To find blw wasteful?

[susannahmoodie]

So I read up on it and get the idea but after lunch today when sweeping up fingers of melon and mango from under my 8mo's high chair, I've decided I can't afford for food to just be thrown away like this, especially when it could have been enjoyed by me my 3yo.

I would say 80% of what I give him ends up licked once then on the floor. Am I doing it wrong?

monkey you are still missing the point. If you wouldn't usually buy melon to eat then you don't start buying it just to feed your baby if you know you won't eat it. If you would buy it before and it didn't all get eaten then..umm..I don't get the problem.

But then hearmyroar they may not get a very varied diet if the parents wouldn't normally eat many things. So a pouch or homemade frozen purée would be better to introduce them to liver or something the parent doesn't like. Some of my friends are really fussy and the child would have a very limited selection if only given what they ate.

shanghidawn my dd is 13 months. She tips things out of the bowl/off the plate to wear it as a hat.

Or she throws it and the contents on the floor.

That is why food goes on the tray, not in a bowl on the tray!

Fair point, art, but when you hear about blw it's usually melon and mango and blueberries and cheese and rice cakes. Ie expensive stuff. You'd struggle to get a baby interested in eating using just apples and carrots.

I disagree monkeymama. DS (15 mo ) has multiple allergies, including most fruit. He is highly allergic to soft fruit. Only can have apples/pears/bananas, most vegetables. Can't have most pouches due to their contents.
We did Blw anyway, he tucks into anything & everything he can have now at 15 months- sprouts are a particular favourite! Everyone comments what a good eater he is. He will happily eat shepherds pie & cabbage, chinese 5 spice & egg noodles, chicken korma, roast dinner, pork chop & veg (dinners over last few days) etc. Just goes to show you don't need to do mango/melon etc to get them interested.

8mo DD ate loads of carrot at supper tonight. And roast potato and some beef. She preferred the carrot though.

What landed on the floor was picked up and given back to her.

I BLW because I'm lazy. I can't be arsed pureeing stuff. I have no desire to cook separate meals. And I'm damn sure I'm not going to spend meal times spoon feeding DD when she's perfectly capable of picking up the food herself.

When playing up I plate up some for DD on a side plate. Once it's cool i put some on her plate so she can eat it. If she finishes it i add more.

I don't get this whole 'balanced diet' argument. If you provide baby with a balanced diet they will eat a balanced diet. They might spend 3 days eating only fruit then 24 hours where they will only eat cheese, but it all works out and they eat what they need.

What's the point in getting them used to something eg papaya that you buy especially because the parents don't eat it?

Because by age C.3 they are going to be eating family meals anyway so unless the family suddenly adopt papaya for breakfast the kids never going to get it anyway!

I learnt this recently remembering the homemade haddock sardine and pea puree I forced on DD1. Am I bollocks ever making that for our dinner.

DD2 was weaned on chips and jaffa cakes farmore sensible

I completely disagree softly, I would never not cook something for ds just because I didn't like it. I think that's really unfair. I grew up never having tasted fish and cauliflower, and loads of other stuff I actually love because my parents didn't like it or cook it for me. Ds loves liver, dh and I don't. I still cook it for ds, usually on the nights dh and I want hot curry or something ds wouldn't like - And i won't stop making things like that because ds wouldn't eat it either.

When I started weaning, I gave DD whatever I was having, her first meal was chicken fajitas (non spicy!). One piece of chicken, tortilla, and one piece of each of the veggies I used.

As she got better at eating I started buying one thing each week that I wouldn't normally, for DD to try. So adding an extra £1-2 to the shopping bill. Negligible compared to buying prepared baby foods, and I would guess the same overall as buying extra veg for homemade purees.

Oh, as for the over sensitive gag reflex, DD had tongue tie. I was given a stage 1 fruit purée for her and she couldn't eat it, every time she tried she gagged and retched. She was so much better with solid foods- and it had the bonus of stretching/loosening her tongue tie due to the movements she was making while eating.

Blw works if the parents have a reasonably good diet. But if they only eat ready meals and chocolate biscuits giving the baby some of what they eat wouldn't be a great idea. In that instance it is cheaper to buy pouches etc then fruit, vegetables, fresh food especially for baby. Therefore depends on the family really.

That should read 'cheaper to buy pouches than fruit, vegetables etc'

Surely this is what pets are for?

Any food on our floor us snaffled immediately by the cat.

I have to disagree with MrsKoala - I don't think it's at all unkind or unfair to cook for your children the same things you eat yourselves. My husband and I don't eat pork. I'm buggered if I'm cooking it just for my son! He can enjoy it at other people's houses and eat it as much as he likes when he leaves home. I think you're being a bit melodramatic about not having eaten fish or cauliflower growing up.

BLW worked great for us when my son was tiny (and we didn't have much money back then either). He was born with tongue tie and it broke naturally when he was one year old - I'm sure it was thanks to BLW.

In our case case, BLW meant that instead of breastfeeding the baby on my lap while I tried to eat a meal one-handed, I let the baby eat from my plate. After a month or two, the baby would be eating enough of my food to get a high chair and plate. No special food required.

I only buy apples, bananas and pears as fruit because that's all that gets eaten really! Sometimes get grapes or melon for DS1 now he's 3 as he asks for it and will eat it.

I obviously weaned him all wrong too because he got all the "boring" stuff that I was cooking anyway - carrots, roast veg, brocolli, cucumber, cheese, chicken, pasta

I have never allowed food to be thrown about though to be honest, and encouraged cutlery early on.

I have to disagree with mrskoala. I will never cook something for DD if both DH and I don't eat. It's one meal for all. As for BLW food, I just pick more of the food that is easier to eat with fingers. We don't cook shepards pie because we aren't British. It's just not our thing.

But lots of burgers, sandwiches, stir fries. All of them are easy finger food.

And we do eat melons ourselves. And mangoes.

As for wasting food. Get use to it. DD still sometimes refuses whole dinners. And she is 3.

I think weaning is a good time for those families who eat ready meals and chocolate biscuits or where the parents are fussy to address the food they eat, even if you buy your baby jars/pouches for the first 6 months or a year the child will still end up eating the same food as the rest of the family, you can't feed them pouches forever.

As far as I can see BLW is only possible if you sit the child in the bath and shower them down afterwards.

I'm very glad it hadn't been invented when the DDs were small.

DD was a very tidy eater actually. She was also a spoon refuser. (She is very stubborn. She decides to do many things including when she wanted to be potty trained).

She started nursery at 7mo and I told nursery she only self fed herself. Didn't use the word BLW. Told them they could try spoon feeding her if she's willing. They told me it was impossible after a week. It is not invented for nothing.

Try weaning a stubborn independent baby. Actually it was the HV that suggested BLW to me. DD refused all purées I offered her. She just turned her head away. I can't remember when I gave up. But it was over 6mo and I wS worried.

My post was to nocomet. Don't judge other parents until you know them.

It also meant she ate the same nursery toddler meals as everyone else. Including dunking bread in soup and picking up the bits inside. I would never make her soup myself actually. I stick to quite clean food

BLW hadn't been invented when DS16 was little. He had some jars, some home-made purées, lots of whatever we were having in a less salty & more chopped up form. Even as a small child he would eat almost anything.

BLW was invented in caveman days, only then it was called "grunt ugg grunt" - translation "prechew food, give to baby"

It's just a thing like anything else to do with babies, goes in an out of fashion.

We did a combination of blw (finger foods) and spoon feeding (yoghurts, cereal etc) DS so far likes most foods, can hand feed himself very well and is just getting to grips with a spoon and fork. He is 13mo.

The mess and waste was ok for us as we used a splash mat too meaning all food on floor went back onto highchair, plus DS is a gannet and doesn't know the meaning of wasting food. We waited for bath night before giving him messier foods to try. Plus we have one of those big plastic bibs with sleeves which took most of the mess.

It's whatever works for you really. This was easy and cheap and convenient, the faff and expense of pouches and jars wasn't for me.

Pouches are new fangled too, which reminds me I'd better go say revision to DD1 again.