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Baby Led Weaning food ideas

I've decided to give BLW a go, but I'm stuck for ideas onwhat to give W. He's 6 months old and been on solids for a while, but I want to give him a new experience.

What would you recommend for him? 

Replies

  • Are you meaning you want to start doing proper blw or just introduce finger foods?

    Toast fingers,  sandwiches,  pasta with sauce,  fruit and veg sticks are good things to start with

  • Finger foods are good. It needs to be longer than his fist, as he'll close his fist over the food so there needs to be some sticking out so he can get at it.

    Cucumber is a great "first food", easy to eat yet firm enough to hold.

    Toast or pitta fingers with houmous/yoghurt/other dips (can get messy but also very fun)

    Roasted sticks of veg/home made chips

    Sticks of cheese

    Then you can also just give him what you eat and let him get stuck in. Alex particularly enjoys noodles or spaghetti. He eats pasta, mild curries (we just add chilli and salt to ours), couscous... With the pasta, we found the spiral ones are best. The "cup" shaped ones were hard to hold at first and penne just slid out of his fingers and frustrated him.

    Fishfingers or veggie fingers are good too, just make sure they're not too hot on the inside as often the outside is quite cool but the inside is still searing hot! Oh and sausages, we slice in half lengthways so they cool down and fit in his mouth better. He uses his teeth to scrape the meat from the skin.

    Jam/peanut butter/cheese sandwiches, Alex has only just got the hang of sandwiches and more often than not will open them and eat the contents first!

    Bananas are actually quite tricky as it just mushes. Now A has got a pincer grip we cut them in rounds so he can pick it up and put the whole thing in his mouth.

  • Pretty much anything, that's the good thing about blw. We got the blw cookbook for a few £ on amazon and it's fab. Everything to proper meals, snacks, when/how to introduce what erc. Definitely recommend it, we still use it now
  • Toast, cheese fingers, hard boiled eggs cut into fingers as best you can, pasta with sauce, the baby led weaning website has some good recipes for chicken and fish, but basically I put whatever we were having on her highchair tray, minus salt or spice. Even did fajitas without spices fairly early on.

  • Fab! Thanks Ladies.

    Ally - I'm not sure if it's a good idea to exclusively BLW as W is used to his "meals" that he gets.  I think i prefer the idea of exclusively BLW though.  So far he has had dry toast as i wasn't sure if i could put anything on it, Cucumber (he LOVES this), He's had grated cheese as the cheese we have doesn't cut up very well and crumbles if you so much as look at it, he's had chips and boiled carrot sticks.

    AR - What book do you have?

    I had such a ball at lunch time with him!  I much prefer him eating proper food than just giving him jars of baby food. (making my own is a bit difficult as we are currently living with my parents and we are limited on space)

  • The beauty of BLW is that you can just give them the same food as you're eating. Just make sure the food is long enough that they can eat it out of the top or bottom as they can't open their fists to eat. If you've already started weaning then it's more a case of introducing finger food rather than doing baby led weaning (unless you're ditching spoon feeding). There are so many finger foods you can try, most fruit (pears quartered with the skins on are great - same for plums, peaches & nectarines) or veg like carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans.. or strips of meat like grilled chicken. Cheese, cucumber. Anything really!!

  • It's called the baby led weaning cookbook and it's by gill rapely (sp?!) who wrote the actual blw book. It's not expensive and well worth it, we do nearly all our cooking from it now.
  • Blackkat, I suppose it's probably more introducing finger foods as he does still get spoon fed.  Dinner tonight consisted of Roast Beef, Potato and Carrot, and I sat with him while he ate that himself, but i did spoon feed him some mashed potato with a little bit of gravy through it, and he got his pudding via a spoon.

    I really just want to give him a new eating experience as he seems to want to feed himself.

    Cheers AR, I'll have a look for that book!

  • If you are wanting to carry on the spoon feeding then just introduce some finger foods. Blw is just totally letting them get on with it.

    Finger foods can be anything, just try to make sure that the chunks are slightly bigger than his fist.

    We did pure BLW

    But things I found good were

    Cucumber sticks

    Melon

    Pear

    Peach

    Strawberry

    Avocado

    Pitta strips with things like mackerel and Philadelphia or avocado or puréed peas and Philadelphia

    Potatoe wedges

    Sweet potato wedges

    Butternut squash

    Crumpet

    Malt loaf

    Breakfast was either porridge/scrambled egg/cereal

    If you are doing blw then offer loaded spoons at first if not then spoon feed

    Lunch was either soup in a TT cup, jacket potato in wedges, eggy bread, boiled egg and soldiers, omelette (cut in strips)

    Tea whatever we were having. If we were having a takeaway then they'd have something different otherwise we'd all have the same

  • We started BLW this week and so far, I have given E what we have eaten. Anything we season with salt etc I have added to our portions after sectioning off a portion for E. Despite several attempts however, the only thing that he has swallowed has been toast and yoghurt that I fed him with a spoon.



    I hope you don't mind me jumping on your thread RKB but for those who did BLW, how long did it take for your baby to "get it" and start eating ? I know that eating before one is just for fun, but I
  • Sorry, mobile site seems to limit how much you can write when on phone...



    ...but E seems totally disinterested in the food at the moment.
  • Thanks CP! Think I might give him some scrambled egg today!

    He seems to not want me to feed him since he started feeding himself.

    I gave him his breakfast this morning and had to give him a rusk to eat himself as he wouldn't entertain the spoon.

    He had roast beef, potatoes and carrots last night for dinner and loved it!

  • I'd just let him get on with it then. Put the scrambled egg on high chair and see what he does.

    Ferbs L didnt 'get' it till about 10ish months but he would have a play with the food etc and then at 10 months was spoonfeeding himself weetabix and yoghurt lol. So I think he was just watching iyswim

    Isaac on the other hand got it from day one and has never looked back Laugh

  • I think i'm going to have to.  This was him at lunchtime yesterday.  I had to grate the cheese because the cheese we have crumbles at the drop of a hat.


    How many bottles do you/ did you give your LO once they were 6 months and had started BLW?

  • both bf, I used to offer a feed then a little while later food, I just waited for them to refuse the feed, I'd still offer as that's main source if calories iyswim

  • That's my concern with the calories.  W only seems to want 3 8oz bottles in a day, and i could never get him to take any more when he was getting spoon fed.  I just hope he's getting enough as it is supposed to be his main source, and i don't think he's drinking enough.

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