What the heck is baby led weaning

For anyone actually interested in learning about BLW (not just slagging it off) here's a tip if your GC are doing BLW:

A big bowl of something that all looks the same, or large lumps of 2 or 3 things doesnt work as well as a selection of smaller tasters, so invest in an ice tray and use that to put "samples" in:

Eg if you're doing roast dinner:

A cube with a spoon loaded with gravy and mash
A couple of cubes (not besids each other) of veg, a couple with potato, a couple with yorkshire pud, a cube with a fork of meat etc

So its small little tasters rather than chunks or lumps of samey food.

Same with spag bol etc. No big bowls of it all mixed together. Separate it out into the ice cube tray: a couple of spoons with bol sauce pre loaded. A few cubes with dry spagetti, a few cubes with some other bits like cucumber etc

Its not so messy if you do not present them with a big bowl or plate of samey mush

BLW doesnt = no cutlery either

I'd be interested to know from those who did do BLW - what happens when the children are older and eat with the family - do they still have a tendency to 'play' with food?

All kids do BLW.... at some point! Its just a matter of whether or not to skip the puree stage. They will at some point have to be allowed to go through the process of learning to do it themselves. Spoon feeding a 5 yr old who doesnt have disabilities is shocking!

I can think of one thing that would stop me weaning a baby onto solid foods ... the absence of teeth ...?

Babies have teeth. They are in their gums. Babies gums are hard and can chew. Its not like when we have our teeth out then have toothless gums

My DIL would never have had the patience to follow BLW! She'd just shovel the food into their mouths as fast as she could before whizzing them off to the next activity! Even now that they are 5 and 4, she frequently feeds them because it is quicker!
I'd be interested to know from those who did do BLW - what happens when the children are older and eat with the family - do they still have a tendency to 'play' with food?

My youngest is 52 now. She has always been very active eg trying to climb out of pram/highchair etc. Never sat still long enough to be fed or eat properly. So I prepared tiny pieces of fruit veg bread cold meat or fish etc and left them on a table for her to grab as she rushed past.
We were living in Singapore at the time, with tiled floors, so any mess didn't matter.

I saw, a photo posted by a friends daughter of her baby sitting in a highchair, the caption was...x just enjoyed his first spag bol, just a mess left on the tray. Another friend asked where the plate was. Anwser.. He does not use a plate in case it ends up on the floor, no cutlery training either.
I had a mat on the tray of th e highchair which held the plate in place. Am I just being an old-fashioned Granny??

SirChenjin - utter rubbish isn't it! Almost impossible to get a spoon of food in a little closed mouth! We uses to give them their own food from the start. Made a terrible mess! But again - instinct driven.

knickas63 - I agree. There's some fairly strident advocates of BLW however who believe that spoon feeding babies equals force feeding as they are only given what the parent wants them to have, as opposed to letting them choose the amount they eat.

It's a misnomer. It isn't baby led at all in my opinion! I was 'weaned' at around 3 months. My three around 3-4 months. I taught my daughters to follow their instincts. If we were not inundated with 'experts' and their everchanging views, were not exposed to others ideas constantly, then I believe our natural instincts would note when a baby starts to watch you eat, open their mouths with every forkfull of your food, and would consider that to be 'baby led' towards wanting more. My three grew up with healthy attitudes towards food, and my grandchildren appear to be going the same way. Not overweight either!

GC2 was weaned this way, messy but loved her veggies and small sausages etc, and ate well. Now is 3.5 yrs and has become a picky eater...hopefully will return to having a better appetite and enjoying her meals.
Not brilliant with child sized cutlery yet, gives it a go then resorts to fingers, school dinners could be fun if they don't get that cracked!

Well it may have been around a long time but it was new to me when my daughter did it nine years ago. I found it an expensive/wasteful method of feeding children and the only time we properly fell out was at a restaurant when I was totally embarrassed by the mess on the floor and table which stressed my daughter. Not to mention my fear of gc choking. (which is unfounded I know). The children did get to experience a much wider range of food at an early age.

I think my first two grandchildren were given hard things, such as sticks of carrot, so that they could 'gum' them and get used to the general flavour, rather than eat them
.
My third grandchild (my other son and dil's child) was only given soft things - soft enough to be crushed by the gums. Her parents were (and still are, to some extent, even though she is now 15 months old), very careful about the shape and size of the foods offered, to minimize the choking risk.

DS and DiL started this a week ago and, labels notwithstanding, it's pretty much as SirChenjin describes. DGS has enjoyed cubes of boiled potato as well as spoonfuls of mashed.
(Boiled) carrot sticks and mashed. He does not seem to like sweet potato yet!
He's coping well and a reasonable amount goes in!
At 6 months and 100% breastfed he is thriving and ready to take that next big step!

God! I am so glad I don't have to arse about with this stuff anymore. Much prefer just looking after me.

agnurse you've got it wrong they do give hard foods. The whole point is not to give them purees or anything too soft. The baby needs to be able to pick it up and hold the pieces.

I was nervous at first, and hovered around while she stuffed her little mouth with cucumber, cheese, pasta, and she did gag quite frequently, but seemed to deal with it herself.

They don't give the baby hard foods. They'll start with things such as meat cooked to be very soft, boiled or mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, etc.

I can think of one thing that would stop me weaning a baby onto solid foods ... the absence of teeth ...?

Im hopelessly out of date with all things baby and have not heard of this.

If the baby is coughing or gagging, you actually don't need to do anything and it could be dangerous to interfere. These are good things and it indicates that their airway isn't totally blocked. It's only if they go silent and/or start turning blue that you need to intervene - that's a complete airway obstruction. Frequently, choking is silent in infants.

BLW is actually very safe. AFAIK parents wouldn't give something hard, such as a raw carrot or something - they would give soft foods. The only foods I personally would not give a child under a year old are honey (due to infant botulism risk), straight cow's milk (just give formula or breast milk), and whole nuts (due to choking risk; smooth nut butter would probably be fine).

My daughter did this with twins 10 years ago. It worked a treat and they ate anything and everything. At 10 they are the fussiest of eaters. I don’t know what went wrong in the middle!

My DGD is 3 and still won’t eat most of what she is offered. She has played with and refused so much food. However, if encouraged and helped, she will eat a reasonable meal. I wouldn’t recommend this type of weaning.

OP- your own mother, or perhaps grandmother probably said “What the heck is demand feeding?”