to think there isn't a difference between BLW and finger foods?

[putthekettleon]

Ok I'm preparing to be flamed, and I have no problem with baby led weaning, but it's been bugging me for a while now...

When talking about weaning, so many people I know in real life/people I see on here say they are doing 'a combination of purees and BLW'. Or they say 'we're doing BLW... but I spoon-feed him if we're having yoghurt/mashed potato/soup etc..'. Surely that is just weaning?? Do they think that other people only ever give purees and never give lumpy or finger food? That if you give any kind of finger food it is BLW?

With both DC I started off on purees for a week or 2, quickly moved up to mashed food and introduced finger foods as well, like steamed carrots, rice cakes, broccoli, toast etc, when they seemed ready for it. DD2 is 7 months and eats all sorts. I just call it food.

Whenever I hear someone talking about BLW I have to fight the urge to say 'in my day (only 2 years ago!) we just called it finger food...'

Ok, as you were, just needed to get that off my chest!

molly - yeh of course - just don't think the dad at next table knew that :-)

barteringlines - i think puree is a bloody waste of time but i've not felt the need to criticise!! come on we've all seen mums sitting there with the spoon coaxing the dc into 'just one more'. not saying thats wrong but thats not blw. there a lot in the book about letting children self regulate food intake. exclusive spoon feeding does not acheive this as early on.

anyway claiming theres a market behind blw is twaddle. there isn't which i think is why it appeals to people. annabel karmel can do one with all her junk she says you need - puree - theres a marketing industry! just look in new jojo catalogue -apges of weaning crap you dont need!

slingmeets i imagine are for solidarity. i have a lovely friend who does hardcore ap and only babywears - didn't buy a pram etc. she is constantly criticised by family/friends for being unconventional. if i was her id go to slingmeets for a bit of sanctuary.

the point of hanging out with people who make the same paretning choices is so you dont have to have the awkward conversations. you know you're on the same page and in a safe place with those people. my parent friends and i all do ebf/blw and read all the same books. . its very supportive. for example two of the families are getting a lot of pressure from family to do cc. i know its a comfort to them to come be with our group who all think cc is wrong and have a good mona about interfering mils etc.

YANBU but maybe you've not fully grasped the idea behind BLW (sorry, that sounds patronising - wasn't meant to)

BLW is when you just give the child food 'as it comes', so to speak - no mashing, mincing, pureeing, starting off with bland foods or baby rice etc. You take your lead from the child showing you that they're ready to eat - ie when they start to try to take your food rather than deciding "he's 4 months, I must start weaning", for example. And then you just either let them share from your plate or give them their own plate of the same as you have, in the same form that you have it.

I did BLW with my DD and she was eating stuff like melon, toast, vegetable samosas etc from the off, no problems. You don't feed them yourself at all with BLW - if you want to give them yoghurt, for example, you would do it by giving them something to dip in it - either a spoon, or fruit slices as dippers.

So yes, BLW is finger foods, but not as a supplement to a diet of puree or mashed foods, like some people will give their baby the odd breadstick as a snack but pureed or mashed food at all meals, it's all finger foods so the baby is in complete control of how much they eat, and can explore the individual tastes of each food, rather than having them all mashed or blended together.

Do I sound a bit up my own arse about it? Just trying to explain the difference...

sungirltan - I haven't seen anyone force feeding coaxing their kids actually. I certainly never did. In fact ds ate very little til around 9 months.
Just out of interest how would you blw a baby with delayed motor skills? You couldn't just leave them hungry until they learned - so you would have to give them milk or puree.

Also is blw not just narrowing your babies diet? The pp said you can give yoghurt with fruit to dip in and stuff but they're not going to get very much are they until they can spoonfeed themselves?

barteringlines - i've seen lots. i don't know if blw could be done with a child with additional needs. i didn't say blw is the only worthy way of feeding babies. i assume most of us were puree fed as that was the tradtion then. i just get frustrated at blw being judged as being dangerous/wanky/lazy/pretentious/blah blah just because its an alternative approach.

meanwhile i have just seen a lovely new nhs weaning video. it suggest blw as being an option - not sure nhs did in the past. the best bit of the film is watching a baby eating a chicken leg!

barteringlines If a baby isn't interested in solids (pureed or whole) they can manage on milk until they are 8-9 months old or older.

And a BLW baby's diet isn't narrowed, they can have dairy by eating yogurt off a spoon or DS used to eat it with his hands mixed with rice krispies. Or they can have cubes of cheese, or cheese spread on toast. They can have water or milk out of a cup.

With BLW babies you don't worry how much food they are eating, they get their nutrition from formula or breastmilk while they're learning to feed themselves.

Barteringlines, not sure how giving babies a bit of everything would be narrowing their diet, compared to giving them just pureed carrot or baby rice...

Oh, is Aitch the same Aitch as on the BLW forum? I did not know that.

In which case what is the difference between giving a baby only liquid milk until they're 9 months and then giving them finger food or giving puree from 6-9 months then introducing finger food? How is one blw and one isn't?
The reason I say it is narrowing the diet is because there are some things you cant eat with your hands. For example ds enjoyed a nice homemede spag bol sauce with some breadsticks to dip in but I spoonfeed him (and he helps a bit) most of the sauce otherwise he would only be eating what he could coat a breadstick with so it's not really a meal you could do if you insisted that nothing must be spoonfed. There are lots of meals I do for ds that I coulsn't do if I was doing blw.

YANBU I have been thinking the same thing myself. I also read the BLW book and thought it extremely preachy about what is basically finger food.

For those that say you can't do 'a mixture of BLW and purees' when the baby picks up the finger food and eats it, then s/he is choosing to do that and that meal itself is therefore 'Baby Led' by most definitions? The baby has other meals which are parent led - purees off a spoon.

Maybe we should talk in terms of 'exclusive BLW' for BLW babies! LOL!

I can predict in 2 years time a new book will be published and will claim that millions mums have done it wrong and that blw was cruel-a starving baby trying to get some youghurt in his mouth and mum just staying there watching. They will blame them for the rise in eating disorders, crime, and house prices.

A genious writer will advice parents to feed the baby with music on and with sychronized movement which encourages their development, judgement, and success in life. A new cult will be born, and its followers will go into cafes to check what other parents do.

The writer will be somewhere in Carribean sipping champagne.

at Laquitar. Quick, write the book yourself!!

I should reserve the rights.

eden263, not patronising, you've explained it quite nicely . But I do understand the theory behind it, believe me I know loads of people that follow it. I just don't buy it personally and it wouldn't have worked for us as a family as we tend to eat lots of mushy food - stews, spag bol, soup etc, I'm more of a one-pot cook! But I don't have a problem with those who do it.

I guess I have two issues with it - first the people who seem to think that if you don't do BLW you 'do purees' and therefore only feed your baby bland uninteresting purees with no variation/finger food etc until I don't know when, 18 probably! DD is 7 months and has a lot more than 'the odd breadstick', sometimes she has a whole meal made up of finger food, sometimes she just has some carrots and broccoli on the side. I'll often give her a go at what I'm having if it's baby friendly. I make her a wide variety of food with different tastes and textures, it's not just carrot puree as a previous poster suggested.

The same people also seem to think if you spoon-feed you must be force-feeding/coaxing rather than just putting food in a willing, open mouth!

And secondly, so many people talk about 'combining purees and BLW' when all they mean is offering a mixture of spoon-fed and finger food. Which to me is just normal weaning!

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter at all, but some people get very preachy about it and particularly the ones who say 'oh BLW is so amazing, my 8 month old can eat chunks of mango' I want to scream 'but that's just normal!!'

Can you tell I'm a sceptical second-time mum who's spent too much time with some first-time mums at a baby group recently

putthekettleon - not true - anabel karmel puree recipes sounds really fancy to me! not bland at all but lots of extra work i can't be doing with he he

i think maybe you just know some wankers, putthekettleon, and they would have been annoying regardless of weaning method.

stews, spag bol, one pot cooking etc is great for babies, ime, mine were rarely happier than with a bit of casserole to eat. however, you do have to be prepared for mess with spag bol (although imo it's easier to eat fusilli bol for a while as that is more grabbable and no particular hardship for anyone else in the family).

It's food, doesn't matter which way baby in question ingets it. Shoved in with spoon or hands. Matters NOT.
Unless you are in on the take from all the royalties from bazillion Idiot's Guide To Weaning Feeding BLW etc.
What matters is the quality not the method of the delivery.

define 'matter'.

i mean, does it matter if a child is tube-fed in isolation? so long as it's good food? does it matter if it is fed beyond its will by a parent shoving food into its mouth (solid or puree?)

food is SOOOO much more than nutrition.

Aitch, didn't you run a website about BLW?

yea, i still do. did you answer my question?

See above.

?

I am still BLWing and my DD is 4.5 years old.

You can't spoon feed and do BLW. You can spoon feed and have a fabulous healthy eater with a great attitude to food, and you can BLW and have a fussy blighter, I don't argue that point.

But for me BLW is a LOT of things surrounding attitude to food.