Purees VS BLW VS Both/other
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Comes at about age 5 I think) and they will choose to eat what their body needs. As a general rule of thumb, food should be cut into (adult) finger length and width strips, anything round should be quartered lengthways. There are exceptions, like apples need to be cooked until soft, grated or sliced as thin as the blade of a knife for example. There is no greater risk of choking with blw when the food is modified correctly than there is with traditional weaning, but there is actually less risk of choking when baby feeds themselves instead of being fed. They learn to take appropriately sized bites and chew. They do still gag but it's important to know the difference between gagging and choking because...
intervening when baby is gagging can actually cause baby to then choke. There's lots of good Facebook groups, 'weaning the blw way' is the one I refer to most. My LG is now 9 months and we get complimented on how well she eats. Some days she barely eats anything, some days its like I've starved her for a month. I won't force her to eat if she doesn't want to. She now has 6 teeth but she had none when we started, their gums are pretty good at chewing!
@Carys thank you for explaining that makes much better sense now I appreciate it. That’s amazing with your 9 month old! I might try a mix of BLW and purees.
Baby led weaning is offering the child essentially what you eat, they get the same family meal as everyone else. The only exceptions are honey (before 1) and added salt and sugar (before 2, avoid as much as possible but use discretion). We went straight in with BLW when baby showed the signs of readiness, which includes being around 6 months of age (2 weeks either side), and she had sausage, mash and broccoli for her first food. BLW, as the name suggests, means the baby leads their journey to an extent. They aren't fed, they feed themselves. It's our responsibility as caregivers to offer balanced and nutritional meals, to serve the food cut appropriately/safely, to model eating (bite-chew-swallow), to choose what food is served and when food is served. It is baby's responsibility to eat food in the order they choose, choose how much they eat, and choose what they do/don't eat of what is offered. Babies are intuitive eaters, they can't overeat because they can't over-ride the feeling of being full (that...