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!

yeah aitch

get you, raking it in with yer fancy schmancy feeding-babies-real-food ways

I used to access a BLW website, but stopped when you had to pay a subscription. Gill Rapley has made a mint from selling books to the swaths of mothers who buy and read such books. Regardless of the approaches involved wether it's Karmel or Rapley, someone will always be trying to cash in.

IMO it's about control and understanding that you need to allow your child to control what, how and how much they eat, you cross a line when you start trying to make them eat.

You must allow your child to explore and play with foods, textures and tastes and learn that food is enjoyable

Noooooo Laquitar you have stolen my idea

My DH and I came up with a new book idea the other day after I fell of the BLW wagon and gave in to puree (is that a gasp of horror I hear???). Basically I intend to nab a bit of AK and Gill R and write a new book, make a zillion pounds and then get a nanny to feed my DD so I do not have to worry about such things.

I will also do various additional merchandise that every parent MUST have otherwise they are bad people.

But seriously...

I agree with OP, but what disappoints me is the feeling of judgement from both camps. Being a first time mum I have been shocked at how often I have doubted my decisions and felt that other people are critical of what I have chosen to do.

Sometimes I feel like the hard core BLWs don't have any moments of doubt about what they are doing and because I did and I worried about my DD not having any food I found some of the threads about BLW a bit daunting. I do not mean to be critical to BLweaners, I guess what I am trying to say is that there seems to be no room for incidents of doubt and if you give puree you have failed the BLW test.

And yes I totally get the theory and have read the book, read info on the internet.

maryz - You should sue Gill R, demand some royalties!

BLW seems a new name for what was just called weaning 14 years ago. Babies had mushed banana/ apple initially then finger foods added. I don't really see what's baby led about it at all. I never force fed my kids. Once they'd had enough they stopped.
I suspect the "pure" form of BLW is only done by SAHMsas it involves alot of mess and hours spent by babies too young to co-ordinate their hands properly attempting to get a spoon in their mouth if there's no finger food around. Playing "here comes the choo choo train" is much faster if in a rush and I don't see it as causing long term problems.
Like many of these baby fashions being fanatical and strict doesn't help. Some finger food, some choo choo train, some letting them play with a spoon, not getting fussed if they are gaining weight OK but not eating much at some meal times works.
Have a good photo of my daughter age 9 months with a chicken kebab on a stick at a barbecue.

Yeah - that's pretty much finger foods summed up there LeBongers

Any aspect of child rearing which requires parents to adopt a philosophy and part with cash is to be avoided at all costs. IMO. But then I'm a slattern who sends her skanky offspring to state school with the non-organic scrapings of yesterdays roast tin on white bread.

well, there is a sticky on our site saying very clearly that there is no right way, that everyone is just getting through the whole being a parent thing and i do like to think that there is very little, if anything, in the way of judgement on the forum. it's not a cult, it's just a way of weaning that is not the all-prevailing AK. i personally think that it mindset rahter than a 'method', and that of course it's possible to be led by one's child without doing BLW per se.

so, like, all the things that putthekettleon has said about blwers were, i promise, said to me by AKers when i was starting to think about weaning. it's what made me run a mile from it. and now some will run a mile from BLW because that seems like the prevailing thing to do.

truth is, everyone in the middle will just continue to do their thing, influenced but not consumed by the latest trends in baby care. which is fine, i think. i didn't check my brain in at the door when i went into the labour ward, and i don't assume that everyone else did either.

EXACTLY, maryz and 2rebecca, this is just weaning. the fact that it has a name at all is imo testament to the power of AK, who made weaning seem so much more complicated than it ever need have been. she's the one with the houses all over the world, the books at no 1 in the NYT bestsellers list for years and the processed food and gizmo empire. if people wish to direct their ire somewhere, i suggest they do so at her tbh, as blw came about as a response to the bizarre monopoly that she somehow got on weaning and relevant hcps.

Aitch - Lucky you, I think my brain dropped out of my womb along with my baby. I am still trying to locate it now .

heheheh.

Sorry, didn't mean to sound sarcastic, I just mean I have baby brain at the moment!

I once read a thread on a (very) different forum from a mum who said she'd found a great way to get her daughter to eat more - she stuck her in front of the telly and her DD ate all the food on her plate without noticing. I can't put my special sparkly judgeypants on because I've just shovelled a colossal bowl of popcorn into my mouth while watching Toy Story 3 but I have this horrible mental image of this little girl with glazed eyes stuffing food into herself without even noticing.

I think a lot of parents are concerned about getting their children to eat "enough". I remember chatting with one mum whose DS was a few months younger than my DD and she was fretting about about the fact he wasn't eating very much. I said that he seemed bright and happy enough and she said "Yes, but he isn't sleeping through", which completely threw me because that wasn't something I'd even considered (luckily, since DD still doesn't sleep through at 2 and a bit ).

We did BLW with DD (and will do it again) but my mum HATED it because, among other things, I "didn't know how much she was getting", regardless of the fact I'd just ebf her for 6 months and didn't know how much she was getting then either.

I think trusting your child to regulate their own appetite is an important aspect of it for me (we did have to start home composting again though!).

here is the mother of ALL those experiments, mary, totally fascinating... she BOUGHT orphans!

yes, that is the trick. i am trying to delay the day that my kids learn to open crisps by themselves, let's just say.

PUtthekettleon: Don't think YBU. I just think you're misunderstanding what BLW is. Probably because those around you who say they're doing it, aren't by the sounds of things. I'ts not just finger food.

I'm doing BLW, and that means my 7mo DS eats everything with his hands. Not just finger food. e.g. today he's had porridge, cheese on toast and tonight we had a chicken & cauliflower curry. We ate the same as him at the same time and he chose the bits he wanted (generally all of it and some of mine), and most of it goes in the mouth but a lot comes back out and onto the floor. It's very different from what all my friends are doing. They all started weaning much earlier (4-5 mths, I waited til 6 mths) and are still pureeing special baby meals for their LOs.

Best way to describe the difference is: traditional weaning the baby learns to swallow then chew. BLW, the baby learns to chew then swallow.

steps off highhorse

Just realised I hadn't really read the whole thread and the conversation had somewhat moved on from what i thought was the last post.

Feeling a bit daft now...

I was a bit when I flicked through Gill Rapley's book in the library, just in terms of 'couldn't this be reduced to pamphlet size', though think that actually, thanks largely to AK, people now think weaning is incredibly complicated and like the reassurance and substance of a book.

I was a bit of a hard core BLW'er with dd over 3 years ago ie I just gave her food, not Organix snacks etc. I did buy a few Ella's House and Plum baby things for ds for convenience, but reducing odd combos of fruit and veg to a uniform texture just seems odd when you're not used to it so stopped quite soon.

Aitch, I do hate Annabel Karmel... anyone ever see that TV programme she was on (Panorama I think) where she tried to justify why her supposedly healthy ready meals had tons of salt in?

I just can't imagine trying to get a 7 month old to eat something sloppy with their hands! Seems a bit mean, surely he's looking at you thinking 'how come you all get a fork and I've got to lick it off my fingers...'

i can't think what you mean by mushy food, though... didn't eat much yoghurt, certainly, because i don't really like it and i didn't think they needed extra calcium.

apart from that... what do we eat? stir fries, lasagne, moussakka, soup (dds dunked bread), fusilli bol, fishy things, pasta-y things, risotto... honestly, all fine. but then i don't like blended stuff in general, so leave soups chunky, leave bol sauce with big veg and grabbable chunks of mince. in fact, i have wondered if my attraction to blw was at least partly down to my own personal dislike of really slurpy foodstuffs.

and i think the cutlery thing is in general over-rated, tbh, asian chums seem to do very well with a chapatti and nowt else, iykwim?