to think it's mental to religiously stick to baby-led weaning (finger foods only)?

[Ficuslover]

I think finger foods are fine, but isn't it weird to favour them exclusively? My friend's baby is under the 10th percentile at 8 months and can't get enough in his mouth! She won't give him anything with a spoon and his breakfast is a weetabix biscuit with a splash of milk on it. Yum. Surely it's not bad to give then some sloppy foods now and again? Why do some people have to take things so literally?

well, AK's books have never been out of the bestseller top ten here or stateside since they were published, so a LOT of people are buying them. it's foolish to think that she has no influence over how children are weaned, or to think that the rush to more relaxed weaning isn't in some way a response to her prissy charts. it's certainly why i did BLW. (i was given TWO copies of the book, btw, AS BIRTHDAY PRESENTS ). the weaning landscape was ALL karmel six or seven years back.

Baby always seems hungry? Do you visit at lunchtime per chance?

Oh, and the use of mental is a bit strange. YABU to think your friend is mentally ill or "mental" to do BLW.

mine are older before BLW was a term , I think its a great idea i did a mix of both although we weaned earlier than 6 months so it was puree for a few months and they were eating dinners by 6 months with our without spoons i just let them get stuck in , so i thinks its a personal choice really and not mental .

well that's the thing isn't it, mrsjay, if you ask people who were weaning at three and four months, all their kids were on proper food at six months for two reasons... one. they were capable of it, and two. who could honestly be arsed pureeing food for any longer than was necessary?

really, the only thing that changed (if you take AK's influence out of the picture) was the weaning age. when it moved to six months it meant you could skip the mushy bit if you wanted to, and many people (particularly babies) want to.

oh aitch you are right now as its 6 months there isnt really any need for mush is there ? if i was to do it again (yeah right) i think i would just jump straight in with the solids , i pureed for to long with dd1 and she had eating issues i dont think i weaned her properly dunno dd2 who i didnt puree for as long the (food not the baby ) ate much better and enjoyed her food ,

DD point blank refused to be spoonfed and would scream if I tried. HV's advice was to pinch her nose and she'll soon open her mouth - I shit you not ! As it was, I spoke to another HV who recommended looking at BLW and we decided to try some of the principles on there - we never looked back. DD would have been over 1yr old before she ate any great amounts of solid food, but she would happily breastfeed (and did until she was 27mth). She is now 4.4yr old and absolutely fine - her palate is wide and varied and her appetite huge!

DS is 7mth and point blank refuses a spoon too. So, with experience behind me, I'm not going to get stressed about how much or little he is eating and I am going to wean him at his own pace!

I don't care about labels - I'm not an ardent puree fan or BLW'er. What I am is a mummy who is trusting my instincts and following my children's lead.

amen.

I think some of you have missed my point. It's not the BLW in itself I have an issue with, it's the rigid application of only offering solid foods which can be picked up and inserted in mouth by a tiny uncoordinated hand. This is not normal eating, and doesn't offer a wide range of food at all. Breadsticks aren't nutritious.

I'm sure her baby will be absolutely fine, but he would also be fine if she gave him some porridge. And whoever said dry weetabix was yum, you are mentally disturbed.

And as for the pious "why do you use the word 'mental'?" brigade, I am very childish and spending a lot of time with infants has made this worse.

picking up food is TOTALLY normal eating. plenty of countries in the world don't use tools to eat. and 94% of babies are able to feed themselves this way at 6 months, according to some very, very reputable research, so by 10 months unless the child is highly unusual they will be co-ordinated enough to self-feed. are you worried about any special needs issues?

Op you are so ignorant. Please stop throwing around mental health conditions as insults. It makes you look so very thick.

You do know that MNHQ take disabilist comments very seriously don't you?

Aitch - No. Just to reiterate I'm not worried about the child, he is tiny but he's also a total sweetheart. It's her attitude that this is how is should be done that grates. I am to an extent reacting to her own judginess on these matters, truth be told.

I KNOW picking up food is normal - why make more washing-up! But in countries where they don't use implements they pick up wet foods with their hands too. Not just solid food that doesn't make too much of a mess!

so you're concerned that his diet is too limited? i mean, if she's giving him only breadsticks then sure, but when i was weaning my two i was disinclined to give massively messy stuff when i had pals round as it would mean me cleaning rather than drinking coffee and talking to them. believe me they were eating steak for dinner.

It's been fun, but I'm out of here. Some of you are lovely, but others piety is really beginning to grate. Till next time.

me? i don't think i'm being pious. [a bit insulted]

I am to an extent reacting to her own judginess on these matters

What a beautiful example of irony. Or is it hypocrisy I'm thinking of? Both?

Arf at pious. Do you know what it actually means?

This thread has actually been very interesting apart from interjections from the op.

It kind of validates a daft theory I have, that a lot of structured weaning is a result of living in more affluent and modern times.

Most new parents have grown up with access to ready meals, take aways and more exotic ingredients and flavourings available to them than previous generations. Also the idea of portions is a recent thing too, as opposed to simply having one meal and dishing out according to size and appetite.

I think most new parents simply look at their own diet and panic and immediately look for child solutions and specific items.

I sometime think it would be a lot cheaper for the NHS to provide a simple straight forward family cook book of family recipes that can be cooked from scratch. After all you here so many people say "oh, I was so PFB with the first one, but subsequent children just get what we are having". I don't think it's just more relaxed parenting, I think that by the time no.2 comes along people have learnt basic family cooking.

I'm sure that the child in the op is getting a healthy diet, but I bet by the time no.2 comes along the mum will be much more relaxed about handing over a spoon and some soup.

Oh and whether BLW or exclusively purées I though ALL children go through a phase where the appear to permanently have a bread stick in each hand

Oh and also food I'd serve when having friends around would be the easiest and least messy option to give my child, not necessarily an indication of every meal that child had.

" I think that by the time no.2 comes along people have learnt basic family cooking."

i think that is SUCH a good point. and i also think that BLW appeals to people who can and do already cook (moi), where preparing children's meals separately seems like a retrograde step when there is already good healthy food on the table.

We just sit ds3 under the table and leave him to catch what ds1 &2 drop

When ds1 17 and ds2 8 were born we just spoon fed something's , gave them their own spoon to have a go with and put fingerfoods infront of them. it was all just weaning

good point about already being able to cook Aitch, that's why I gave up on Karmel (Xmas present ) after trying it for a month and realising that ds was only eating what I'd cooked for dh and I

Moomins we try that but the dog's always faster

I would have thought the aim was to get the baby to eat family meals as soon as possible-how you get there really doesn't matter.

"A quick Google seems to indicate that the parents who frequent the local KFC with their under twos are doing it all right. I wasted so much time mashing carrots, courgettes, banana."

BLW doesn't mean you skip carrots, courgettes and bananas or that you fill them on junk food. Aitch has some lovely pictures on her website of babies eating normal foods (or as I seem to remember one HV called "human food").

I think the name is because there has been a move towards "baby led" in a lot of things (baby led feeding, child led weaning - which is something different).

BTW, my two wouldn't be fed, they hated it and would get cross at people trying.

moomin - where did you hear that premature babies are to be weaned at 5 months? And do they mean CGA or AA? If it's AA then that means some babies will be weaned not long after term. Three years ago and 6 months ago I was told the same thing and given the same booklet, that adjusts the recommended weaning age for premature babies. Whatever their iron stores from pregnancy, milk gives them all they need and doesn't run out anymore than it does for a term baby.

bbface, where do you live that so many parents are BLWing?

OP, you have stated that people don't get your point, but what about people like me, who obviously do you get your point and don't agree. My baby was 22 months before she started eating because I did BLW and wasn't going to feed her with a spoon. Read back my PP. What does it matter if some of us do take BLW as GR wrote it and don't spoon feed? Why the urgency to get food in that it has to be spooned in? I'm getting the impression it's not actually that she weans like this, you're just taking the "no spoons" thing personally.

My baby currently (as in right now) seems to be trying to wean on my thumb and her shoes?!?!

Why would you give a baby a breadstick? They're horrible things aren't they?

My DD 97th centile since birth and still at 1yr, BLW since six months, loves food, excellent hand/eye co-ordination eats with a fork or spoon so no, not bonkers

Nicu, paediatric doctor in neonatal my hv and there's information on bliss website I also spoke to lots of women on here who were advised the same because of prem babys not having the same stored iron as full term babys.

My baby is 10 months now and was 5.5 months when we introduced food so actual age, his corrected age would have been 3.5 months, they don't correct age now, and yes I've spoken to women on here and rl who's babys were weaned around what would have been term, although that is rare most hcps recommend the baby is 3 months corrected, so we are realy talking about baby's born at 30 weeks and over.

They say between 5-7 months, depending on the baby and advice from your pediatric team, I was given leaflets about depleating iron in prem babys, as they store most of their iron in the last month or so of pregnancy from around 34 weeks I think it said