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I loved BLW with my first and will be doing it with my second; that way is minimal prep work! She did also get puree in those feeder things she could hold/feed herself. Even if it's a lot of work I much preferred to make our own puree b/c of all the mold horror stories you see on FB about the pouches!

Food feeder - http://a.co/9XUI0Y3
Mesh feeder (I put fruits in them) - http://a.co/cxd1OCQ
Scissors/masher - http://a.co/dHXEvvX

@Goldengirl: The masher on the scissors help esp when we eat out. It's not a must; but we didn't have smaller food scissors for her anyway so it was a good buy! With DD1 we started with purees, did for like 2 weeks but she wasn't really into it and we also were doing BLW at the same time so we just abandoned purees and went full force BLW. occasionally we'd still puree fruits and put it in the silicone feeder for her to enjoym kinda like a Popsicle I guess? Some good first foods are avocado, sweet potato, etc. Anything you can slice long and are either already kinda mushy or can cooked to mushy-ish. IG: blwideas has some good visuals. Then when they develop their pincer grasp then they you can give them very small things that they are able to pick up and put into mouth themselves. And def watch some videos on YouTube re: gagging vs choking. They WILL gag but if you know they're just gagging then you won't be worried; it's very normal and helpful for them to learn.

Neither of my boys were BLW fans. They much preferred purées with some finger foods later on - like 8 months. They were able to self feed between 10-11 months but not terribly well. I guess they are slow on the fine motor skills. We just kept the purée amounts static once they were able to eat a whole tub and then provided more finger foods that they could eat if they were hungry.

We started on smooth purees and moved to thicker things by 9 months. We did a combination of homemade and storebought baby food. For instance DS2 likes the Gerber breakfast baby foods - mixed fruit with oatmeal, rice cereal with mango. Lunch might be a single veg like green beans which I can make easily by steaming frozen green beans and blending up. Dinner might be plain bits of what we had blended up - a small chunk of salmon, a scoop of rice, some peas and carrots with water or broth. If something was really nice in season I'd try to make it a point to blend a little extra up.

We did not like freezing baby food. It just wasn't my thing. If I didn't have anything fresh we used store bought. We used a lot of Gerber tubs for DS2 especially for breakfast and single veg in the early days. They are inexpensive and just fine. I find supermarket chains tend to sell organic baby food in glass jars under their store brand for very cheap. Last week I bought some of that for my son for 79 cents a jar - things that were full meals like chicken and sweet potato dinner or turkey and mixed veg dinner.

Babies don't take a lot of food in the beginning - like maybe a tablespoon or two. So you waste a lot of food. Clean opened baby food can last in the fridge for 2 days so I would scoop some out with a clean spoon and so you can use the remainder at another meal. If you go all into the container and your baby only eats like a spoonful it's not clear what kind of bacteria can be up in there and you have to use it within 24 hours.

My boys got the hang of finger feeding with puffs and Mum Mums. Then little bites of banana and soft fruit like watermelon and soft cooked veggies like broccoli florets or bites of soft carrot.

We started with just one meal like breakfast and started on one food for 3-5 days to check for reactions and then added a second. Then after two weeks I would add lunch with the 2-3 foods we had cleared at that point. Then by 1 month I could go 3 meals with a decent mix of foods and combinations. We also used cooked rice blended up as a mixer or stabilizer if it was too loose.

DS2 is 10.5 months now and pretty good at picking up food but still likes spoon feeding. I give him one meal a day of only finger foods and two meals of combo feeding at this point and that seems to be just right for him.

We wanted BLW to work so badly, but my kid would choke (not gag) on anything other than purees until 9 months. I made a huge batch of purees and froze them in 3.5 ounce cubes and pouches. I found it to be super easy--boil, blend, freeze, defrost.

Frozen fruits and veggies were staples. I threw in 2 bags with some water and considered it good to go.

We started both boys @5.5 months on purees. We made purees by steaming or roasting veggies and using our hand mixer. We didn't do blw with either child. DS2 is 9 months old and he eats a variety of puréed food as well as fingerfood. His pincer grasp is pretty good now.

We made all of DS1's food, but with DS2 we have supplemented with some organic baby food. We don't do pouches (after hearing about mold outbreaks a couple of years ago, I don't trust them).

There is no "right" way... you'll find your way and your baby will let you know what he/she needs.

Definitely agree with other posters about BLW. DS did not do well with it at all...so much gagging and frustration. It seemed like the easiest and best way but it didn't work for us til 9-12 months.
I froze puréed veggies I steamed myself in tablespoon 'lumps' on waxed paper on a cookie sheet and transferred to ziplock bags. Lots of eggs, oatmeal baby cereal mixed with fruits, yogurt, sweet potatoes, peas...added butter as much as I could for fat. The store bought jars or pouches are great for things like squash, prunes, etc that I wouldnt want to make myself or would make way too much if I did a batch.

We started with food that could be mashed with a fork: Sweet potato, avocado, banana, cantaloupe. The blending didn't really come up til a bit later. But my son has always been a foodie and would gum his way through an entire piece of multigrain bread. Conversely, my friend's son refuses anything other than jarred baby food. She think he had an issue with texture.

So, it may also depend on your kid.

@Goldengirl: You can always just make your own way and do a combo and slowly "wean" off purees into full BLW as you get more confident!