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yes we have been doing it, but olive's hand control is pretty poor so we still feed her small chunks of food. she feeds herself bigger things like bread, bananas, etc.

in fact olive hates purees and will turn her head away if you try to feed her with a spoon. she knows that spoon = puree.

we feed her a little bit of whatever we're eating so a lot of korean food. a lot of our food has garlic and sesame oil in it, which she loves. she really loves chicken. we've given berries, french toast, cheese... but i do end up making things specifically for her because our food is either too salty/spicy.

I'm actually working on a post on finger foods... hope to finish it this week!

We started with avocado around 4 months but she didn't really like it. We then went to some rice cereal just in the evenings.

It was around 6 months that she kinda got the hang of eating the rice cereal so we started other foods. At daycare they don't really like BLW so we just sent purees to daycare and did finger foods at night. It was totally worth it because now at 10 months she can eat anything and we are sending finger foods to daycare.

Also, the only time she has ever gagged was on avocado. I then let her have more and she actually gagged and threw up. We haven't done much avocado since but she eats everything else like a champ.

Our favorites:
- Frozen slice of red/yellow/green bell pepper
- Carrot stick or cucumber slice
- frozen peas, cubes of carrots and sliced blueberries
- peaches and pears from a can cut smaller
- baked pear and apple
- Cut up banana chunks and spears
- Mango and kiwi slices
- Asparagus (oddly she liked this more raw then cooked)

Let me know if there are other questions, I would love to hear more about what others are doing and any more ideas for more finger foods.

I'm always worried about choking the first time I give LO a new food, but she always seems to figure it out. She'll occasionally cram a too-big piece of food in her mouth and will gag/cough a little and manages it without help. I'm always ready to finger sweep, though At 8 months, LO pretty much likes everything she tries, except porridge fingers, which were my first attempt at cooking something specifically for her. So we just give her some of what we're eating and lots of soft cooked fruits and veggies.

ETA: we started meat a couple weeks ago, and she has no problem with small pieces of chicken and turkey.

We did baby led weaning with lots of pears, turkey, bacon, chicken, avocado and sweet potatoes. We just did spears until he got teeth and a good pincher grip. Then we added frozen peas, blueberries, etc. We would cut the blueberries into quarters for him to eat. We also eat a ton of freeze dried fruit. It mostly dissolves in the mouth like melts. We like the costco apples and we get mangos, etc from whole foods.

I'm excited for all this bow love! We plan to follow blw and my family just doesn't get it!

@Mrs. Bee: what about food allergies? My dr said when we introduce foods, do one item each week before adding more in case baby has a reaction, you know what food it's from. Do you give steamed carrot for 1 week, and then steamed broccoli for 1 week, or do you do a variety of foods throughout the week.

My dr advised me to not do blw, I'm curious as to why they want the babies to eat pre made store bought stuff?

As a working mom I kinda had to let daycare just do purees and then we did BLW at home for dinner. She still caught on really quickly and did great! Now that shes a bit more advanced and can actually eat the food (10 months) we send finger foods to daycare with her.

Liv is about to be a year old, and we started BLW at 6.5 months. She LOVES FOOD. It was absolutely the best fit for us as she had great hand eye coordination and an early pincer grasp, so she wanted nothing to do with purees at all. I was afraid of choking too, still am. I just made sure it was cut up small enough for her. I used to slice blueberries about halfway through before she ate them so they squished easier in her mouth and we didnt risk it, like, richocheting off her gums down her throat. Be careful with string beans. I used to give those to liv whole bc she would take bites, but the other day she tried to eat one whole and I had to yank it out of her mouth, Just realize that at that age they have a very sensitive gag reflex, and its closer to the front of their mouths than ours is. So there WILL be gagging, Give it a second, as they usually get it situated quickly.

I didnt read books, but did a lot of research on the choking hazards and risks involved and decided it was the best route to take (and Liv wouldnt touch a puree anyhow)