5mth old, want to give BLS a go.

Miss Zara is a big girl (well average but huge compared to her older sister) and i have just started her on rice cereal to see if we can get her feeds a little further apart, she seems more than ready as she sits with me when i eat most days, tries to steal my fork, if given a spoon it goes straight into her mouth and she has a 'chewing motion' while eating her rice cereal.

When DD1 was starting solids i had no idea about BLS, everything she ate was mashed or pureed but i would really love to give BLS a try, possibly even a mix of BLS and just me being lazy and giving her mush.

So i guess i am asking WHAT are the best foods for her to try first, i would much prefer she try vegetable as this worked for us with DD1.
What is the best way to prepare.. for example do i just cut carrots into fingers, steam them until just soft and then let her go at it?
What about pumpkin etc?

Would love any advice as i think my poor girl is growing so quickly and although feeding a lot she just wants more.

We had to skip rice cereal altogether. Tess will suck on fingers of toast with vegemite in the morning. It started out as just sucking on it,now she actually swallows some! I also give her weetbix crushed, with milk.
I pretty much give her a finger of anything I think of...she sucked on some steak the other day and also some pork. Steamed heads of brocoli, cauliflour, and what you are doing thinking to do with the carrot is spot on.
you could try larger cubes of pumpkin and those sorts of vegetables. The other day she sucked a ritz biscuit till soft and then swallowed what she could.
If you have a look at the Gill Rapley website, she has a great down loadable pamphlet to help you get started. She is the queen of Baby Led Solids and has written a whole book on it.
I also give Tess some puree sorts of things such as yoghurt. She will also suck all the juice out of a mandarine segment and swallow the rest.
It took a while to get going so I was and I am still doing a mix of puree and finger food.
You could also try avocado fingers.

HTH...sorry my post is a bit all over the place.

zucchini is a good one to start with, I think that was DD's first 'real' food. Followed by sweet potato and pumpkin sticks. Broccoli and cauliflower are great as they have their own little handle and don't need much cooking. DD loves yellow squash too.

Any vegetable really (as long as it is cooked so it's soft) is fine. I try and save some of our vegies from dinner to give DD the next night for her dinner, that way I don't have to cook something again for her. Cruskits are good (with vegemite or cream cheese/cheese spread or avocado), they melt in their mouths pretty much.

Pieces of meat are also good for them, even if they don't consume any of it they will get nutrition from it (specifically iron) just from sucking on it.

We have only done baby led with DD and it has been great. STarted with lightly steamed broccoli trees, baked and steamed/boiled sweet potato, then been adding zuchini, carrot, parnsip, beans etc. She embraced sweet pot and broccoli first. We did not start until 7 months (5 months corrected being prem) and now she chews on her food quite well at 10 months.

I got a copy of the Gill Rapley book from ABA and it is great. Helped my nervous DH who has a fear of chocking. You might be able to borrow the DVD from your local ABA group, that was good too.

She has just started getting interested in meat chunks and cheese now. Loves bread. In fact will try anything. She often inspects it, feels the texture and then will taste it. It is the cutest thing to watch. At other times she will just mash it against her head.:D

Thanks so much everyone, tried to give her a bit of carrot tonight and she gummed a little but was overtired and just wanted to sit on mummy, so i made her some rice cereal and spooned it to her on my knee b/w mouthfuls myself and she took a bit.. might try some carrot or something at lunch time and see how she goes.
I think she def WANTS food, she tries to steal mine, hopefully if i can get some solids into her she will be back to her normal happy self.

FWIW, and this is just a problem another BB member had with BLS, so don't shoot the messenger :P Just something to keep in mind!
Her bub was doing BLS but wasn't actually consuming much because of just the sucking/getting it everywhere but down her throat etc XD And she needed to follow up with some pureed food anyway... so Just a thought, if she's going BLS you may be BF just the same amount because not much is actually going in to fill her belly iykwim :)

Thanks Teagz, was going to do a mix of BLS and mash but like the idea of her dealing with her own food etc.