Baby led weaning

The only foods we have delayed giving were honey and peanut butter. And we will start giving them when Jude is 1. So we are fine with things like eggs , cows milk and seafood (although we are not big seafood eaters, except for fish). However, neither of our families has a history of food allergies.


We started off giving things like broccoli, peaches, nectarines, banana at afternoon tea and quickly progressed towards him having dinner (whatever we were having) with us as that was easiest for us. Then he started eating morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Breakfast was the last to come as he never really seemed that interested in food in the mornings. Our boy loves his tucker. He eats everything and anything.

One thing I will say is don't be put off if he doesn't take to it straight away. At the start, it's more about playing than actually eating. My sisters boy (same age) does not eat anywhere near as much as Jude but he is still a thriving, growing, happy boy. Just go with the flow as much as you can. It's so awesome watching them figure out stuff for them selves. It's tempting to try and help them along a bit but they work it out!

Other finger food ideas I use are hummus on cruskit, cream cheese on rice cracker, persimmon (or any fruits!) and greek yoghurt. Jude loves soup and bread........ and anything really.

Baby Led Weaning is awesome. I love it!

The dont have the book in our library here unfortunatly, and I have been looking on Trademe for ages now but cant find one on there either.

Thanks for the food suggestions- thats pretty much what I had thought of anyway.

Cool, thanks for that! Thats an amzing range of things already! I have only seen the book for $35 plus postage, so thanks for that too!
Aiden just had his 5 moth imms this morning, so I asked the nurse about doing blw with allergies. As I suspected, she had never heard of it, but when I explained, she said as long as we were avoiding the usually likely allergens til after 1 yr, then she couldnt see a problem. After Isla and her intollerences/allergys I am mega careful with what I eat and what I give my kids anyway, and Aiden already has a lot of stuff that dont agree with him - through my breast milk, so Im gonna be careful as anyway!
T_Rex- are u going to exclude fish and eggs too?
I wont be giving Adien any acidic foods for a long time either- he has reflux but its controlled by my diet. I wont give him mandarins/oranges/kiwifruit/tomatoes til ove a year too.

We didn't wait for any food, but we have no history of allergies. With egg, the boy I look after has no reaction when it's in baking, but I gave him a hardboiled one one day and he got all itchy and miserable, and has tested allergic and is now total exclusion.

Kellz, I'd be happy to loan you my book if you like, PM me your address.

T_Rex - Fish and eggs are the other common food alergens, so its recommended that they be delayed til after 1 yr if u have a history of allergys.
Definatly dont give bananas if u have history of allergies, cos they are allergy forming.
Like squishysmum said, some people with egg allergy can be fine when its in baking, but can react to raw or cooked egg on its own. Personally I would not give her anything else containing eggs til after 1 yr.
We are also only going to introduce a couple of things at a time, because if he reacts it is easier to work out which food was the cause of the problem, than having to sort through a huge raange of foods, and foods that have mulirple ingredients!
Sorry thats a bit OT!

Has anyway got any suggestions on how to cope with other peoples reactions/ scepticism/crticism about BLW over the usual weaning ,method?
I dont know anyone in real life thats doing it - a friend saw pics of Aiden on my facebook page of him eating celery and persimon, and got a 'what the heck were u giving him them for?' look on her face, and was like " u gave him celery?". All my firends here with babies similar age are all busy cooking up giant pots of puree!

i got lots of sceptism but i used to just shrug and say i like it! its been great for her fine motor skills and so much easier for me!    no matter what you do you will be judged, even if you did purees (cause you will either be judged for making them by those who buy and vice verse!)

SquishysMum- that would be awesome if I could borrow the book. Thanks heaps. Will PM you.

I dont think its a fad or a change in guidelines either.
WHO recommend exclusive bf for the first 6 months before introducing solids - which is what BLW recommends.
Plunket would not comment when asked to by Little Treasures magazine article- most probably as they recieve sponsorhip from Watties who produce baby puree, much the same as plunket nurses are not allowed to comment about cloth nappys if asked, as they are sponsored by huggies.

In asian/african/indian cultures for example, babies are bf for a lot longer than in NZ, and I cant imagine that they puree all there baby food up either!

We also get weird looks and comments by people too and I just shrug them off. I love BLW and the fact that we can all eat our dinner at the same time and Jackson is quote happy to feed himself and very self sufficient at it now And I dont need to spend hours in the kitchen preparing and cooking bulk food to puree...

If you cant get a book to borrow try here and here. Not sure what the NZ $$ is like at the mo but possibly cheaper than $35 from whitcoulls. Postage took about 2 weeks so not too bad for Royal Mail

Edited by WestiesGirl

Yeah I have hardly told anyone about the BLW since I havent had good reactions. I dont mention that we havent started solids yet either.
I have told my Mum about the BLW and have given her the articles to read so she understands what it is and why we doing it since she has a lot to do with my kids- she respects our decisions, and likes to be fully informed frist then gets right behind us, like she did with our homebirth!