To think Gill Rapley should be knighted?

[Happydutchmummy]

Ok, so I'm not sure if women can be knighted, maybe she should be Lady-ed, Dame-d or whatever the correct term is...

My second dc has just started weaning and I'm experiencing the joys of blw again. It's just so awesome. I know she didn't 'invent' it, but she did the research, wrote an amazingly clear book and has changed the way that a lot of parents wean their child. Due to her the nhs has changed its guidelines on weaning to be more finger foods rather than purée and many health care professionals now recommend it.

On top of that she hasn't cashed in with a whole range of blw merchandise, there is no official blw high chair, you can't buy Gill Raply branded bread sticks, etc. it's just her book and recipe book but that's it.

Surely she deserves some official recognition for services to babies, and mums who are too lazy to purée

If you blend / smoothie fruit and veg every portion you put in counts ,if you juice several fruits it only counts as one portion because you have taken away all the fibre . If you are just mashing up veg I would have thought they all count .

Apparently not

I did BLW with both of mine, now 5 and 3. It's got it's positives yes. But sometimes purees would have been a whole lot easier! Mine aren't that fussy, although I can't say that I follow the BLW ethos to the letter though anymore as I do encourage my 5yr old to eat his vegetables, as if left him to his own devices he would not eat any veg at all.
It's also not easy to do BLW when you are out and about when baby is young, as it limits where you can eat out i.e no spicy food etc. It requires more planning than puree feeding IMO. If you feed mush, then you just make it yourself and feed it to them, no worries about spiciness, saltiness, balance of nutrition etc.

I prefer the book Complimentary Feeding by Gabrielle Palmer. Now that is a great book on infant nutrition.

Also not to be a pisser on the parade but lots of kids eat well at 4/5.

This can alter as they get older.

I think it is common sense really. I never pureed anything and I never read her book. I just thought I'd hate to eat mush so why would I want to feed it to my bab - for me it was common sense. But I am not a panicker and when he coughed stuff up, I didn't think he was about to choke. I think maybe some people get nervous of that which is why they pulverise everything. And it was fine eating out. He just shared mine, made a mess and I cleaned it up before we left. He is still making a mess a year on.

Sorry, repeating myself and typos - bab should be baby

Sorry Stealth, but it's as flora says. If you don't take anything out, how could 7 portions possibly morph into 1?

Thats what I askef on the other thread. It mKes no sense to me. How can the act of blending mean that portions are removed? But apparently it does. 1 apple and 1 banana - 2 portions. If yu blend them a d take nothing out they become one.

So someone gives advice to people containing ages old common sense? Nope. Doesn't qualify for a gong, thankfully.

Does this also apply to paul mckenna "eat when youre hungry, stop whdn it's no longer enjoyable" advice?
(Not knocking it, it was a bloody revelation to me!)

stealth ,I've checked it on the NHS website if you smoothie 80g ( which is an official portion) of banana and 80g of strawberries with some honey/ milk it is 2 portions ,likewise with veg .

I thought so!! Can we tell the people on the seven a day thread then

No let's keep it to ourselves and let them eat 27 a day ! Sorry OP for hijacking your thread .

I don't get this blending two portions makes one portion malarkey - can someone link to the proof of this?

Also, just because you are feeding puree, does not mean you are force feeding until finished! You can mix puree with finger food, and before you know it baby is taking the spoon off you and trying to feed themselves. It doesn't have to be either one or the other - a mixed approach, tailored to suit individual baby and Mum is surely best?

Floral

It was always quite obvious to me when my babies didn't want any more puree. They'd stop enthusiastically opening their mouths when the spoon came towards them.

No. Ive queried it on many a thread and always been told its the case. The blades break down the goodness. Apparently teeth dont. Tbh I find the whole thjng confusing.

Yes I think she deserves some recognition!

DS is now nearly 9m and eats anything I set in front of him, if he doesn't want it that's fine.

When I was pregnant with DS I signed up for all the usual websites in the hope for some freebies. Heinz, cow and gate, aptimel, pampers etc

Since they knew ds's due date they knew his approximate age, computer generated or not. When he was around 4m old I got LOADS of weaning advice, leaflets and coupons. I wasn't planning on weaning until 6m so hadn't yet looked into any weaning advice at that time. I flicked through the books and leaflets, start with fine purées blended up. Introduce new bland foods one by one every few days, by 7m your baby should be eating more textured foods or lumpy purées. No big flavours to hurt babies tummy. Progress to 3meals a day and get into a routine.

I thought it was ridiculous. DS was/is ebf on demand. He got fed when he asked/shouted for it. He was used to a variety of flavours from my milk, chilli, garlic onions. Why did I have to cut down his flavours? Why did I have to be regimented in the times, amounts and 'progression' of textures. But apparently that's the way it is, to get babies onto solids you mush stuff up and shove it in their mouth. There didn't seem to be an alternative. HVs were asking me when I was planning on starting to spoon feed, next appointment was if he was on 3 meals a day yet, and how much he ate. They never suggested that there was another way.

After some googling I found BLW, I didn't know the name of it and was searching 'alternative weaning' ideas. I ordered the BLW book and had a read. My problems were solved. We haven't looked back!

I have never had to specifically cook, blend and freeze tubs of food for DS. I don't even own a blender! Instead my freezer is full of frozen veg! We don't even buy pizzas or chips anymore because that would mean cooking something else for DS. I've stopped using jars of sauce (curry, bolognase etc) because they're too salty and processed. I make my own sauces now so everything I make is suitable for DS but is also proper adult food.

Mine and DP diet has improved also, we were never the type to live off takeaways but I've stopped adding salt in cooking and making more things from scratch. There's always plenty of fruit and veg in the house now, the weekly shop is actually cheaper because I don't buy all the chocolates, sweets, biscuits and treats we used to sit and much on after dinner in front of the tv. We eat at the table together.

I'm probably one of the lazy ones who couldn't be bothered with the hassle of spoonfeeding. But I also saw it as completely unnecessary! And I get more time to eat my dinner, I don't have to sit and feed the baby. Bonus!

I am thankful for Gill Rapley for offering my an alternative to spoonfeeding when everybody else was telling me spoonfeeding is the only way!

I think its great - I only found out about it after I'd been doing it as DS1 would not ever let a spoon past his mouth until he could lift it himself. There was no purée consumed ever - despite my faithfully following the books and making a disgusting mix of broccoli and apple. YUUUck.

NiMhurchu the alternative was always there though

Long before Gill Rapley 'offered' it to you.

My DDs, now aged 23 and 20, were weaned on a mixture of purees and finger foods and most people I knew did the same.

And just because you opened a jar sometimes, doesn't mean you force feed them the entire jar, just like if you cut up some veg for them , you wouldn't force feed them all of that either.

Nobody had even hinted there was an alternative. I had spoonfeeding advice and recipes coming from all directions. The BLW book described clearly a different style of weaning that I had been unable to find elsewhere

I'm another who had children before blw was 'invented' - I too gave my kids finger foods and let them have their own spoon to eat themselves whilst I was spoon feeding puree. (Don't remember it being a faff to spoon feed either btw).

Now have 2 pre teens who eat well and self moderate their food intake - both are fit and healthy - do I get a damehood????

(Also mine were already off purees and onto mashed lumpy food by 6 months as we weaned early too then).

I never read any books about feeding my children, I used common sense.

When DS (10) was weaned at 4 months, we did puree single fruits and veg for the first few weeks, but then progressed through mushed up family meals and finger foods from about 6 months old. We never did use jars of sauce or lots of salt in our food, or gravy granules or stuff like that, so it was no biggie really, we still cook the same way now. We still had the odd takeaway and gave the DCs food from the freezer on those nights. I thought that was just what everyone did? I don't recall being urged to spoonfeed by anyone really. Probably because I avoided signing up to any of the Bounty, Heinz etc websites.

I'd never heard of BLW back then. It had started being a thing I'd vaguley heard about when DD(8) was weaned but also by then the weaning guidelines had change from 4 to 6 months, so we just skipped the earliest puree stage and did the same as for DS.