to wonder why anyone wouldn't BLW?

[Claz1001]

It sounds great for both baby and lazy parent. Definitely the way I'll be weaning my DS soon! Why bother with purees if you don't have to? Why doesn't everyone do this? Maybe I am missing something

I must admit I don't understand why people wait til nearer 6 months to wean and then do purees - obviouly purees are necessary for a 4 month old, but at 6 months why not just mash a bit of normal food?

Well I am obviously very old cos I thought BLW was weaning when your baby was ready,not that spoons "are evil". Ah well you live and learn. :)

I think we played planes, as well as let my DD's feed themselves,so did both really.

The only thing I WAS horrified at was I had a girl admit that shed had her 12 wekk old son on solids (Rusks ffs).

I am not Miss judgey Knickers at anyone's parenting,but that made me suck my teeth in.

For heart-melting moments, eeyore, I'll raise you the photo of ds aged 1 seated in his high chair and happily spoon feeding his 4yo sister.

Rita, I think mashing ordinary food is what many people do understand by purees. Where is the difference really between a pureed spud and a mashed spud?

Cory - how adorable!

The BLW book, if you read it, clearly states that feeding finger foods is as old as the hills. She doesn't claim to have invented something new, just to be helping to keep the knowledge alive. Current NHS advise is to feed more finger food than previous advise. Purée feeding makes alot of money for big companies, even if you make your own purée you need a lot of kit.
I BLWed my DS and was very happy with this method. Personally I can't understand why you wouldn't and most comments of it not working on this thread I think could have easily over come, but not everyone has the same priorities and it is the parents choice, so do what you want!

is that baby led weaning? We did this with our now 2 year old... he eats whatever is safe for him to eat off our plates and we never bothered pureeing things. His favourite food for ages was gherkins

it all went fine and he eats most things and enjoys his meals. Trouble was, he wouldn't wean off the milk! Only last night we had to enforce the milk-weaning because I got ill and have some medicine he isn't allowed through my milk. I thought he would naturally have given up feeding by now, but he was still having 20 odd little feeds a day between meals, he treated me as a snack bar

How does pureeing make a lot of money for big companies? Most people already have a food processor, and they are used for so many other things you couldn't really categorize it as 'weaning kit'.

What else, err, some plastic pots and spoons?

ScaredyCat " Purée feeding makes alot of money for big companies, even if you make your own purée you need a lot of kit "

I don't need any 'kit'. I have a potato masher, a hand blender (which I can do without easily) a fork, a bowl and a spoon. All of which I owned pre-kids.

Of course you can go out and spend £££ on weaning kits, buying the entire Tommee Tippee/Annabel Karmel range of products, but you certainly don't need any of it.

cory - lots of people seem to start with almost liquid purees still, or baby rice which is just thickened milk, odd combinations etc Designed to be sucked off a spoon and drunk. I understand that if you're weaning early with a baby who isn't developmentally ready to deal with something more solid, but a six month old can bite and chew.

Plus, my hand blender was £4.99 from Tesco so no big companies have made much more than a fiver out of me!

G &T, maybe you were doing it all wrong?
Because that's pretty much what I had to make purees around 15-20 years ago. Certainly there must have been improvements since? Surely the next generation has special pots and things that change colour according to the lumpiness and temperature and ones that match the baby's outfit?

Surely far quicker at feeding time to spoon the purees in ......

Can't see how it makes lots of money for companies if you don't buy jars - all I had was a sieve and a hand blender.

Not sure about the baby rice as we never used it but perhaps it's meant to be easy for them to take as it's made with their milk and therefore a familiar flavour for a first taste from a spoon/different texture?

I thought most 'purees' for the very first stages of weaning were more like mashed potato consistency rather than liquid? The ones we made were anyway!

I did both purees and finger food with both of mine and never heard the phrase BLW before coming on here (Mine are 10 and 7). It was instinctive rather than following a book. DS1 was weaned at 4 mths in accordance with the guidelines at the time but even he didn't have watery purees. His first sorte into solid food was pureed carrot but it was a lot thicker than milk. It didn't need chewing of course but had some some substance to it. It didn't take him long to start trying to eat other stuff and we just went with whatever he liked. He has turned out to by dyspraxic and I had to spoon feed him for rather a long time or else he wouldn't have eaten enough, I am sure. No coordination!

I really don't get that anybody 'should' do things a certain way. Do what suits you and your baby.

Scaredcat - feeding babies mashed up food is as old as the hills too. Mashing or pureeing doesn't require extra 'kit' that you wouldn't use for BLW anyway, certainly nothing extra to what you normally have in the kitchen. The time you spend in mashing you tend to save in hanging around waiting for the baby to actually eat something and mopping up the mess anyway so it is swings and roundabouts from that point of view too.

I love blw, my dd1 is in the blw book! It's not just giving finger food though, it's giving all food to be self fed, not just traditional finger foods. Dd1 was feeding herself tuna and noodle stir fry by 7 months. She nearly always just had what we had.

Dd2 however is playing by her own rules, and while she will feed herself usual finger food, she wants to be spoon fed proper meals. She still has what we are having, but I just chop/mush it up and spoonfeed her. The only thing dd1 was spoonfed was yoghurt. I wish dd2 would hurry up and feed herself, I'm fed up with cold dinner!

It sounds like BLW does have a lot going for it, although I can understand how it's not for everyone. Great to read all your weaning stories. I'm looking forward to seeing what works for DS.

Bumper Exactly, true BLW is being baby led... and if baby leads you towards spoon feeding then that's what you do, you do what suits your baby.

'BLW' suited my first but my second had different ideas and I was led me towards spoon feeding and so that's what we mostly do.

I didn't like the idea of it so I didn't follow it with my DS. Some friends of mine did and most friends of mine didn't. My DS and all of theirs are all fit and healthy 2 year olds so they all end up the same in the end anyway.

Reasons I didn't like the idea of it
Too much gagging and fear of choking
Worried about DS going to bed hungry as they don't seem to eat a full meal's worth IFSWIM
How they then quickly learn to put anything in their mouths and swallow it as they seem to think everything is food. I saw a sweet wrapper in friend's 7 month old DS's nappy
The mess

I was envious though that that their kids would pretty much nibble on anything they were given while it took another 12 months for my DS to learn to chew harder things. As I said earlier though they all eat the same now they're 2 anyway so do what you feel will work for you. If I have another DC though I will be pureeing and mashing again. I like how they can eat lots of fruit and veg in one go by mixing them up.

I resolved never to do it after being left in charge of a friends BLW-ed child, who was in the middle of eating, for 20 mins.

When her mother came back I was never so relieved in my life. I was covered in retched up bits of cucumber and bread and my nerves were in shreds due to the ten times I had seriously thought she was choking.

I have enough to worry about with my DCs without that.

YABU because every baby/ parent is different! we did a mixture of both.

We do it with DD, she eats everything in sight at 8 months, great for me as I am lazy...fact. Not fussed on others.

'It sounds like BLW does have a lot going for it, although I can understand how it's not for everyone. Great to read all your weaning stories. I'm looking forward to seeing what works for DS.'

Now that sounds a lot more reasonable than your OP.

Op, are you better informed now. Because your Op seems very precious and PFB. And then you tell us thts this for your dc2 !!

Depends if you are going to do BLW purely and 'properly'.
I did not do BLW.
I did what babydubs did. some purees. some mashed up our dinners. lots of stuff that they ate themselves. spoon fed and also self fed.

I suspect that more people do this (outside of MN) than actually do pure, proper BLW, or pure puree.

Babies don't usually start BLW until they are 6 months old. Babies weaned on puree/mash also have finger foods from 6 months. So why is a BLW baby more likely to choke? They can choke on mash too.

I did BLW with DS because I wanted him to eat what we eat and I didn't want to puree or mash it if it wasn't necessary. No big deal.

However, many parents will tell you from experience that BLW makes no difference to how fussy they might become. They're still toddlers after all.

I am glad I did it the way I did. The family has always eaten together, I have never had to eat a cold dinner, we have never prepared a separate meal for DS, and have certainly never been up at the crack of dawn to roast vegetables for DS's lunch (last night's leftovers perhaps?).

I do know parents who are frequently up until midnight cooking purees exclusively for their baby, but you get evangelists in every walk of life.