The last couple of weeks she's been blowing raspberries right as I get the spoon in her mouth, spraying me with purées every. night. I'll give up after a few more spoonfuls and give her a Mum Mum just to keep her occupied while I finish dinner with DS. And then she'll eye the heck out of my food. So tonight I gave her some sweet potatoes and she was so happy! So tell me BLW parents, what do you do? They just eat what you eat? Even meats? She's 7 months, has had a variety of fruits and veggies purées but no carbs or meats, she has no teeth.
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Our 7mo son only has two front bottom teeth, and he can gum his way through an entire piece of bread. We generally feed him purées because I am too lazy to deal with the mess of BLW, but my point is that you shouldn't underestimate what their gums can do!
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Oh, we also inadvertently discovered that cantaloupe slices work well because he can hold a long piece and gnaw at the soft fruit. I just trim the rind as he eats it.
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Yep. I would cook her stuff until it was super mushy (not steamed crisp like my veggies) Just give it to them, they gnaw on it (suck the juice out) or mash it with their gums. E did well with ground meats...ground turkey, ground beef. They don't need teeth. E only had 2 when she was a full year old! I have a photo of her somewhere gnawing on a chicken drumstick at 7 or 8 months old.
She also preferred puree pouches over spoons. Especially because she wanted to grab something/do it herself.
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This was us. I just did a mix of BLW with really soft stuff and pouches. Seriously, try pouches before you give up on purées. They can hold them and you can just help push the food out.
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I am in the same boat -- my 6 mo will not tolerate spoon feeding at all, and I am a little uncertain how to proceed. I've been roasting sweet potatoes and squash in spear/fry shapes and that's been going well, but I'm kinda in a rut. He eats fruits out of those mesh feeders. I'm not sure what else to give him!
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My DD is 10 months and has been refusing the spoon for the last few days. Last night while we were eating we put little bits of broccoli, white beans and chicken in front of her and she dove into it, especially the broccoli! She only has 1 tooth, so they can definitely handle more than what we think with just their gums.
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We did a mix of soft foods and purees. LO LOVES pouches and she can pretty much handles them herself now at 11 months. For feeding herself at 6-7 months we gave her steamed/roasted veggies, cut up fruits like watermelon, grapes, bananas. Around 8 months we started adding in ground turkey, meatballs, sausage, beans, cheerios. Around 10 months we started giving bigger pieces of bread with peanut butter or biscuits and she goes right through them.
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Try foods that you can mush in your mouth without chewing. Cheese, toast, peas, soft carrots, chickpeas, ripe fruits. Mine always shoves the whole piece in her mouth, so I do bite sized pieces. I've heard cutting the food the size of a baby finger is fine, though.
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We started giving our daughter table food around 7 months because she wasn't into purees either. We actually don't do it classic BLW style (big spears or pieces) very often. I mostly just cut up food to be about pea-sized and put it on her high chair. We started with pretty soft and easily digestible foods but quickly moved to whatever we were eating. For meats, she does just fine with chicken and soft meats like a pot roast, but I wouldn't give her something tougher like a steak or pork chops yet.
She's 13 months and JUST got her top teeth, but she's been happily eating finger foods since 7 months with no problems.
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We did BLW and we just gave her whatever we were eating. She loved meat and carbs (as well as fruits and veggies). She had 2 teeth (maybe 4?) by 7 months but she had already been doing BLW for 3 months by then. She loved to suck the juices out of meat. I can't imagine it would be that much messier that the purees if she is spitting them out. Definitely worth a shot!
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@lamariniere: @My Only Sunshine: @NeekieRose: @Grace: A question for those of you who mention giving your LOs cut up table foods: did your LO have a good pincer grasp when you started doing that or did they kind of learn as they went? I've been giving him puffs to practice the pincer grasp and he's getting better at it, but he struggles still to self-feed little pieces. I think he might need another month or so of bigger pieces of soft, mushy foods.
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@gilmoregirl: It was something she learned as she went. I just put a variety of things that we were eating on her tray and let her choose what she wanted to eat. I never cut her food into tiny pieces, they were usually more like "fingers" that were easy for her to hold and eat.
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@gilmoregirl: my daughter has just been able to effectively pincer grasp in the last 2 weeks or so. In the beginning we gave her strips that she could hold with her whole hand and ram into her mouth.
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We started BLW a few weeks ago at 6 months. Needless to say the jarred food I stocked up on is now at someone else's house. We give her fruits, veggies, toast, yogurt, eggs. We try something new every few days. I need some new ideas though!
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@MamaChin: there are also lots of good blog posts on here about BLW
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@gilmoregirl: My daughter was just starting to develop a pincer grasp when we started giving her table food. I found food was a good way for her to improve that skill, because there's nothing else that small you can safely give a baby to practice picking up.
There were certain things that were easier for her to start with. I think our most successful early foods for her to pick up by herself were defrosted frozen peas, cut up chicken, black beans, blueberries cut in half, and Cheerios/puffs. It took a while before she could pick up slippery or mushy things like cut up bananas or pears.
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@gilmoregirl: It was a learn as she went. I always followed up with pureed foods because I was scared that she wouldn't get enough from table foods alone. Plus, it took a long time for her to eat, so at some point I think she was too hungry to try any more (kind of how I feel, when I try to eat with chopsticks).
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My LO quit purees cold turkey one day around 6 months. Absolutely refused to eat anything mushy from a spoon. She had no teeth but that didn't stop her from moving to a solid-only diet. She's just turning 1 and now has 3 teeth that appeared very recently, so she's been eating real solids for months without teeth. There are a lot of food we cannot give her due to her food allergies (dairy, soy, egg) but we make do and always try to offer a wide variety at mealtimes.
We feed her corn on the cob (her favorite), hummus, bits of steak, chicken, ground turkey, sausage, potato, carrots (cooked and the raw shredded), zucchini, summer squash, peas, corn kernels, apples, banana, strawberries, raspberries, kiwis, mangoes, peaches, pears, plums, nectarines, Tiny Fruits (freeze-dried fruits), Gerber Graduates Crunchies puffs, Gerber Graduates Fruit & Veggie Melts, Cheerios, Life cereal, pickles, peanut butter (as of a few days ago).
We break things into more manageable pieces except the corn on the cob, she just gnaws on that and surprisingly does a thorough job. I have tried giving her larger pieces to grab on and chomp at but she just shoves the whole large piece in her mouth and chokes so we cut everything up small. Anytime we are eating she is grabbing and pointing and wanting to eat what we eat.
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If she can gum it, she can have it! I give chip sized pieces she can grasp and munch on. She has a good pincer grasp but I just am not comfortable giving her tiny pieces, I feel like it's more of a choking hazard then having her be able to bite off what she can manage. So far she has had: bananas, steamed broccoli/carrots/sweet potatoes, avocado, bagel with cream cheese, pancakes, waffles, chicken, pasta, ground turkey, deli turkey, cheese, yogurt, peaches, applesauce, crab meat, quiche, the list goes on...
Once you've done it for a few weeks, you get much more comfortable with it. Know that gagging and coughing is normal. Choking is silent! Beware for chipmunk cheeks - my daughter likes to store things in hers without swallowing, so we have to monitor how much she shoves in her mouth at once! It's so much easier and more fun (but definitely more messy!)
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@My Only Sunshine: yeah, food seems really motivating to get him to practice. He's starting to get the hang of puffs so maybe I can try some other little things.
@Grace: I kinda worry about him not eating enough but he's little and I know he doesn't need the food for nutrition or calories yet. But I hate to waste it!
He loooooves to pick up fry-shaped foods and shove them in his mouth though so it's way easier for me to just roll with that instead of trying to make purees happen.
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@gilmoregirl: just put it in a container and save it for the next meal. And if he's smushed it to smithereens, just think of it as him learning about different textures and fine motor control practise.
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