cubes (not besids each other) of veg, a couple with potato, a couple with yorkshire pud, a cube with a fork of meat etc

So its small little tasters rather than chunks or lumps of samey food.

Same with spag bol etc. No big bowls of it all mixed together. Separate it out into the ice cube tray: a couple of spoons with bol sauce pre loaded. A few cubes with dry spagetti, a few cubes with some other bits like cucumber etc

Its not so messy if you do not present them with a big bowl or plate of samey mush

At restraunts: Stick to the drier options, plenty of time to explore messier textures at home. So say youre at a greek restraunt I would give them a bit of pitta and a bit of meatball but no yogurt or sauce, they can try that at home.

Its much quicker and easier than puree because you can be eating yourself while they eat you dont have to do shifts. No separate puree prep etc.

If its messy then I would say too much is given at once and its overwhelming and they are getting bored/distracted. Give smaller tasters. Its about getting different tastes and textures not about getting a quantity of food in

Hope that helps those who want to know more

Yep - think more finger foods and less BLW, it's far less messy, although the BLW stalwarts will disagree and say that's it's all about letting them explore textures as much as getting the food in their mouths. Here's what one website has to say (don't click if the idea of hosing down after meals makes you twitchy ) www.babyledweaning.com/some-tips-to-get-you-started/

Its all stuff you do anyway if you start on purees. Just think of it that way!

At some point you have to let go of the mess worry and let them learn to hold or spoon it themselves. Easier done if they havent first had months getting used to just puree texture!

The whole stress of "introducing lumps" is gone because theres lumps from the start. You dont have to teach a rebellious toddler to hold/manage their own food because they already learnt when they were smaller.

Its just not delaying it for later when its harder because youre hitting tantrum age at the same time!

Its a bit like potty training. There WILL be some mess whenever you do it. Wanting to avoid mess is not a good reason for delaying it. And doesnt work anyway because then you still have to have the mess ahead of you rather than over and done with.

It doesnt have to be that messy anyway. As its about variety, a big bowl of something messy is not an ideal BLW meal anyway!

Been around for a while. Most mums use a mixture of purees and things they can pick up. It is scary when they appear to choke and I'm afraid I cut things up small enough not to choke. Have experienced children up to 5 choking on whole grapes and sausages and dying so there is no way I would tempt fate on my watch! I don't think most people who advocate it and say that babies are not choking but using their gag reflex have seen anyone choking to death (even adults can)! Only DGD likes cucumber - other 2 spit it out and DGS2 did cough and splutter age 1 so have not tried it again!

I have seen people choking. Gagging is not choking, gagging prevents choking. And not just choking but aspirating too (where it causes pneumonia), chewing something yourself, and gagging if it begins to go the wrong way, are things that prevent choking and aspirating

Solid things cut so small that they dont need to be chewed are more likely to be aspirated as they bypass both gagging and choking and can be breathed straight into the lungs which can be fatal.

Choking happens if something is inhailed that is large enough to block the airway. Aspirating happens if something smaller is inhailed.
Gagging prevents both by telling you if food is getting close to the airway rather than the oesophagus.

My 15 month old dgd, weened by this method, can now feed herself very well with a spoon, though we say nothing if she resorts to using her hands again.
At quite an early stage (but not at the very start of blw), she was allowed to hold a spoon, but we never fed her with it - she had to learn to do that for herself. She loved holding a spoon and seemed to 'get' what it was for straight away
Mum or Dad would sometimes load the spoon for her, but dgd had to put it in her mouth herself if she wanted it.

She now only starts playing with food if she has eaten enough, at which stage we remove the rest, even if she hasn't eaten as much as we expected.
We like to think that this will encourage her to grow up with a healthy attitude to food, only eating as much as she feels she needs, as opposed to being encouraged to carry on eating unnecessarily. Only time will show if this works, of course.

My DD did BLW with my 3 DGC and it has been great. And not really that different from what I did with my children from 6 months. Basically it is finger food and the baby feeds themselves so there is no puree and no spoon feeding the baby helps themselves and can handle the food. It teaches them from an early age about different textures, and tastes.

notanan2

Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to suggest that the food would be cooked to complete mush. My understanding is that it would simply be cooked to a level where it was slightly crunchy but not so hard that a baby couldn't gum it - sort of an al dente texture.

Well for BLW its not prepared any differently than the adult meal. Except perhaps honey as mentioned by another poster.

I think with the recommendation that weaning is started at about six months or later, babies learn to eat new foods by a mix & match method. At least, that's how it's seemed with my GC. The youngest GC has always loved her food and began by stealing bits, especially fruit, from people's plates. My dd made her things like veggie savoury muffins and steamed veggies. I've inherited the little containers dd had for storing finger foods and I now use them for keeping chopped up fresh herbs in my freezer!

I'd have been very happy to miss out on the 'mush' stage with mine, although I never puréed anything as I didn't have a gadget to purée it with. Mashing with a fork had to do.

Not even a sieve Sue?!

I don't think I did have a sieve back then, Sirchenjin! It wasn't an item my mum ever owned so I didn't get one either.

I do remember a friend saying that she was giving up on purees after spending an hour trying to sieve a banana through a tea strainer.

A banana through a tea strainer?? You’ve got to admire her determination if nothing else!

I know, it’s gross isn’t it? It doesn’t stop there, there’s baby led sleeping, playing,potty training.....and to top it all, discipline! Don’t need parents any more, the kids are in charge! Parents are just there to give the children everything they want. Then in 15 years time, they’ll be phoning emergency services, to help with their wayward offspring! A program we watched a few months ago. Just bite your lip and look the other way?

I hardly think that BLW means your child will go off the rails and you'll be phoning the emergency services - what a silly thing to say.

It would be interesting to know the weaning methods used in countries such as China and non westernised African nations because
I often wonder if BLW etc. was conceived as a result of midwifery now becoming a degree subject and the students needed to submit a thesis to graduate.
There is a lot of academic talk of evidence based practice when the basis of this is often short term with a small pool of questionnaire respondents which has sometimes resulted in throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Do we have more picky eaters since BLW? Is childhood obesity a result of on demand feeding (grazing).
Didn't kissing emanate from the weaning of babies by the adult chewing the food to a pulp before passing it mouth to mouth to the baby.
I often wonder if we suffered from the feeding, weaning and potty training regimes we were raised on, I don't think I did and I think my parents probably had a less stressful period of child rearing than parents today.

No, BLW wasn’t conceived as a result of midwifery becoming a degree subject - I wonder what made you think that?

Evidence based practice in healthcare is something I know a little about - can you say why you think it’s only based on small scale studies and why BLW might be linked to obesity?

Sounds horrific. Wouldn’t fancy it at all.

I still remember pics of Gdd's first baby led weaning when she was 5 months. Sitting on dd's lap at a Sunday lunch with other GPs. She was clearly dying to get her little mitts on the food, so they put some a bit mashed up within reach - roast potatoes and broccoli - all evidently enjoyed with gusto while making a delightful mess.

Funny how she was so non fussy then - would eat and enjoy anything - but roll on 4 1/2 years......

Look it up Sir Chenjin, it was broadcast a few months ago. Emergency 999, or one of those type programs. I wasn’t suggesting the BLF would lead to this, more that BL “ everything “ would. My grandchildren are so picky with their food, and hardly seem to eat anything, mostly because it ends up on the floor! We’re not talking pieces of food, it’s everything, so mushy food as well. It makes for untidy, fussy eaters later on. My kids all ate from me feeding them until they did it properly, maybe around 18 months, I can’t remember. They ate everything well, and still do. There were never issues with food like we see today. It’s not just my grandchildren either, it’s all their age group.

So what you really meant was poor, neglectful parenting with no boundaries combined with a range of other social-economic problems can result in children and families who require additional input from a range of services?

Yes, ‘‘twas ever thus.