5 month old seems ready / desperate! Start BLS early or hold off?

[Artechim]

I am in the same boat with my DD except she has just turned 4 months. She has no tongue thrust reflex though - if she has food in her mouth she will eat it. She gets overly excited if I am eating and frantically grabs for it and shoves it in her mouth if she catches a piece. Today I was eating what was apparently a mighty yummy looking cracker and when I didn't give her any she did a face dive towards me and latched on to my lips and tried to suck it out of my mouth!! (Gross BTW!)

I am holding her off before I start giving her regular meals, but I have been giving her the odd bit of fruit/vege/rusk to suck on.

[onthefly]

If he still has the reflex then he's not quite physically ready. It probably won't be too much longer. It is confusing when they behave like this - they're so sure they desperately need it. There's no harm in waiting a bit - except to your eardrums maybe

[Sagres]

Some babies are ready earlier or later than others, they don't have 6 months programmed into them. If I had a baby that was ready a bit early I'd go with it and give them food. I mean if you are saying the reflex is still there he probably won't get much down but he will get used to feeling/rubbing/squashing it all, which is all good!

[wysiwyg]

DS was the same - I stopped putting him at the table with us because not giving him food seemed so mean - we did start three days ago with BLS - he is 6 months today. My main reason for not starting earlier was how he sat up, his sitting up is still not great but ok (DD was sitting great by time started BLS at 6 months) and the fact even with BLS it is still more work than breastfeeding (A big reason to wait in my opinion :-) ) . He is very very keen on getting the food into his mouth now have started but isn't really swallowing yet - so for us was probably right to wait. Although looking back I think when I felt mean a few weeks back I could have just given him a piece of broccoli etc to suck on and he isn't really ingesting any so doubt would have done any harm. I think the other thing to remember is they don't know what food is, they don't know that food will take away hunger etc - they just want to do what they see others doing - so will probably be just as happy with something that looks food like to chew on.

[Santosha]

Thanks ladies. And sorry DS! Will hold off for a little longer until reflex goes and he is a bit more 'upright' I think. If he wasn't dairy intolerant I would consider giving him a rusk so at least he was having a bit of the experience without actually ingesting food, but as far as I know, they have dairy in them right?

[onthefly]

yes they do

[wysiwyg]

Like your new avvy by the way Santosha

[~ Mylitta ~]

I think the other thing to remember is they don't know what food is, they don't know that food will take away hunger etc - they just want to do what they see others doing - so will probably be just as happy with something that looks food like to chew on.

I think this is a great point and a great idea. Do you have any play food in the house that he could play with while you eat? It would possibly also be good for his motor skills and hand eye co-ordination for when he starts on real food

[Santosha]

Hehe. Yup, have plastic and knitted food. Mmmmm wooly.

Great idea. DD will think that's hilarious. Either that, or she'll get all bossy big-sister-knows-best and tell him off!