Purées or BLW?

Question

Has anyone considered baby led weaning or are you doing traditional purées? My dad is losing his mind trying to convince me not to do BLW but I’ve done a lot of research on it and would really like to try it however it’s not common here at all so I can’t get a personal POV from anyone I know...

Answer

We did what I call "blw on a schedule" and my mom was around a lot for it. She had seen a lot of babies but blw was completely new for her, but she generally won't be pushy about her different opinion so she just came along for the ride.
It was awesome, btw.
I've seen a lot of nephews, nieces and little cousins, babies of friends etc eating purees. Some of them were great eaters and couldn't get the next spoonful fast enough, some really hated being fed. All of them were a chore to feed.
With the purees, you prepare food separately for the baby, so you are already cooking twice compared to blw.
You feed yourself and you separately feed baby. That's a whole program, btw. Position yourself in front of baby and prepare the spoon and the puree. Start spooning. Try to keep baby's attention. Try to save the bowl. Try to keep the spoon away from sticky hands and land in the mouth.
Now, some people will try and feed the whole portion, and some will just keep offering the food until baby is receptive, so the classical blw books on this are not quite on point with the criticism because you're not necessarily stuffing the baby with purees either.
But you're still stuck sitting there, lifting spoon after spoon. And no matter what you do, baby will be a mess.
And then you're gonna try and proceed with lumpier and more solid foods according to a schedule. It's the same schedule for every baby. It doesn't matter if your baby has zero or six teeth at nine months, you'll take the next step.
Plus after training your baby for a very long time to leave that f***ing spoon alone so you can feed them, suddenly you'll want to try and get them to use one at an arbitrary point in time. And at that point, baby will be a lot more progressed and playful, able to make a HUGE mess with a spoon.
Instead, with blw is a lot calmer.
You prepare just one meal. I always made sure to prepare the currently on schedule baby food as a part of the family meal. So sometimes we had pumpkin slices for sides, or steamed apple slices... It was really nice, made me have another look at our own meals with daddy.
Sit baby down, sit yourself down (baby in your lap until they can sit up on their own), put food where baby can easily reach it, and start eating. If baby's interested, those sticky hands are gonna reach for the food and then find the mouth. There's no whole different program. You can enjoy your meal and enjoy looking at your baby having fun with discovering new things.
Baby will eat exactly as much as baby needs. My first ate for enjoying the novelty, for tasting everything, and for the discovery of all those new textures on her hands and in her mouth. Very little of her food went down. And then she suddenly started eating while meals, not just tasting them, when she was 12-13 month old. I had to do nothing but our normal routine for that. She's extremely healthy and her growth has never been questioned.
It's not actually messy. OK it's messy but a lot less than what you expect. A lot of babies are more interested in the food itself than in making a mess. And by the time a puree-fed baby gets the first chance at handling a spoon, the blw baby is a pro with forks and spoons.
Mushes and purees in blw work like this: prepare about four spoons, load them with food, put them in front of baby, if baby is interested, help with the lifting up and aiming thing,then reload the empty spoon. You'll let baby make a mess a lot sooner but they get over it pretty quickly and not be any messier than puree fed babies... In fact, when the puree is rejected but the daily amount of food needs to be consumed, forcing that puree is a lot messier than anything baby can do while doing blw.
There are no stages of mushiness. I had a schedule of what could get onto the menu at which time that was based on research and took a lot of recommendations made for purees into account, so there was a lot of excitement in our lives with new foods being introduced every month. But that's it, that's all that changes apart from baby becoming better and better at feeding themself. You will stop loading spoons at some point (that's quite late btw) but stabbing things with a fork is something they learn very quickly. Soups can come in a cup anyway.
My first has loved mealtimes since the beginning. She's eating whatever we are eating at meals. Of course she has preferences. Today she told me she didn't like carrots at all, and yesterday she ate all of the carrots first on her plate and then tried to steal mine. She'll eat hot spicy foods, try new things cautiously but enthusiastically. She's at a completely healthy weight, she's rarely sick ever, her hand-eye coordination is great.
The only problem we have encountered was that at one point she became too busy to sit down for dinner. She jumped up after a few bites and ran away to play... And then came back for another bite, and another, and another. When time came to bath and go to bed, she cried because she was still hungry. But that's a problem with a toddler being conflicted when offered both playing and food, and not starting a baby on solids.
(I'm certain there are tons of typos up there. I'm not gonna go hunting for them, sorry.)

Answer

You can do both! Start with purées for now until about six months then start blw with specific foods only. It’s great offering different kinds of textures.

Answer

I did combo feeding with my first and we will do the same with our daughter. We started purées at 4 months and started a combo of blw and purées at 6 months and by 7 months he was done with purées.

Answer

I’m thinking about BLW so all these comments were awesome to read! 😊

Answer

We did traditional weaning. Started cereal/purées around 5-6 months and transitioned to finger foods around 9-10 months. I was convinced I was going to do BLW, but DD just wasn’t interested, and traditional worked great for us.

Answer

We are going to do a combination mostly because my husband and I disagree a little bit on it. So we will start oatmeal and homemade purees at about 4 and a 1/2 months if she showing signs and then at 6 months transition to more baby led instead of jar foods and chunky purees. 
 She's been watching us eat and practicing chewing since she was about 2 months old so right now we're just waiting for the sitting up part to catch up.

Answer

BLW I did it with my 16 month old at 6 months and had major success, join a Facebook group and teach your family the facts. It’s fun! And they love it lol

Answer

I’m doing BLW. It is hard for people (specially older generations) to understand this new way. But I’ve seen people say that by showing videos to their family members they understand it better and get on board. 
I sent a YouTube video explaining it to my mom and she was amazed.

Purées or BLW?

The Top Baby Tracker App: Embrace New Beginnings with Tender Care

The Top Fertility Tracker App: Your Path to Achieving Pregnancy

The Top Pregnancy App: Nurturing Your Journey to Motherhood

The Top Period Tracker for Empowering Your Menstrual Health Journey