You can borrow books on BLW to understand the rational behind so to prepare yourself how to educate your own family members. Also, you can list out the food that you want to start up with from the suggestions given in the book. I find internet information on BLW are too scattering for me to gather a complete picture. In addition it will be a plus point if you got time to attend a first aid training on infant and baby, especially on how to handle chocking. For me I also watched youtube videos on real baby doing BLW so to understand how does it looks like when baby is gagging instead of choking. With this I feel more confident when doing the BLW. I also joined local BLW FB group to have mummies supports whenever I have any doubts and I can refer to recipes in the group. Also, it is good to communicate with your partner and family members on your intention to do BLW as older generation they do traditional ways of weaning and not heard of BLW before. I believe family support is very important as they will participate together instead of become a hindrance to BLW journey. Finally, get a baby chair, bib that can catch dropping food and weaning tray for baby to start the BLW journey.
Some of my friends tried baby-led weaning and found that it is not very tedious in terms of food preparation. Food preparation is fast and easy since it usually only involved cutting and steaming fruits or vegetables. While it can get messy, their babies appeared to be more interested in eating and having fun while at it. What they did was to cut fruits or vegetables into pieces that are big enough for their babies to hold onto. They started off with steamed carrots, banana, soft mangos, toast finger, broccoli and peeled cucumber. And to introduce the idea, they started the first session as “snack” in between feeds. Once their babies got the idea, they started eating together with them and as a family whenever possible. One thing is note is that do be prepared that baby-led weaning would definitely be a messy process (but mess can always be cleaned up!).
i tried BLW with both my babies around 8 months of age. it was messy yes, but it was also super fun, and we soon moved on to family meal times. i started by giving diced pieces of bananas, soft peaches, plums, boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, bean sticks and such.
I started to intrduce BLW when my baby was 7 months old. I usually gave him slices cubes of fruits or vegetables. He loved carrots, sayote and potato. For fruits, apples and bananas are among his favorites.
Dee Pereira