r/BabyLedWeaning

My little guy is approaching 10 months & just wondering how everyone else is scheduling feeds (both milk & solids)?

Still EBF and he takes solids like a champ. Currently doing 4 milk feeds a day (upon waking, after nap 1 & after nap 2 & before bed), along with breakfast, lunch & dinner solids.

Baby is 6 months old, started solids at 5 months due to all readiness signs being met, absolutely loves to eat. At the moment I've just been giving her smallish amounts to try out new tastes and textures. For example 4-6 pieces of pasta, a couple of strawberries, a lump of cheese to gnaw on, one piece of broccoli, a few strips of toast with peanut butter -- you get the idea. Maybe two or three different items per meal. We do two meals per day at the moment, brunch at 11am and late lunch at 2:30pm usually.

When should I start giving her proper meal-sized portions? At the moment she never seems full, she just keeps eating as long as I'm offering food and we finish the meal when I get fed up with the mess or when it's close to naptime 😅 I'm not sure how to tell when she's had enough as she likes food so much! She doesn't play with it or squash it on purpose, she literally just tries her absolute best to get it into her mouth and all the mess is accidental. It's doing wonders for her fine motor skills at least 😂

Have been doing solids for around a month with my 7mo, 95% BLW.

Understandably, its changing things in his tummy. He used to poop regularly once or twice daily, now its once a day max but often once every 2 or 3 days. This seems to be giving him such a sore stomach. It normally manifests in the night as he wakes up \~ every 2 hours and needs a feed to go back to sleep, but now when he tries to feed maybe 70% of the wake ups, hes just screaming, arching his back, kicking. This is happening pretty much every night and even on nights where he has pooped that day so shouldn't be too backed up, or on days we havent give him any food.

Whats normal here and how long does it last? The 2 hourly wake ups at night are bad enough without adding screaming in my ear to them 😂

I thought we were best to push through and his body would adjust, but if so, how long should we expect this to take? I offer water each time (not sure how much he actually swallows) and 1 or 2 spears of pear each time too.

We have been purposely slow to add in heaps of new foods because of this - we've done apple, pear, potato, sweet potato, avocado, peanut butter, egg, beef and lamb.

Just looking for some light at the end of the tunnel I suppose!

Thanks :)

went back to work when my kid was 1.5 years old with multiple plans on baby meals. tried batch-cooking purees, freezing them in ice cube trays, colour-coded, but I couldn't sustain it longer.

now her lunch is whatever we're having, cut smaller or mashed a bit scrambled egg with soft toast fingers and avocado or roasted sweet potato she can hold in her fist, and full-fat yoghurt with mashed banana on the days I'm running late.

For the working mums how do you manage baby meals? What did your baby actually eat for lunch?

My birthday is in a week and my husband ordered me a lemon blueberry cheesecake from my favorite local baker. Getting a cheesecake from her for my birthday has been a tradition for 3 years now, but this is the first of those years I have a baby (my big kids are 8)

I don’t know if I should let her have a little bit? I know cheesecakes are made with soft cheese, lots of sugar, etc…. Shall I purchase her a tiny cupcake of her own to join us in our tradition instead? Or do you think a small half of a sliver would be alright?

Not asking for like ya know, scientifically backed advice necessarily, moreso just what would YOU do?

We introduced solids for the first time today. We went with mashed sweet potato, steak, & a tiny piece of watermelon. He loved the watermelon but was appalled that I even offered him anything other than breastmilk. He seems so interested when I’m eating my own food so I for sure knew he’d be excited to finally get his own. Boy, was I wrong 😑 do I keep trying? Or wait a little longer and try again later? Maybe he’s not actually ready?

My 11 month old is suddenly preferring to be fed. He will still feed himself a little but then looks for us to give him something spoon fed. My inkling is that his dad helped feed him more than usual while I was away for work for a couple days. Or maybe this is a typical phase?

Any advice? Do we roll with it? Do we stop offering him spoon fed foods? It’s usually just like yogurt (for breakfast but we’ll offer leftovers later in the day so it’s not wasted) or applesauce on the side of a meal type of stuff.

I got these mesh food feeders a gift for 5 month old , so how do I use them to incorporate fruits and vegetables , for example if I have to introduce blueberries, do I have put frozen ones or fresh ones , lookign for ideas on how to use them

I know that for now milk is still the main source but I’m getting scared that we are getting nowhere and the 1 year mark is literally around the corner. I used to spoon feed purees and he was doing okay like that until he started getting more active and wanted to feed himself and for most parts he either throws the food or when it’s in mouth he does chew and then pushes out with tongue or just grabs his hands and takes it out himself and I’m also mot sure if this is normal?. It does take a toll on me all the effort and waste. I do 3x a day when I’m also eating, I do not force him and try to encourage and for him to imitate me on how I eat but whatever I do doesn’t seem to work. I’ve also tried different textures, sizes and all. I’m losing hope and feel terrible. If anyone has any tips I’d gladly appreciate them.

Okay so my baby is almost 6mnths and we are about to start solids and I am kinda veryy nervous. Like I have been reading about BLW for weeks and I feel like reading about it makes me more confused. The ironic part is I already have a BLW dinerpal highchair and a baby brezza foodmaker (got both of these on my baby shower but I am clueless as to how I use them) I jst dont know the basics, like how I start, and how much food I give? How many times a day? Do I start with purees first or just go straight to BLW? And the choking thing scares me sooo much. Like how is my baby supposed to go from only drinking milk to suddenly knowing how to swallow solid food? Every time I watch a BLW video the babies eatng a whole piece of avocado and I am super confused. Also what about allergens do I introduce them one at a time or all together? I feel like every source says something different. Someone please just tell me what you did because I am overthinking this and I need help.

We eat shrimp 5-6 times per year, and scallops about once per month. Apart from that, we don't eat shellfish.

How are you guys working more shellfish into your family's diet to maintain exposure? How often are we offering shellfish?

BLW has been going really well with my 8-month-old twins. However, they get really intense gas pains (like, wake up overnight screaming) when we give them cruciferous veggies (even though they love them), beans, lentils, and grains. We can get away with oatmeal but it makes them constipated.

We already can’t give them eggs, dairy, bananas, or avocados due to food allergies. I don’t want to further restrict their diets by avoiding the gas-making foods, but they’re so miserable and nobody sleeps when they eat them. this is despite using gas drops, giving water, bicycling their legs, etc.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How did you get your babies eating these foods?

Partner had kids 19 years ago and knows nothing about blw, is terrified of choking. Baby turned 6 months a weekish ago and we have been giving her purées on a numi spoon, she’s tried a couple foods like asparagus, watermelon. She did so great with the solid foods, I’m worried about holding her back with the purées but partner’s anxiety is rubbing off on me especially watching her gag a little today on a piece of watermelon she was able to bite off. When she had the melon as one of her first foods she gnawed it down and consumed a good bit easily, then after about a week of purees on a numi spoon is when she gagged. Are the purees going to cause a problem? We are def not spoon feeding, completely letting her self feed. What did you do if your partner or self was nervous about blw? Resources to share?

Context for my 9 month old. She has bottle aversion. On a good day she will take 20-24oz if we are lucky, in the dark. She started off solids well with purees at 6 months, shows a lot of interest in what we eat, and eats well several times, but she throws most of her food on the ground now. Now this would be okay, except she does need her solids. Her feeding therapist and RD put her on 3 meals a day since 7 months to make up for her low milk intake. We had started with spoon feeding to ensure she ate but she started showing signs of developing aversion to solids too so we switched to baby led weaning. She is 65th percentile right now. Weight gain isnt poor but its kinda stalled, she has dropped 10 percentile bands recently, nothing alarming so far, but her weight is being monitored regularly.

I want to discourage this habit of throwing food on the floor. I serve only 1-2 pieces at a time on her tray. She drops it on her side, looks down. I pick it up and put it back on her tray. 1 minute later, again. I think its become a game for her now. In between she will eat some. Then again throwing starts. Im not sure how to react. Right now I say no, shake my finger, and put the food back on the plate. Should I just stop picking up the food? No expression, no saying anything, just get more food as replacement?
Her feeding therapy team has had zero success with her bottle aversion so far for 3 months (she is also very strong willed so I discount that a bit), and arent very helpful with advice on this either.

My LO is 16 weeks, turns 4 months in 10 days. We had to go to the pediatrician today for an unrelated issue and I mentioned how much he is drinking (35-40 ounces a day) and we spoke about starting purées and rice cereal. He said we could start them now, with the caveat of not adding rice cereal to every bottle due to constipation concerns. He said we can do purées from 4-6 months and make sure to introduce all major allergens during 6-9 months. We had been thinking BLW but my understanding is that means no purées? I don’t want to start too early but he is always hungry (his weight gain is good) and think the rice cereal and purées might help him stay a bit fuller. I also want to promote proper facial development (chewing), nutrition (still breastmilk just adding the purées), and learning a variety of flavors.

Starting at 16 weeks seems early based on what I have read, but there are so many contradictory opinions. I would love any advice from those who started purées this early. Anyone who did purées early and then moved to a variety of solids? FTM just trying to do my best! Thank you!

My 12mo old spits out almost all food. Fruits, veggies, meats, you name it. We've been offering 3 meals a day for months now and it's not getting better. But here's the kicker - she does know how to eat. She just .... won't. She will like a food for a while and then hate it. Peaches for example: we went through a phase where she devoured fresh peaches and loved them for like 3 weeks. Now she barely touches them. She briefly loved apples. Doesn't care for them now. Pears the same way. The one thing she's always loved is cottage cheese. But now we're having a new problem. She's constipated (already working with the dr to resolve). I feel so confused. I'm offering balanced, healthy meals with lots of variety and 99% of stuff goes in and right back out. But again, she does know how to eat. One time we got food at a restaurant and she had almost a whole chicken tender and loved it. I'm just feeling down in the dumps about it all. This whole "they need 1,000 calories a day" thing and now constipation on top of it... what the heck am I supposed to do ☹️

ETA: She has been EBF since birth and is still nursing 3 times a day and a little overnight. She was snack nursing throughout the day but the doctor said to cut that as it was possibly filling her up and making her not want solids. Now she just waits it out and tries even less food at meals knowing she'll get breastmilk. The doctor also doesn't recommend feeding therapy as she has the ability to eat food, she just won't. Doctor said "just continue offering food." 🙃 Which is what I've been trying....