BLW - one month on

Our friends the Dudleys did Baby Led Weaning (BLW) with both of their children and recommended it to us for Leila.  We read up about it and knew that we wanted to give it a go because a) it sounded fun b) it meant we wouldn’t need to prepare separate meals for Leila and c) we hoped that it would encourage her not to be a fussy eater.

BLW is basically means that your baby feeds themselves from the outset and you don’t do any purees.  It also means messy meals and weaning off breast milk takes a lot longer.

We’re two weeks in to BLW now and are really loving it – and Leila seems to be too!  Here are a few highlights so far:

Leila’s first food was sweet potato. We chose this because it is a sweet vegetable and could be easily cut into sticks.  She was pretty bemused when she realised that the toy she was playing with a) had a taste and b) fell apart when she put it in her mouth!

We haven’t had her choke on anything (fingers crossed it stays this way!) but we have had a few gags and the first few days involved quite a bit of coughing. When she very first started BLW she was good at ‘gumming’ chunks off the ‘chips’ but once these chunks were in her mouth she didn’t know what to do with them.  For a good few minutes of her first meal she sat there with her mouth open and a chunk of sweet potato sitting on the back of her tongue before we decided to help her out and scoop it out with our fingers.  Now a few weeks in and she is using her tongue to move food around and is chewing with her gums.

Leila might turn into Banana Girl at the rate she goes through them.  We’re lucky that she does like them because they have been the staple ‘BLW breakfast’ when we are away from home (as they are an easy fruit to cut and peel).  We didn’t realise at first though how easily banana can stain if not soaked out, and so now Leila has a ‘banana dress’ that she wears to breakfast on holiday so that all her clothes don’t end up the same way!

A favourite of Leila’s already is courgette.  We think this is because it can be soft to eat but doesn’t fall apart in her mouth.  Leila prefers to suck the courgette like a lolly rather than chew it.

Our first true ‘BLW’ meal was in Luxor when we ordered a lunch and then took food from our plate and gave it directly to Leila.  Our meal was served with a spicy tomato ragu that had green beans in (great finger food) and so we sucked off the ragu and then put the beans in front of her. She loved gumming away at them!

Broccoli is meant to be a ‘classic’ first finger food with BLW and despite it being the end of the broccoli season in Cairo we were determined to let Leila loose on the mini trees! The first time that she tried it though she didn’t munch away at the tree like a giant, but instead held the ‘top’ and sucked away at the stalk!!