Feeling intense mum guilt due to baby/toddler pouches

The BBC documentary is a very good thing, we need more of that sort of exposure, and more education.
@heffalumpwoozle couldnt agree more with you there!

@AllotmentTime Well exactly - it's ridiculous and they need stronger regulations, particularly when it comes to baby food, but actually on all food.

I'm just saying that this is not new or surprising from the food industry. They have never had consumers' health and best interests at the forefront, and never will, unless forced.

People need to wise up, because the food manufacturers aren't going to do it without a fight, and even if the government clamp down more, it's going to be a long drawn out process. It is business at the end of the day and their primary focus is profit.

The BBC documentary is a very good thing, we need more of that sort of exposure, and more education.

@heffalumpwoozle @Hoplolly isnt that the exact way we've been tricked though?? We know that food companies sell all sorts of ultra processed bad for you high salt/sugar/fat stuff. That's WHY there's a baby aisle. So that we can find food appropriate for babies.

If some people never thought of these as a healthy option in the first place then great for them. But it's not something the lay person has all the information about. For example, we know frozen peas are basically as good as fresh. We know Haribo is effectively not real food. In between those two extremes we're making a whole host of decisions about whether food is a good choice or not. Bread? Might be a UPF or might be healthy carbs. Oatcakes? Cheese? Yoghurt- Greek or kefir or chocolate with little crispy balls on the side?

Then we have, pretty much right next to the baby formula, an aisle full of food dedicated to babies and toddlers. BECAUSE IT'S FOR THEM. It's away from all the crisps and Haribo and over-processed yet vitamin-fortified cereal. Because it's for children. There's a MASSIVE implication therefore that it's suitable for children. There's an industry interested in making us believe that by being in that bit of the supermarket, by paying over the odds to have "organic" be every other word on the ingredients list, we've already made the healthy choice.

All I'm saying is that anyone who therefore believed that the food they bought in that aisle was nutritionally balanced specifically for their child, should not take guilt for that on themselves.

I’m still not convinced by the idea that we should feel guilt? I agree with all your points but how would the guilt help us now?

But don't let that get in the way of the 'i did my best so fuck the consequences ' mantra 🙄

LOL what do you want people to do @Wingdings93? Get in their imaginary time machines and voosh back 15 years? People like you are the cause for mum guilt.

I dunno @AllotmentTime I never kidded myself that it was the healthiest nutritional choice. It was a convenience food. In all honesty, I can't even said I feel I was tricked by marketing as I didn't pay that much attention to it. I needed some easy feeds and grabbed ones I thought my child would eat. Hard to get angry about that.

Surely nobody really thought they were going to be that nutritious. It's the same with any packaged food. I really don't feel like I've been tricked.

@AllotmentTime I agree parents should absolutely not feel guilty.

This isn't new from big food manufacturers, though.

The misleading marketing of packaged food products as 'healthy' in various ways has been going on ever since packaged food was a thing.

See: Low calorie; low fat; 'no added sugar'; ready meals; vitamins being added to make things look 'healthy'; 'super powered' juices and smoothies that are mainly sugars; vitamin drinks; protein bars and powders.

It's just particularly bad that this one is impacting babies and toddlers.

Where is the anger on this thread???

Fuck the guilt. We should be feeling livid that we've had food sold to us as apparently "healthy", been misled as to its nutritional content*, and not had the true picture.

All those of you reading this and feeling guilty, let that go and swap it for some healthy anger at the manufacturers who happily profited from selling you faux-perfect baby food.

Now we know, we can make choices accordingly. And not feel guilty about it!!

*for the nitpickers: okay the packaging may not have outright lied, but CLEARLY everything about it is designed to make you think that the pouch aisle as a whole is nutritionally balanced and good for your child.

Just to clarify on this, OP. Blending fruit and veg doesn't take away nutrients. It's the industrial processing that takes away nutrients (pasteurisation, heating, adding chemicals etc).

When they talk about issues with blending, all it means is that blending fruit causes the sugar to release more quickly.

If you eat a whole apple, your body has to slowly break down all the fibre and pulp (basically do what the smoothie maker does), so the sugar is released slowly.

If you eat a pureed apple, all the blending is already done, so the sugar goes straight to your blood, and you have a sugar spike.

It doesn't mean that eating blended/ pureed fruit is always bad - but you just have to account for the sugar being a bit quicker. Blended fruit (not veg) should be seen more like a treat food.

If you blend your own fruit and veg it doesn't 'lose' any nutrients. All the vitamins will still be there. It's the industrial processing that takes away the actual vitamins.

Please don't worry about blending veg like spinach and carrots - they are not high sugar foods and they are perfectly fine to blend up in a smoothie. They won't lose the vitamins.

Just be mindful that if you put fruit in a smoothie, the sugar will get into your son's blood more quickly, so you might want to limit sugar over the rest of the day. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ever do it though, just see the blended fruit as a treat.

We didn’t want to do blw - too time consuming and messy.
DT’s were weaned on jars and pouches (they are now in their mid 20’s). No harm done - healthy throughout.

This Ella’s kitchen veggie Dahl with cauliflower is fine by me. Whatever you wean them on as teenagers they will still eat too many MacDonalds.

Organic cauliflower 25% | Organic vegetable stock 15% (water and organic vegetables: carrots, onions, peas) | Organic cooked rice 14% (water, organic rice) | Organic onions 9% | Organic peas 9% | Organic aubergines 8% | Organic tomatoes 8% | Organic carrots 7% | Organic cooked lentils 6% (water, organic red lentils) | Organic curry powder <1% (turmeric, coriander, ginger, cinnamon, fenugreek, onion, black pepper, clove, nutmeg) | Organic coriander <1% | Organic garlic <1% | Other stuff 0%

Sure, but the article doesn’t refer specifically to the BLW approach. And the NHS don’t say you should only feed whole fruit to young babies. So my point still stands that whether you buy a pouch or puree fruit yourself, you get the same free sugars and there is no NHS guidance saying don’t feed babies fruit or to only feed it whole. Apples and firmer fruits are quite daunting so I’d imagine a lot of parents would prefer to puree these initially. I also found giving my baby mango sticks early on frustrated him as he couldn’t chew them, so when I puréed them he was much happier as he could properly eat the thing he was enjoying rather than just suck it and get a bit of juice.

BLW isn’t suitable for some babies either unfortunately.

I tend to follow the Charlotte Stirling-Reed approach which is a mix of finger foods and purées. Although I have offered more fruits (puréed) than she suggests in the first couple of months as we were given dietary advice to be more varied than just veg.

Actually, in my opinion as a biologist, there's not much worse you can do for a growing child with a metabolism that is still developing than fill them up with what is basically sugar paste. Nothing is more harmful to growing bodies and hormone regulation that tonnes of sugar. It's what's causing the obesity epidemic in children. You don't know there was no impact until they've made it to middle age without any metabolic, endocrine or weight problems.

But don't let that get in the way of the 'i did my best so fuck the consequences ' mantra 🙄

Your doing your best to feed a picky toddler, it's hard, trying to ensure they get everything they need. I've had fussy toddlers and used pouches and premade foods some of the time, and they've all grown into healthy adults and not picky at all. Now I've only got a picky dog to contend with, whose much worse than the kids ever were! 😂

Or maybe (just maybe) he took a look at his now older, perfectly healthy kids eating absolutely fine, playing , learning and in a loving supportive family and thought "you know what, there's worse things to stress over than if I fed them a few too many pouches years ago" 🙄

People can come on here and say they've screamed and smacked their small child and get pages of "well obviously it wasn't ideal but parenting is SO hard, toddlers are SO awful, sending a hug, they won't even remember it, oh the last thing this person needs is to feel judged, just take a breath and move on"... but apparently we should all sit in guilt ridden "self reflection " about sometimes feeding our kids something that is (whilst definitely less than ideal) basically fruit and veg processed into a pouch... Nah.

If I was at that stage of parenting then Yes the recent headlines would make me stop and think more about what other food we could try to cut out the occasional "alongside" pouches.

But I'm not sitting around feeling bad about something from years ago that has had no impact on my child.

You are doing the best you can with what you have and know at the time.

I don't think that many people think that fruit pouches are "healthy" but I don't think that they are unhealthy. If you can afford them then go for it.

We had rusks, petit feilou and frubes... all of which are pretty bad nutritionally.

With ds1 I hardly ever gave him baby pouches. Did everything from scratch. God it was so stressful. I remember my entire day being consumed by breastfeeding, home cooking food, feeding baby the food, naps, repeat. I wouldn’t even buy the pouches when we went out, I’d insist on decanting home made puree into ice cube trays then defrosting it etc etc. Absolutely had to do baby led weaning too.

With ds2 I was much more relaxed and he often had pouches and GASP I often spoon fed him too!!!!

And guess which one is the picky eater? Ds1…. Ds2 who was weaned on pouches and breadsticks will try absolutely everything.

Honestly don’t beat yourself up about it. I read the BBC coverage and was particularly shocked by the fact that the manufacturing process removes so much of the vitamin C, and my DS loved a fruity pouch when he was smaller. But I, perfectly reasonably, assumed that a baby food that said it just contained fruit would contain plenty of nutrients! These pouches are marketed and packaged in a way that is designed to make you think that it’s a healthy option. Self-reflection is all well and good, but it’s not healthy to feel guilt over things that you did in good faith at the time.

My child has eaten some MUCH more unhealthy things in his time. Once, he consumed a large portion of his wooden cot, like a beaver, and I came in in the morning to find him surrounded by shredded pine. He’s also eaten cat biscuits, sequins and, on one memorable occasion, nearly swallowed a deer poop and I had to physically prise it from his protesting, determined jaws. A pouch was the least of my problems 😂

I’m not sure feeling terribly guilty about something in the past done with best intentions (and likely not that serious anyway!) is something to be aspired to. I say this as someone who has often felt really bad mum guilt. If that is what women’s ‘self reflection’ looks like, then I’d love to do without it!

My mum thought she was being great making me homemade breaded chicken
she forgot I was allergic to egg, made the chicken, cut it up for me and then I ate it and stopped breathing

Dad “do you remember that time you tried to kill Luna off by being healthy?”

My old Doctor was india6 he said there were no bad foods.just everything in moderation. Had seen much poverty there.fruit pouches are a handy snack for most mums.always seems to be mums targeted.not dad's. How does anyone with a toddler and work younger DC manage. Women are doing fine.

Please go easy on yourselves, pouch users! I work in a secondary school with challenging kids, and some of the parenting out there is horrific. You’re doing great!

Probably one of my favourite ever responses on Mumsnet! Mine have managed to eat a half eaten sausage in a soft play ball pit and their twin sister's poo 💩

But why would he make the same choice now? All I said was he doesn’t feel guilty for the choice he made at the time. You can self reflect and not feel guilty. Seems much healthier that way tbh.

Oh goodness OP my nearly teen eats about six foods....After enjoying a varied homemade weaning menu 🤣. I was so worried we went to a dietician to review his awful diet. And turns out he is fine with an added iron gummie. Long game view needed!

Because most conscientious adults who have made a poor choice will wonder why didn't I know better? Should I have done more research?

Not just shrug and go oh well I didn't know any better let's move on! With that attitude you just keep making bad choices because you're not learning from past mistakes, like not doing enough research before making an important decision.