Welcome to the Baby Led Solids (BLS) Information and Discussion Thread. This is a place for sharing your experiences with BLS, and also to ask questions. Please feel free to share your food ideas, successes, and challenges with BLS.
What is BLS?
BLS is also known as Baby Led Weaning or Infant Led Weaning. It is way of introducing solids. Instead of starting with pureed foods, it involves starting with finger foods. Traditionally purees were introduced as a first food, as babies were starting solids at 3 months or so. Now the recommendation is to start solids at 6 months, and by this age babies are capable of feeding themselves finger foods.
Interestingly, many parents naturally follow the BLS method with second and subsequent children. Physiologically, it has been shown that choking is less likely when a child is feeding themselves at this age, rather than having a spoon of food put in their mouths.
Why use BLS?
The many benefits include:
Less mess
Easier and less time-consuming, as food doesn?t need to be pureed or spoon-fed
Children enjoy feeding themselves, and it is good for their development to do so
Exposure to a great variety of tastes and textures earlier
Children are eating adult foods sooner, so that the whole family can eat the same meal
You may notice that this thread has been moved to a new sub-forum especially for Baby Led Solids! It was felt this more appropriately fit with the 'Infant Led Breastfeeding and Weaning' section (since it's infant led weaning).
This also means there's an area where you can post your own individual threads that relate to BLS without it getting lost in the general feeding forums.
Introducing solids threads (not specifically BLS) and related information are still here.
So far Liam likes bread, bread and bread.... oh - and a bit of banana. I think he ate an arrowroot biscuit for the first time today (usually just nibbles, screws up his face and drops it on the floor...).
He made a mess with pear and the veggies are on the way (just got to get organised)... hope to try carrot and brocolli later this week.
Nettie, Peter is a big bread fan too. Bread and butter is always a winner, although half of it somehow ends up squished under his bum!
Tonight Peter had a bit of pasta with a mild cheese sauce and some mince on it. He thought it was great, although he had trouble picking it up- he kept putting it in his fist and not being able to find it, poor thing!
Ok.. Mia had a pead appointment on Monday as i was really concerned about her vomitting. On average 45 times a day. He suggested cutting down the amount of milk she is having (which i wont be doing) and to start her on solids. He wants me to steer clear of pureed foods. NONE at all. So here i am.. again. She had some vegemite toast for lunch today (just giving her one solids meal about 1:30pm). I uploaded some pics in my gallery. Not much went down, but a little did. I think she had more fun just sucking the vegemite off.
what to do tomorrow..... ???? shopping night tonight, so please give me some ideas of what to buy her.
we have never had much fun with bread, i have tried it over and over and she always has a major problem getting it down, she will just keep gagging on it, spit it back up, gag again. i have just stopped trying. she eats mountain bread no problem so i spread something on it and cut it up.
DH cooked a roast chicken and veg. DD sat there and scoffed a HUGE amount, kept banging the table when ever her plate was empty so i kept filling it. i just shredded the chicken up and gave her pieces of roast pumpkin, sweet potatoe, potatoe and even roast onion and beetroot! then even packed in half a manderine!! what a guts!
she is eating everything and anything atm...i find it hard to keep up sometimes.
as for chocolate this easter...my mum in england sent grace some choclolate, said it was special choc free from 'bad things' and that i was so mean not giving her any choc....we are going to england in a few month and i just know they will all try to feed her everything i dont want her to have! SO i came up with a bit f a sneeky plan....im going to tell my family that i gave her the chocs and she came out in a bit of a rash on her tummy and my doc has said we should avoid chocolate till she is older.!
And...Salt, i dont add salt to dds food or to our food if she is going to eat it but some things have salt in that she eats, but say you add a pinch of salt to a pot of sauce and DD has a teaspoon of sauce she isnt going to be haveing that whole pinch of salt...just a few grains. not that we do that but i think once or twice she has had something off my plate that wasnt really ment for her but i havent worried about it that much! She has vegimite every so often and LOVES it.
Hollye, FAR OUT, I didn't realise Mia vomited that much everyday. You poor things! You've probably already shopped by now, but here are some things Peter likes that you could try:
- avacado on cruskits (broken into about 4 bits)
- butter on toast or bread
- those mini rice cakes with a little bit of dip on them (or plain)
- ham (he likes to suck on it)
- arrowroot biscuits- if you don't mind giving her sweet!
My baby girl Tess is nearly 7 months old, bottle fed and not even remotely interested in food. At our centre in the 'Introduction to Solids' lesson, we were given handouts on pureed foods and advised on rice cereal and the like, not even told about BLW.
Tess is the only one in my mum's group not into solids. She gags, closes her mouth, avoids eye contact with me and then gets upset and pushes the bowl away. Obviously I stop. I've been persisting for about a month daily with pureed pumpkin, apple and pears, bananas and avocados and she's just not into it. We've gotten to the point where she doesn't like her high chair and hates the red bowl and spoon. :-(
The main problem is she's gone from waking once a night at 3am for a feed to waking 4 times a night and 'snacking' on half bottles which is a little frustrating, so I was thinking she's obviously hungry. It could just me a growth spurt though.
So I'm thinking of just sitting her in a chair with a couple of foods to pick at and see how we go. It seems I should just relax and let her go for it. What would you guys recommend as first foods with this approach?
Also does anyone have any advice on getting her through the night? I was thinking of trying to get an extra bottle into her late afternoon?
I really want her to love food as much as her father and I do!!
Babies are all ready for food at different ages. My first DS was nearly 1 before he had any interest in solids, whereas my second DS loved fodd from the first time I gave him some at 6 months. It sounds like your DD is more like my first DS!
One of the things I regret with Jack, is that I tried so hard to get him to eat. I am sure that I actually made his eating worse. Your little girl is still very young and milk is the main source of nutrition for her. I think your idea to offer her finger foods to help herself to is a good one. I would also say to you, with the benefit of my experience, that it is best not to stress about how much she is eating - or even if she is eating at all. Just keep giving her milk (I wouldn't increase the number of bottles though or you might delay her interest in solids too much) and offering food. You don't even to offer food every day - if she's not interested today, it's ok to wait a week or two before trying again.
Unfortunately at your DD's age, night wakings are very common. This is more likely related to all the development she is undergoing at this time - her brain is learning to be more aware and process more, and most likely she is getting ready to move around more - crawling if she is not already, then pulling herself up and then walking. It is not a sign that she needs solids - more likely she needs the milk more frequently, or just the comfort of knowing you are there when she wakes. It does pass sooner or later - if you lucky it will be sooner!
Oh thanks for that, I feel so much better about it now. To be honest, looking at the rice cereal mush, I'm not surprised she doesn't like it.
My fear is that she will just hate mealtimes and as SJ and I both love to cook and entertain and eat anything going, having a fuss-pot is definitely not the goal!
She's not a real 'sucky' baby though, she doesn't really explore things by sticking them in her mouth yet. She's a visual and touchy-touchy girl. It will be much more fun to introduce foods this way rather than forcing her to eat two teaspoons of gruel over 40 minutes!
I may have to look at that book MummyTummy said was great. I've just checked out Gill Rapley's website and it looks great.
Mamasanace - yes letting her explore the food at her own pace sounds just perfect. Let her treat food like toys for now. Offer her lots of different tastes and textures because it is all part of her learning. To start with you can try anything you want. We started with steamed carrot sticks, then quickly moved on to whatever we were having. Toast is good for smearing mushy stuff on because it is easy for them to pick up and hold, but don't be scared by the stuff that seems too slippery on its own. You will be amazed at how quickly they adapt and figure out some way to get it to their mouths. DS was able to pick up a cube of ice within two weeks of starting. I struggle with that!!!! Be prepared for mess and let it all just unfold. (splat mats under the highchair are a fantastic idea too) You are right, the more you try to force it on her, the more she is likely to enter a power play with you, especially if she is an independant baby. Make mealtimes relaxed and social too. Eat at the same time and have some of the same foods. And also try not to stare at her, just chat and have conversations just as you would if you were eating with your partner or a friend. Eventually she will just copy and join in the fun. And resist all temptation to 'help' her, this includes trying to pick up food she has dropped or got smeared all over her eyebrows!! And above all, if you ever have questions just jump on here and ask, I know it can be a bit daunting when you start because the practice of BLS is just not widely known. I wouldn't have known about it at all if it wasn't for these threads and I would have gone down the path of purees!
There is a little girl at DS daycare who had the same issues and it got to the point where she was starting to refuse her milk feeds too. Her mother was at her wits end, so daycare told her about Jett and how he eats, and suggested that it might be something for her to try. So she gave it a go, and now she happily eats in her own time at her own pace, there are no more power plays and everybody is happy.
Baby Led Solids Chatter #3
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