to feel like I have failed because I want to give up on baby led weaning?

[honeytea]

Ds is 7 months old and he is doing reaply well with his eating. We waited till 6 months before we offered him food and we have been following blw. He has been eating the same food as us and actually managing to chew strips of chicken and trying lots of vegetables, he hardly ever gaggs and he seems to really enjoy food.

The only problem we have is the mess, I am not the greatest cleaner I have been spending 15-20 minutes aftereeach meal cleaning the highchair, floor, walls, baby, me. Ds can crawl and has just started pulling himself up and cruising around the furniture so I can't just leave him sat on the floor with a toy whilst I clean up anymore.

We are staying at my mums and last night we got back from a day out really late. I bought a pouch of baby food and gave it to ds on a spoon, he ate it with no problem andthe clean up took about 20 seconds.

I feel like I am letting ds down if we give up on blw as he is doing so well, but I don't want to waste quality time with him cleaning up avoidable mess. I like the idea of ds having control of what and how much he eats, I really want to help him develop a healthy relationship with food as its something I have struggled with.

[MoominsYonisAreScary]

Do both, it's really not important! Although ds3 is 2.4 and probably makes more mess than 6 month old ds4! Babies really doesn't care how they are fed. Do what's easy for you, maybe finger foods that arnt too messy and spoon feed the rest

[magimedi]

Newspaper under high chair is great - you can just chuck it when the meal is over.

And you are not a failure. When your DS is older he won't remember any of this. Nor will you!

[WinnieFosterTether]

oops, posted too soon, and your dc will be enjoying tasting food no matter what method you use.

[hmsvictoria]

I tried BLW with DS, but it just wasn't his thing, nor mine TBH. He just got frustrated and very hungry with it, so he was spoonfed too. He is an excellent eater now (age 7), not fussy, stops when he's had enough, etc.

Honestly, it's not a big deal. Don't feel bad.

[coraltoes]

my DD was pretty much spoon fed but had finger food from time to time. She fed herself with a spoon from little over 12m and is a very neat eater, not fussy, but will use her hands when the going gets tough (now 2.4). As long as he is exposed to a variety of flavours, textures, and enjoys his food please do not sweat it.

It sounds like you are doing a great job, and you really need to remove the stress from it. If that is the mess, you spoon feed the messy bits and let him munch on veg sticks, bread, fruit, chicken pieces etc (just maybe not the mash!)

[Madmum24]

Thank God mine were born before the BLW brigade were around! It was just considered eating in those days.....

OP do you really feel that your child is going to lose out if it is spoonfed a few meals? What is wrong with a spoon (genuine question!) Actually I saw a friend dipping her finger into her babies food and feeding her that way (apparently a spoon is a very big change for a baby to comprehend, she said).

OP mine were all spoon fed and no issues have followed, you seem to be doing a great job.

I find it quite ironic that most ecomentalists are very pro BLW but for me I just couldn't justify the food waste. Jus sayin'.

[Dahlen]

I got a dog.

[SoupDragon]

You are allowed to do both. The whole "baby led" bit of BLW is a bit of a red herring IMO. Provided your baby is happy with what you're doing and thriving that is all that really matters. Spoon feeding does not equate to force feeding.

[scarletforya]

Baby Lead Weaning. Yeah. Mammy Lead Cleaning more like!

[Flobbadobs]

BLW is just another way to describing what parents have been doing with their children for generations anyway. DS is 12 and I never once heard the phrase when he switched to solids, nor with DD1 and she's 7.
With DD2 it's the new buzz phrase and seems to be designed to bring out anxieties of whether you're doing it right, whether you're going to affect their eating patterns for the rest of their lives. For a whole week I actually followed the advice from a book passed onto me and got myself in a right tizz despite having successfully weaned 2 very good eaters!
I recycled the book and got on with it after my MIL took me out to lunch and gave me a very gentle earbashing...

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

who cares how the food gets in, as long as it gets in!?
I don't think I could handle the mess,but whatever works I reckon. I never get this " baby led" stuff anyway. I mean, would you encourage " teenager led driving"?
Sometimes its ok to teach em stuff!

[tabulahrasa]

Mine are teenagers...I'd never heard of baby led weaning when mine were small.

I gave them various textures of things on spoons and finger food - sometimes even at the same meal. They sometimes had different food to me, sometimes it was the same but cut up and given to them to eat with their hands or sometimes mashed up a bit and on a spoon...it was basically a case of getting food in them in a way that worked for us both, not force feeding them when they were not hungry or not liking something and trying to give them a nice variety of foods.

I still don't think there was anything wrong with the way I did it and we've never had any food issues other than that stage they go through as children of being wary of vegetables that they soon grow out of.

[sweetsummerlove]

disposable mats. lie one under the chair, after..fold it up..throw it out. Wipe hands. Wipe face. Wipe chair. Job done.

[Cakebaker35]

You haven't failed, you've just seen the light As nearly everyone has said, most people do a mixture of the two, absolutely nothing wrong with it and in fact I think it's just the common sense approach. Frankly who wants to spend ages cleaning after every meal? Relax and enjoy all the extra time you'll be gaining by not having to clean up.

[Ozziegirly]

BLW was just a term someone came up with to sell a book - it's not a rule, just another way of doing things.

We do spoon and finger foods. Spoon in porridge, mashed up helpings of our food and then he has crackers, toast, raisens, bits of pear and banana etc as well. As long as you're not forcing the spoon in when they don't want it, I can't see the problem really, DS makes it perfectly clear when he's full up.

[sebastianthesingingaubergine]

Dahlen

I did both too. Dd was spoon-fed, and then always had a selection of stuff to play with herself. Sometimes I just spoon-fed, until she wanted to do it all herself - now that got messy! The reason for doing both for me was that her hunger outweighed her dexterity Ds1 was spoon-fed puree, and neither of them have food issues.

[Fairylea]

It really doesn't matter. Whatever way you do it you won't be waving them off to university or whatever with a suitcase full of ellas pouches :)

[Pilgit]

news paper under the high chair - then you can fold it all up and just throw it away. Can you re-position him so he can't hit any walls?

[Beastofburden]

meh, never heard of it, mine are too old. Does it mean letting them have a go?

Summer is here. Let him eat his lunch naked on the lawn and leave the debris for the birds. Indoor meals yuo control a bit more.

The great Libby Purves book (how not to be a prefect mother) used to say feed them naked, in the bath.

or, as someone said, get a dog.

[Beastofburden]

to dog lovers only a joke, dog is for life not for lunchtime, dont get a dog unless you will love it and look after it right, I do agree with that

[UniqueAndAmazing]

i don't see why you have to give up on BLW just because you don't like mess!

here's what we do - wherever DD sits, we place a big messy mat underneath (those big sheets of plastic you get from wilko's, or a shower curtain, or any plastic sheeting is fine)
when she's finished eating, it gets folded up and thrown in the bath.
then the shower gets sprayed onto it (when we can be bothered) and left on the side to dry.

if it's the food mess, then just give her stuff that doesn't have a sauce. (or, if it does, then change her clothes when she's finished - again throw it all in the bath)

[Fakebook]

You don't have to let him get messy everytime. I never understand this BLW bullshit. You ARE ALLOWED to do different things aswell you know? Some days let him have a go himself, and some days feed him yourself. I did whatever came naturally with both my children and dd was self feeding at 20m and DS feeds himself at 18m.

[MrsOakenshield]

I hated doing BLW as, at 6/7 months, I was still all over the place and eating shite so I still had to make something half decent for DD to eat and it all seemed like such hard work. Abandoned it and went on to a mixture of purees and mashed up stuff and Ella's pouches when we were out - we were both so much happier. At age 1, she firmly removed the spoon from my hand and started feeding herself.

I really wish I hadn't ever bothered with BLW as I found it so stressful. I bloody hate that book as well, the implication that if you spoon feed your child x, y and z bad things with proceed to happen. Bollocks. It's a fucking spoon, not a loaded gun.

[SmiteYouWithThunderbolts]

I do a bit of both. BLW when I feel too lazy to sit and spoon stuff into his mouth and spoon-feeding when I feel too lazy to clean up the inevitable carnage from him feeding himself.

At first, spoon feeding was a nightmare because he just dribbled out the mush onto his clothes before smearing it liberally all over the place. BLW was less messy then. Nowadays he's much better at swallowing the mouthful of stuff, so it's not a bother. When he feeds himself, he does tend to throw at least half of it on the floor though. I can't win!