Baby Led Weaning and Tummy Time

[BeKindToYourKnees]

These terms irritate the hell out of me!

When DD was a baby, I gave her a mixture of finger food and spoon-fed her. She ate the food (or not, depending on how hungry she was/whether she liked it). When she was a bit bigger I gave her a spoon too, eventually she learnt to eat with it. Is this "baby led weaning"?

Maybe I'm missing something, but surely everyone does the same? Why is it called this?

And as for "tummy time".... I really don't get it.

Please enlighten me!

Umm Miaow the pp expressly stated not the same as anything anyone has described here. Obviously.

Wind yer neck in.

Um, chunky did say that wasn't what anyone here had described....

I agree with Miaow. It is that kind of attitude and opinion that makes me roll my eyes at parenting types/labels/books.

I am sorry that some jumped up internet bitch vigilante upset you.

To be fair though chunky chicken did say that wasn't what anyone on this thread had described and was talking about very early weaning at 3ish months, which again, no one here is advocating.

I am certain that 14 years ago when DS was born that everyone knew about babies needing to be on their backs to sleep but I swear I was never told about Tummy Time!

And weaning onto baby rice and purees was recommended at 16 weeks. Shock Horror!! Then at around 24 weeks it was a case of, as mentioned earlier, bung stuff like bread and butter on the tray of the high chair and see what he does with it. Most of the concerns were with whether they would choke or not. Aaah, the olden days

Yep - weaning methods are socially controlling....

Er

I drifted into more of a BLW style with DS1. He was desperate to have food at 23wks, so we started with purees, but very quickly found that he could usually have something from our plates and that was considerably easier than making/freezing/ heating batches of puree. Sometimes awkward textures like mushroom sauces would be blended down as I served up. When he had something too sloppy like a yoghurt we would do it with two spoons. He had one to wield, and I had one. Sometimes he'd want to do it himself, sometimes he'd encourage me to take the lead. Where that fits the BLW label is that he dictated the pace.

The main advantages was that I usually managed to eat hot food, and there was much less work in food preparation.

I found the build up of different stages of texture of puree confusing and was quite happy to edit that out of weaning. DS2 is 16wks and I can't imagine starting to give baby rice to him now (no medical reason to do so). One of the reasons for earlier weaning in the past was the 4m growth spurt and milk supply being thought of as being inadequate to baby's needs. In a BF baby, the cluster feeding is boosting the supply, not a sign of inadequacy. Milk has more calorie and nutritional value than the baby rice and veg offered before 6m.

DS1 hated tummy time. When we tried it, attempts were short lived. DS2 is a bit happier about it but I tend to forget, but he spends a lot of time sitting with support or being carried, so I won't stress about it.