BLW Fail...

So you may have read in an earlier post about our plan to do Baby Led Weaning with Steven to start him on solid foods. We got really excited about it when he was about 5 1/2 months old and he seemed very interested in food as well. So we decided to try to start BLW with him. The first few meals were fine and he seemed interested in handling the food, playing with it and sucking on what he could get to his mouth. So Steve and I thought we were good to go! We were both excited.

Here's Steven at his very first meal. Some carrots, apples and pulled chicken (that was very messy, won't do that again!) At first he didn't know what to think!

Then he got pretty into it and I thought we were doing ok!

Then, a few days into starting BLW, while he was at my parent's house they told me he choked on a piece of food he broke off in his mouth. They said he started to turn red and they had to pat his back to get it back out. That really freaked me out. Everything I read said they wouldn't choke. Honestly, before we started, I wasn't too worried about him choking at all. I figured we gave him things that he should be able to either just suck on and nothing would break off or things that were slimy and mushy enough that if he did get some off he could easily swallow it. But this news really got me worried.

Later that same night I was eating dinner with Steven and he did the same thing for me! He was eating some steamed carrots and somehow broke off a big piece and started choking on it. His face turned red, his eyes started to water and I had to pat him on the back to get it back up. He also threw up a little bit when I did that. Ok...major mommy freak out! I was so scared. It really looked to me like he was choking.

So after talking to Steve about it, we decided to take a break from BLW. We had a lot of discussions about whether this was really right for our family, did we want to continue, should we switch to purees, etc, etc. We decided that we did want to continue with BLW and see if it was a good fit for us. We re-read the BLW book and researched online and read probably every resource we could find.

After all that we came up with the following possibilities of what could be causing Steven's choking:

• He may not have been completely "ready". All the information says you should wait until baby is at least 6 months old and we started more like 5 months 2 weeks. So developmentally, he may not have been ready to actually swallow foods. Meaning, his gag reflex may not have been fully developed and his tongue thrust reflex may not have completely disappeared; causing him to basically freak out when anything solid was in his mouth.
• After more discussion/research we think Steven was probably "gagging" and not "choking". Gagging is apparently a natural part of BLW (missed that info the first time around) and is the baby's way of protecting themselves from choking. This also could be related to him not being ready. But basically its his reaction to having something solid trying to go down his throat for the first time and he has to get used to it.
• We realized he wasn't sitting completely upright in his high chair. Even though we had it on the most upright setting, he was still reclining slightly. That can be a cause of gagging as well. Also, he's still not where he should be at the height level for his high chair. The BLW info suggests you make sure he's at a comfortable level of height like you would be eating at a table. You can see in the pictures that he was still barely clearing the high chair table and it was coming up to about his armpits lol. So that wasn't helping either.
• I realized some of the foods I was giving him probably weren't suitable to start with. The carrots, for example, are too easily broken off when they are steamed and are in a round shape that is easily lodged in his little throat and not easily swallowed. So we found some other foods that are better to start with.

So, with all that new info, Steve and I decided to give BLW another try. We really believed in the principles behind it and thought it was the best thing for Steven. He really seemed to enjoy picking up the food we gave to him and experimenting with holding it himself. But we also agreed that if we continued to have problems, we would not be opposed to using purees and finding another solution.

So this week we started, tentatively and so carefully, BLW again. So far, we have had success. This post is already so long that I will write a separate post about our second attempt at BLW. But stay tuned!