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Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

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Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Weaning

i'm not convinced that blw is for every baby

30 replies

warthog · 13/03/2007 12:25

hope this won't be massively controversial, but i got mega-stressed by this whole blw milarky.

i was massively pro-blw when i started weaning dd and she was an exclusively blw babe until about 9 months. she just couldn't get the volume of food that she needed. i was breastfeeding her as much as possible but she dropped way behind her peers on the weight scale. i was really stressed about it until i just decided that i would try mash and spoon feed her. at the end of the meal i'd give her stuff to throw around the kitchen. she's been great ever since.

i feel disappointed that i couldn't exclusively blw but she plays with food rather than eats it.

so if yours is like my dd, don't sweat it if blw isn't the way to go. it's not the be-all and end-all.

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princessmel · 13/03/2007 12:27

Thats like my dd. She has it from a spoon, her helping at the same time, and then the same stuff unmashed.
If I gave it to her all BLW way then she'd just eat a bit, get bored and have loads more BF which I didn't want to happen.

Which ever way you feed your baby is the right way.

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mumto3girls · 13/03/2007 12:29

My daughter could not have done blw either..she still didn't want to eat at 14 months old !! She always just played with food and we had to take her to the hospital to see a consultant about how much her weight dropped of whilst weaning ( although she was still bf on demand).

But it's great if it works for you, but it's only an option, not a requirement isn't it?

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AitchYouBerk · 13/03/2007 13:29

of course it's not for everyone, but it's worth a try as if your baby goes for it it's a real breeze.

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warthog · 13/03/2007 19:35

yes, i totally agree that blw is a lot less work. can you tell i'm bitter?

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beanbearer · 13/03/2007 22:11

As long as you and she are happy about her food, that's what matters.
But about the weight dropping - were you using the red health books to judge by? The World Health Organisation has a set of charts for optimally fed babies (ie breastfed to 12 months+ with solids introduced after 6 months) and a baby on the 25th percentile in the red books is on the 50th of the WHO scale, ie a quarter of babies that appear to be below average on the red book scale are really above average for breastfed babies. By 12 months there's about half a kg difference in 'average' - 9kg vs 9.5kg for girls. So if your baby's dropping below her growth line, this may be because the red book still uses a scale based on babies given substitutes for breastmilk. My DD started out on the red book 91st percentile, dropped rapidly to just above 50th, hung in there for the first 4 months and has since dipped well below 25th. All this would have been alarming were it not for the fact that she's hugged a WHO growth line since week 6 so I know she's growing as you'd expect a breastfed baby should. My HV has taken some convincing about this! Follow these links for the WHO charts: girls or boys .

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warthog · 14/03/2007 08:54

wow bb! that's spot on for my dd! i'm amazed that they've not printed a second chart for bf babies! would save us a lot of angst. it's not done much for my confidence to see all dd's peers looking like sumo wrestlers (well not really, just in comparison...) and she's got a slim little tummy. i mean, babies aren't meant to have waists are they? they're meant to have 11 fat rolls.

even so, i know she wasn't getting enough food in. just could have done without the whole stress tbh.

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fluffyanimal · 14/03/2007 11:11

Beanbearer: great links. Perhaps you should post them in a separate thread to make it easier when people search for such things. It is very reassuring and I am pleased to see that my light little fella is on the 50th centile by these charts - he was dropping below the 25th according to the red book.

Back to the OP, of course BLW is not for every baby. It's not the 'right way' to wean, just one of many right ways. The problem lies not in any one way of weaning, but in parents thinking they should follow one way or another. Why be disappointed that your dd is not exclusively BLW? If she were, it wouldn't make you a better parent or her a better baby.

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Loopymumsy · 14/03/2007 20:23

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smeeinit · 14/03/2007 20:28

just being very nosey..........whats blw?!
its all new to me!!!

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LadyMacbeth · 14/03/2007 20:30

Yeah, what is BLW?

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smeeinit · 14/03/2007 20:32

oh glad im not the only one ladymcb!!!

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LadyMacbeth · 14/03/2007 20:34

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hatrick · 14/03/2007 20:34

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VeniVidiVickiQV · 14/03/2007 20:35

It's worth noting that, however you choose to wean, milk will always be the most important and therefore play the largest part in a baby's diet in the first year.

So, refuseniks of any form of weaning will not be missing anything if they dont appear very interested up to 12 months old.

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twoisenoughmum · 14/03/2007 20:50

It is also worth noting that BLW is something that I and many other slightly older mothers had never heard of until very recently. When I had my first child, advice was to exclusively breast feed for 4 months and then start on rice, fruit purees etc. By the time I had my second it was breast milk exclusively for 6 months but, because there was only 2 years 8 months between the two of them and my second DC was large and hungry I went with what I knew and was comfortable with and started him on rice etc at 4 months (maybe just a teaspoonful to begin with), going against advice at the time.

Both children now eat well and I have never had any issues with them with food. Both were breastfed until they were a year old, its just they weren't exclusively breastfed. They are easy to take anywhere, they are neither overweight or underweight.

When did this all happen? Back in the dark ages before anyone did any research on the subject? No. DD is just 6, DS is 3.

I cannot believe that there is now another huge issue for parents to get stressed over.

I just feel for you, I honestly do.

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hatrick · 14/03/2007 20:53

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warthog · 15/03/2007 07:58

of course you're right - we know our babies and will do what seems right. it's just, if you try to do the best thing that you think is right at the time, and blw seems such a nice way of introducing food, that when it doesn't go according to plan it's easy to feel bad about it. at the time i kept telling myself that it's no big deal, whilst reading threads shouting that if you spoon pureé into your baby's mouth in addition to blw, then there's no way that that's blw.

plus, i was the only one of my friends that tried it, so i felt more pressure to make it work. there's almost a sanctimonious sentiment (please don't take offence) at the view that 'i let my baby decide about food' that compounds the issue.

i still fundamentally feel that it's preferable to pureéing and spoon feeding. i think my dd was happier feeding herself, and the meals are slowly coming round to that.

i just wanted to point out that it's not the be-all and end-all and that you haven't failed if it doesn't work for you.

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BizzyDint · 15/03/2007 09:07

of course it isn't the be all and end all. but when you are really into blw, like me, and you like talking to other mums about it (i do not know any blw mums in RL!) it is difficult NOT to sound holier than though or evangelical.

when a mum has been struggling for weeks and weeks to spoon feed her baby, and one of us suggests ditching the spoon and letting the baby feed himself, more often than not it is an entire revelation to that mum. a lot of people have no idea a baby CAN feed himself, however messily!

twoisenough- a lot of older mums, who have had a few children do find they did blw with baby 2 and 3 and 4 because it's easier and fits in with family life. they just didn't call it blw because the gill rapley study hadn't 'formally' named it as such.

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Loopymumsy · 15/03/2007 14:47

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magicfairy · 15/03/2007 15:13

ds started on purees then switched to blw which at first seemed to love then after 2 days got really grumpy at meal times, wouldnt eat anything until i thought i'll just try some puree and as soon as he saw the bowl and spoon he got really excited and opened his mouth wide and has been much happier since switching back

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Nip · 15/03/2007 15:21

I dont actually GET BLW... My Ds has been spoon fed and also eats things off his tray himself...
He throws food around if he likes, and mashes it all into his hair sometimes... but he also has meals which i feed him on a spoon.
Whats actually the point? I think i've really missed something and so far have felt a bit stupid in asking?

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BizzyDint · 15/03/2007 17:39

the actual point, nip, is explained in gill rapley's study. there is a link to it on aitch's blog.

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warthog · 15/03/2007 22:07

have a look at the wikipedia article. it sums it up pretty well.

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hana · 15/03/2007 22:13

haven't read all of thread ( sorry) but of course it isn't for every baby and parent. Just like other choices like cloth/disposables. breastfeeding or formula, cosleeping or not - it's just another method that is as equally valid or not as another one. Why be disappointed that you couldn't?

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AitchYouBerk · 15/03/2007 22:32

hana, i just don't think that the bf/ff equivalency holds at all, so it's really not a good example.
i can see why you'd be a bit disappointed, warty, but just cos you'd thought you'd do one thing and find yourself doing another. but it's no big deal, really. actually i think that where there is an equvalency with milkfeeding is that a lot of people say that ffers give their babies 7 oz every four hours on the dot etc so they have control over the child's milk. well, i never did, i demand fed formula to dd, so i never felt like i did anythign other than respond to her needs.
there are some people - i know, because i've seen it - who encourage their children to eat more than they appear to want to because (not unlike the bottles) they know that the baby eats a certain amount.
so i think that to have tried blw or to be a demand spoon feederis a good thing in any case.
and to the other person who asked, a mix of spoon feeding and finger food is exactly that, a mix of spoon feeding andfinger food. the BLW thing is a 'thing' as defined by the BLW paper by gill rapley. so there's no point in calling a mix of finger food and spoon feeding blw and spoon, because it's a contradiction in terms. again, not somethign to spit the dummy out over though.