[jhatfield]

Hi all

I've just stumbled across this BLW thing after giving DD purees for a couple of weeks now (she's 6.5 months). Anyway, so I thought I'd try it, so I gave her a toast finger this morning. She absolutely loved it (she loves her food) and she stuffed it right in and started chewing and moving it around her mouth etc. But it did result in a lot of coughing and spluttering and gave me a few heart attacks! I didn't do anything though, just made sure she could deal with it herself. Just wanted to check if this was ok? the toast was fairly soft and had lots of grains in it (prob not a good idea I was thinking after). Is it ok to give solid food to babies after they are used to purees? Will they try and just swallow it instead of chew? Anyway, I think I'm a bit paranoid, but if someone could just assure me this is normal that would be great Thanks!

[Dylan's Mummy]

I think grain bread is ok, I give this to my bub. I have read that the main thing with grains is that they just pass through undigested. they are too tiny to be a choking hazard. From other threads I've read in here coughing and spluttering on food is ok, (it means their gag reflex is working) it's when they don't cough and splutter bu don't breathe that is the issue. Try giving bub some steamed, soft carrot or sweet potato sticks too. When my bub coughs and splutters while eating I just check in his mouth and he has usually got something in there that is a bit big for him, he often takes it out himself and other times I take it out.


I don't do BLW with my bub, he started out on puréed and has professed through the "standard" food textures.

I also made my bub a frittata (i got the recepie in a baby magazine) with grated carrot, potato and zucchini in it and he love that, it is easy for him to eat too and could also be broken up into small pieces, not sure if a 6 month old could eat it and because I haven't read much about BLW, I'm not sure if it would be ok with those guidelines.

[Tesseract]

Sounds like the appropriate response. Having started on purees is no problem for BLW, she is only 6.5 months after all! If a baby was 8 months and the parents wanted to switch to BLW then there would be a transition phase, but it would also be fine.

Just do your reading on chocking vs gagging, and remain calm. She needs to gag and spit stuff out, it's how she learns to take the right sized bite, move food in her mouth, swallow etc. It takes some tme. We started DD with BLW at 6 months and she still had the odd gagging episode up to about 11 months. Now at 22 months she doesn't really gag but often spits out a glob of food when she's put too much in - she's completely unphased by it, she knows she has the skills and control to cope.

Frittata is a great BLW food and I fed it to DD right from the start at 6 months. Other fun finger foods include sticks of roasted sweet potato, mushrooms, banana, orange wedge, sticks of cucumber, wedge of tomato, toast with various toppings, pasta, slow cooked casserole, meatballs...the list goes on!

Pop into the BLW ongoing thread if you want to chat more!

[jhatfield]

Oops - I meant to put this in the BLW thread! Thanks for your replies and suggestions of food I will def try them. She is getting better actually now and I think is learning how to deal with the finger foods a bit better. Its just scary at first!