Welcome to the Baby Led Solids 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? Baby Led Solids (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
Mj had pumkin and avacardo for dinner last night and scoffed the lot! didnt really play with it much it just went in and never came out again.
I also tried her on my banana bread that i made, she loved that too
Oh and when we went out for dinner last friday, she had some of my eggplant (Afghani style prepared - i love love love it) and she screwed up her face, but then shoved more in so i think she enjoyed that to0
I am still worried about bread - can you guys give me an idea about ho you give them bread. i.e. what size pieces, what type of bread etc. Bread that i eat seems to have a lot of sodium.
I'm still only doing fruit and veg.
Lenny I was always told that white bread just sogs up into a ball (and it does!) so anything that's wholemeal is better. I just give small squares (ie a slice that's quartered) but you could do fingers too.
I gave jake some carrot broccoli and beans last night which he loved. I also let him self feed his puree and he did a great job. This morning it was vegemite on toast and banana. Although judging by his behaviour I think he's missing his weetbix in his tum!
Lenny i give fingers of bread you know like 'soliders'
MJ has what ever bread we are having, but i usually make that myself, so has less salt that stuff that is bought - she has also had rasin toast if we eat it...
Becstar, i have found that all bread goes soggy and clumps up if it is sucked on for as long as MJ does!
rememeber Lenny, they dont actually get a whole lot in at this age, its more the experience - and toast is good for introducing new flavours - i just spread a little of what ever it is that we are having on the toast - even if its something weird that we wouldnt have on toast
I wondered where you all got to & I found you all again.
Well DS is having something to eat most days so I am going to build that up to daily. Which meal did you start as the first regular meal of the day - breakfast/lunch/tea? & was the same kind of food eg brekkie = cereal/toast, lunch = sandwhiches, tea = vegies?
He loves brocoli & mostly squishes pumkin, zuchini, sweet potatoe, banana, strawberry & avocado. I am thinking of trying him on some toast in the next few days.
Cookiemonster, I find DS doesn't seem to be swallowing but all the brocoli bits coming out the other end tell me he is. I gave him an arrowroot biscuit today & it was the first time that I actually saw him chew & obviously swallow so I don't know if it is because it is a little harder then steamed vegies.
How often are you feeding your bubs overnight, my DS is 6 mnths next week, he is b/f & is still feeding every 2/3 hrs & when he is teething etc... it can be every hour or so? just wondering if this is normal
njd Jordan is just over 6 months - he often still feeds every 2 or 3 hours overnight - not for long.
Well Jordan is still loving it - tonight is some avocado, carrot and cheese. We often feed bread - I've actually started baking my own from scratch. It is easy and not very time consuming - has no preservatives etc, I know exactly what is in it! We often give him some with food spread onto it like Sammijane does.
Lately for brekky he is loving oat porridge with some EBM or water, with banana mixed in, or he will devour a whole kiwi fruit, pear or banana :-)
We now can't miss a meal - he is feeding of both bbs during the day before we offer solids but every meal time ie brekky lunch and dinner he is still hungry after a drink every time. Takes after us though, we are both quite fit people with fast metabolisms and we never stop eating heheh
I've noticed lately he always examines each piece of food in his hand before bringing it to his mouth. Anything new we try he doesn't screw his face up as much now either, just looks at it, looks at you, then eats it :-)
One thing he reacted to was bolognese - not sure if it was the onion or tomato in it that did it but it set his eczema off that day, so will wait a while before trying that again.
When out and about I try to order something I can share with him as it doesn't go down too well if I eat and he doesn't get any! He loves pasta but if there is a sandwich bar it's easy to just get him a bit of plain chicken to munch away on, or a banana, some avocado/cheese etc.
Very proficient at chewing and controlling the food in his mouth, I still watch him very carefully but he is quite confident and the whole process has really been quite enjoyable and not much effort!
Also - I now grow a lot of our vegies as I am fed up with tasteless, bad quality, pesticide covered bought food! -
We have so far-
brocolli
tomato
snow peas
cabbage
choy sum
pak choy
lettuce
spinach
carrots
shallots
leeks
we done have a big yard but are using a no dig. square foot gardening techique which has been very successful! Completely organic and not very time consuming!
Roquen - good on you! I am starting a veggie patch off soon - will have to look into the no dig
Cookie - MJ started 'eating' food this week - we have been doing it for 4 weeks now.This morning she ate half a peice of toast and i found no leftovers other than crumbs!
ok firstly hi I don't have much time tonight to read back threads, I will get to it when I have a moment or 2 but I have a couple of questions.
Ashton is 5 months, he is sitting up and interested in food, but then again he is interested in everything. He isn't 'hungry' for food. He still breastfeeds every 3-4 hours during the day then at night he has a 5 hour sleep from 9pm - 2am then feeds 2 hourly until the morning at 8ish. Nothing had changed. However I was thinking if I was going to start him in a few weeks that I might look into BLW and get as much info as possible before I start...
SOOO have any of your babies choked?? I am so scared of this happening as it happened 2 times with my oldest
Also what sort of foods did you start with? How much of it do they eat (as opposed to chew and spit)? Is there anything that should be avoided?
Hi Missymoo! Good to have you on board!
Haven't had any actual choking incidents, but had a fair bit of gagging for a week or so which freaked me out more than it worried her. Seems better now ...
Starting foods - we have tried banana (a favourite), bread, avocado, carrot, broccoli, yoghurt, pear, apple (not really a fan), potato and other things she has stolen from our plates! Going to try pumpkin and sweet potato this week. We started at 5.5 months too because she seemed hungry and we couldn't take the starving african orphan look we got every time she watched us eat!
We had banana on toast for breakfast and that was a hit! Think I will do that more often as there was a lot less mess than the usual banana and yoghurt and madam thought it was delicious!
Miss M sorta gums it to death... if she takes in big sections, she'll gag, and then spit it out. She might have a little cry, looks at the food in her hand - and then gums it again.. lol
At the moment - she is sitting in her high chair with some vegemite sandwiches. I just give her whatever I'm making aricyn for lunch/morning tea/arvo tea/dinner - whatever.
So then I don't have to make two separate ones. And Aricyn never eats all his stuff, so I just do enough for what I think he SHOULD be eating, and then subtract some stuff for her.
Last night she had pumpkin which she liked.. but rockmelon and watermelon are by far her favourites. Although I can see her mungin on into that vegemite sandwich!!!
Starting solids? - Baby Led Solids Chatter #2
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