WIBU to comment on friend's choice of baby food?

[Caitycat]

A bit of background: her baby is ten months old, mine is only three months so I have no experience at all of trying to wean a baby and how realistic or otherwise my ideas are. She has been a rock for me in these early weeks - always on the end of the phone with sane advice and support - so I would hate to upset or offend her.

Last weekend we stayed with her and her family and I was really surprised at what she fed her little girl. Every meal had an element of chocolate in it and there wasn't much that seemed immediately healthy. On Saturday for example she had toast with nutella for breakfast, a mid morning snack of quavers, lunch was pieces of cheese and ham with bread followed by a chocolate yoghurt and evening meal was more quavers and two jsffa cakes. I didn't want to sound critical but asked whether she ever did the mushed up fruit and vegetables I usually associated with weaning (yes I do know about blw but thought I would seem less critical phrasing it like that than just saying "wot no veg") she said that was the old-fashioned way and hers is the modern approach.

So my question is wibu to suggest her choice of food isn't great and suggest some more healthy alternatives or should I leave her to make her own decisions about her baby?

Plus (argh you can tell I'm new to this forum thing I keep having to write new posts) the OP didn't say the mother said the child was fussy, or had food issues or anything, she said she was feeding her "the modern way".

chippings devious idea is the best approach I've seen.

Poor little baby :(

Could you ask what food you need to give your baby when you start weaning and see what she says? You could then ask what fruit and veg is good to give them and how much salt babies are allowed to have. That might make her think more about this and even look it up for you. Or you could buy a book on weaning babies and read it when she is there and say "Oooh it says babies aren't supposed to have salt. I wonder what foods have salt in that i need to avoid." With an innocent expression on your face. Then accidentally leave the baby weanong book at her house in the hope she reads it?

I had this concern about my sil dd my dd is a month younger than hers and both doing BLW last Xmas my dd 7 m ate full Xmas dinner hers 8m ate wotsits and chocolate buttons. I was horrified but you have to keep quiet.

There's a huge difference between doing things like giving a toddler lots of snacks to make a long car journey do-able & giving a 10 month old quavers & jaffa cakes.

The SIL said this is 'modern parenting' she didn't say her DD wont eat anything else and FFS the baby is 10 months old - they don't know any different - they eat or refuse what's in front of them, they aren't banging on the pantry door begging for Quavers!

If a 10 month old baby is refusing 'proper' food, you give them more MILK - you don't feed them shit like jaffa cakes and quavers! I'm not the food police - had it been a bit of a jaffa cake or a couple of Quavers if you were eating some, no big deal - but 2 packets of Quavers and jaffa cakes?? WTAF?

There is no reason or excuse good enough for this, there really really isn't - you don't need a two week over view - that's more than two weeks worth of shit for a 10 month old baby.

I think she just seems misguided. I was told by HVs that BLW is ' they eat what you eat'. Does she have a bad diet herself? There are elements of good in this diet- bread, cheese, ham.

If you were to say something, go gently. Maybe suggest the baby rice cakes snacks you can buy, just as easy as quavers but more nutritious. Is money an issue? They do cost a lot.

I agree with above. Bread, ham, cheese - all good when combined with a sensible dinner with veg and fruit throughout the day.

I really would think it was a 'treat' day to avoid confrontation with guests.

We give DS Quavers when we are desperate in the pub when we are out for a meal and he starts playing up after he's eaten his food.

I really wouldn't say anything to your friend, tbh.

Firstly, with the best will in the world, your baby is younger, and as you say, you haven't 'done weaning' yet. You don't know how it will go, you may have a tricky or fussy baby, and you may find yourself much more sympathetic at that point!

Secondly, I really do appreciate that the foods offered that day don't sound great for a baby, to say the least, but I agree with the posters who said that they may well have been making things easier as they had house guests. Our DC eat very well at home on the whole where they are in their usual routine, away from distractions, and we can really focus on them - and deal with the tantrums and trouble that sometimes arise. However, if we are visiting, or having visitors - or on a long car journey, sometimes the rules go out of the window a bit. It's hard work having guests when you also have small children/babies, and by the time you've cleaned the house, got food in and cooked for your guests and entertained them, you may well choose that one day to give your child quavers. Please don't judge on this one occasion! One of my DC was very badly behaved when we were visiting friends purely because of the circumstances. He was exhausted from travelling, but we couldn't put him to bed as the spare room we were all sharing was totally unsafe for him to be in alone, and we didn't want to all go to bed with him at 7pm [usual bedtime] as it would have defeated the object of going to visit a friend we only see twice a year. Do you see what I mean?

Hope your weaning goes well

My friend is under the impression that Cheerios are a good cereal to offer. I don't like to say anything when she confidently asserts "DD always has a healthy breakfast" but inside I'm thinking "NO they're utter crap!"

I think hvs telling people that their baby can "eat what you eat" can cause confusion to some people. Someone on a message board i used to post on was giving her baby Bachelors savoury rice and quavers for lunch as the hv had told her the baby could "eat what you eat."

Infants can only prefer chocolate and crap over healthy food if they are given it. Otherwise, they wouldn't even know it existed!

I wouldn't say anything though. Just make sure that you give your child a better diet when the time comes and hope that this is one of those areas where she will learn as she goes along.

I wouldnt comment personally unless I knew that it wouldnt be taken badly. It is hard when you have a fussy eater but I think you just have to be persistent with the good stuff. My dd is 15 months and has been slightly fussy with her food from about 10 months. She was fine whilst we were doing a combo of mushy and finger foods, however, when we moved on to 'proper' meals I found that she wouldn't even entertain the veg that she had previously loved as a mushy meal. She loves fruit and has always eaten it in abundance, but veg always got thrown onto the floor. My solution has been to continue to offer her veg with every meal and last week when she ate a piece of carrot! Then yesterday some broccoli. You cant force a baby to eat something, but you can continue to offer the good stuff and limit the crap so that they have the opportunity to try the veg every day. My dd does have half a packet of wotsits as a snack every now and then, and my mum always sneaks the chocolate buttons when we visit on a Saturday. I am a firm believer in the adage 'there are no bad foods, only bad portions'.

Apparently Cheerios aren't all that bad as cereals go, though I didn't give DDs anything other than porridge & Weetabix for cereals until they were old enough to choose something else.

I think sometimes kids don't like veg as it's not offered in a way that makes it look delicious/attractive, or it's implied that it is something that must be endured, not enjoyed. I positively love some veg but my mum used to cook the hell out of it, so I didn't enjoy it as a kid until I discovered it was better raw (I love raw cauliflower) or at least not boiled to bits. I had sausage & mash with DD1 at Sainsbury's cafe the other day and the veg was overcooked peas or overcooked manky carrot batons. Neither of us ate the veg, unsurprisingly.

And sometimes you have a fussy eater who won't eat some stuff no matter how nicely you present it, or how delicious you think it is. For example, people always assume that fussy eaters just don't eat healthy stuff but would eat sweets or puddings. 'Don't offer them pudding unless they eat their dinner' etc. My DS is just as likely to refuse to eat a pudding as he is a savoury meal. I'm just as unlikely to persuade him to eat a sweet (like Haribo, jelly babies, the sorts of things you get in party bags) as I am a strawberry or blackberry.

Cheerios are SO sicklysweet tasting IMO.

I was looking up how much sugar various cereals contained the other day and cocoa pops were very bad, Weetos bad but better than cocoa pops. Cheerios better than Weetos and rice crispies better than cheerios. Ready brek and weetabix much better. Can't remember the amounts of sugar now.

It would be good if someone published a table of all UK cereals comparing the amount of sugar. Just Right was bad, but i tend to sprinkle a bit on my weetabix and it contains dried fruit and nuts, so i think it's ok in small amounts.

The NHS site says that over 15% sugar is high and less than 5% is low.
Cheerios contain 21.5%
Cocoa pops contain 35%!

PS. The NHS site sugar stuff isn't about babies though. Mine are older.

It's the American Cheerios that are good for toddlers. They are horribly expensive in England.

I would be hard pressed to remain silent in the face of a Jaffa Cake dinner for a 10 month old. I don't know what to say.

My cousin fed her kids so badly I sometimes wanted to cry about it. Having said that, they have all grown into strapping, healthy kids.

My 18 month old was BLWed and loved vegetables. Now she won't touch them, although fruit is still acceptable. She still gets them on her plate and the food she does eat is healthy-sometimes it even has hidden veg in it! So a veg refuser doesn't need Quavers or Jaffa cakes. (She adores crisps but only gets the Organix type ones that I kid myself aren't that bad.)

She adores crisps but only gets the Organix type ones that I kid myself aren't that bad.

I love them, especially the sweetcorn ones.

I sometimes wish on MN that I could link threads together for amusement value. There is another thread running about a MIL giving a chocolate advent calendar to a 1 yo. Lots of people saying that chocolate every day is fine, it's a small amount, it's a short period. NO. It's a 12th of their life and a single chocolate is a big amount to a small person.

On this thread, it's all about babies not knowing unhealthy food exists if you don't offer them it. They don't even know what chocolate is...