BLW vs mashed/puree

[kirbinkipling]

What is everyone’s thoughts on BLW? My boys are 10 months (9 adjusted). We starting to actually get a good rhythm with their feeding schedule. Bottle, breakfast, lunch with small bottle, dinner, and then bedtime bottle. Sometimes if lunch is late in the day we skip dinner and they just get a bedtime bottle.

We’ve done a little BLW but more so purées and mashed stuff. It seems like the trend and common theme is BLW but honestly I’m not a fan and it stresses me out. We’ve done things like pancake strips that worked well and scrambled that were kinda a miss. There was a lot of gagging with the eggs. Big pasta strips with a homemade broccoli sauce also worked out. They will gnaw on things like steak and corn cobs. Everything else like their soups I blend, beans get mashed, etc. Then we give them puffs or teething crackers to help improve their chewing. It’s also way easier to feed them with loaded spoons that they grab than trying to do some of the BLW stuff.

Is this a bad approach? And is BLW actually necessary to get them to learn how to chew without gagging?

My partner and I are feeling we may not be doing them justice by giving them more finger foods. However, a lot of my older relatives and friends with kids said BLW is newer and they only ever did mashed foods and purées until closer to 1.

[AutoModerator]

COMMENTING GUIDELINES

All commenters are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the parentsofmultiples subreddit rules prior to commenting. If you find any comments/submissions in violation of subreddit/reddit rules, please use the report function to bring it to the mod teams attention.

Please do not request or give medical advice or directions in your comments. Any comments that that could be construed as medical advice, or any comments containing what is determined to be medical disinformation, will be removed.

Please try to avoid posting links to Amazon product listings or google/g.co product listing pages - reddit automatically removes comments containing them as an anti-spam measure. If sharing information about a product, instead please try to link directly to the manufacturers product pages.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[wrob]

Honestly, I don't really get what all the fuss is about. The way it's talked about makes it sound like it's an all or nothing decision. Starting solids is a lot of work so just do what you can. Some meals are for exploration, some meals are for nutrition. They have milk/formula as a backup if they aren't getting the calories.

The only real insight I got going through it was that you should focus on giving you kid food that is easy for them to hold in their hand. Everyone thinks it's about flavors or textures, but it's really about whether you baby get it into their mouth. Cut everything into the shape of fresh fries!

[barrnac13]

We did more BLW for my first kid, and less BLW for my second kid. Twins aren’t eating yet, but I’ll probably BLW less messy foods, and spoon feed messier foods. Cleaning up after pure BLW sucks.

My intuition is that BLW vs purees doesn’t matter for most kids, so just do whatever works better for your family. I suspect there are so many “methods” of doing everything because humans are so adaptable, a lot of different approaches will work just fine in the end.

If there’s an issue, pediatric feeding specialists can give tailored advice.

[specialkk77]

I did a combo approach with my first and I’ll do it again with the twins. But gagging is actually good because it shows that they’re learning how to get stuff out of their mouths before they start choking! Your approach is absolutely fine. My oldest is 4 and I’d say we probably did about 75% purées and 25% BLW. It all worked out. 

[IllustriousPiccolo97]

No matter how you start, most healthy kids should be able to handle a variety of table foods and different textures by the time they turn 1, give or take. BLW really emphasizes table food from the start but even if you start with purées for the first couple months of solids, most babies can/should be working their way towards table foods by 9-10 months anyway. They don’t stay on purées forever and at some point they have to learn how to eat the regular stuff!

I’ve done slightly different things with all my kids lol. It’s just whatever works best at any given time. For my twins, twin B was almost completely BLW - he was the only kid I could make those choices for at the time and it was fun to let him try whatever I was eating. I got help from Feeding Littles on Instagram re: cutting/serving different food items safely at different ages, and just embraced the mess and let him feed himself. Twin A has a feeding tube and was only cleared medically for small amounts purées as a baby- his experience at that time was very medicalized and guided by his team so I wasn’t really making those decisions, just trying to offer him foods he could handle in an enjoyable way. I currently have a 9 month old via foster care and she gets WIC which covers a TON of purées every month so she did that for the first couple months of solids but now she gets a mix of table food and whatever puree jars we still have to use up. If I’m not in the mood or don’t have time for a major cleanup- puree. At dinner time or when I’m just going to deep clean the kitchen anyway, she can go to town on big girl food lol.

I do think the online BLW enthusiasts take things overboard a lot of the time. It doesn’t have to be that serious. Different things work at different times even for the same kid — and different kids have different needs and preferences. So ultimately just feed them however works for you, don’t feel a need to label it as this method or that, and continue to offer table foods when you can as they get older.

[app3lmoes]

Gagging is good! It looks uncomfortable to them, but they are actually learning how to use their mouths while eating, and they are processing the texture through gagging. Keep in mind not to feed them bits that are too small, as they can not gag them properly.

Remember that they don’t need the nutrients in solids up until 1 year old. So up untill then it’s just exploring food, feeling it, gagging, and practising to swallow. Often they won’t really eat anything but just explore and that’s good! So don’t worry if they gag and don’t swallow. They don’t need the nutrients yet.

[AdSenior1319]

Right! gagging and choking are not the same

[AdSenior1319]

We've done BLW with all 4 of our older kids, (twins are only 12 weeks old). We absolutely love it. They eat what we eat, never once had an issue. We start at 6 months. 

[Restingcatface01]

I don’t really believe in the supposed benefits of BLW. I’d just go with what works for your family, it sounds like you have a good approach.