Mother V baby led weaning

[Slackalice42]

PFB is now 4 months so I am starting to think about weaning (ebf). I heard about baby led weaning know nothing about it, so I ordered a book from Amazon and sat down to have a read (coincidentally while breast feeding the spawn). Much to my surprise this caused my Mother to completely go off on one! Classic quotes such as, 'You were weaned at 3 months' and , 'That baby is hungry how can you be so cruel?' WTF? Baby is on the 95 percentile, happy, chatty and sleeps 8 hours at night. Am I missing something? Any thoughts on where this is coming from? I tried explaining about the World Health Organisation and Department of Health Guidelines and her response was that this was , 'Total bullshit put out by bureaucratic fat cats'! WTF????

If it is indeed the spoon-feeding and clear-your-plate attitude that has led to the obesity crisis, could anyone explain why obesity is still so much lower in e.g. the Scandinavian countries than in the UK?

Anecdote is meaningless in these debates so why mention it? Then we can't discuss anything, that's not what you said though, you said I was presenting an anecdote as fact. Please show me where?
I agree though if only the GP generation would listen and respect their dc's parenting decisions about how they raise their dc life would be much easier.

Isn't Scandi food much healthier in general than British food? It is a bit of a perfect storm I would imagine?

You correlated certain behaviours from parents with their DC being chubby.

And it's a two-way street. GPs aren't always wrong, their opinion and experience is often worth a listen. But you seem to think that they should just shut up, which is certainly not what I meant. That's not fair or kind. And it's certainly not a dialogue.

If GPs are going to play a meaningful parts in their GCs lives, including providing childcare, meals are going to be a part of that. Each side dogmatically ramming their own opinion down the others throat is hardly constructive.

If I said I was exclusively breastfeeding, but I have a bottle of formula at bed times people would have me hung drawn and quartered it's the same thing.

It's not though, people are saying they do what they assume is both. Not saying oh I do only blw then continuing to spoon feed. In the same sense that if you said the above people would tell you you're mixed feeding (doing both) and not that you clearly know nothing about/are ignorant to breastfeeding by offering formula

Scaredy, I reckon it's a combination of several different things:

food in general is healthier

there is a very strong consensus about the duties of a parent in offering healthy food- so strong social pressure there

school food tends to be healthier- and as (in Sweden at least) it is paid for by the taxpayers very few parents are going to be willing to pay all over again just to be able to send their child in with something the child might prefer

crisps and similar are seen as party food; they would not feature in e.g. an ordinary picnic lunch, let alone a child's lunchbox

sweets and snacks are, on the whole, quite expensive

there are plenty of opportunities for outdoor activities and parents tend to believe that it is unnatural for a child to spend too much time indoors- again strong social pressure

IT is all mother led as the mother decides when and what the baby eats.
It just amounts to whether you restrict it to finger foods or whether you have the full range with sloppy things too. People seem to think that you can force a spoonful of food down a baby who is full - if they had tried they would know it isn't possible!
Do whatever you are comfortable with and smile, nod and ignore other suggestions.

It is a very short period and isn't important- the aim is to get them to eat family meals. It has no bearing on future eating habits.

I did it with both my children. DD never had pureed food or mashed anything, soft or finger food from 5 1/2 months and formula. My DS was bigger and hungrier at the same agr, I gave him the same combined with those pureed pouches and jars. I offered every day the same food we had on our plates, but then I cook with no salt or hot spices. Rice, fish, pasta, bolognese, banana, pieces of orange, omelette, toast, peas... I always put something from my plate onto theirs. Now they are 17mo and 3.5yo, they both have the same as us every meal and eat wonderfully. I bought books but never used any, I found pointless to cook special meals when for me the point was to simplify things. The same, no salt and chilled. My family was in shock and argued a lot (which I ignored 100%) but after seeing results they all commented how well the kids eat and how they eat pretty much anything.

They are a bit early to tell how they will be eating. Mine were all brought up in the same way - DS1 turned out very fussy, DS 2 ate anything & very keen on trying anything new, DS 3 wasn't bothered about food in the least.
It is what you carry on doing as a family for later years that count. All eat healthily now they are adults.

I should say that they were all wonderful eaters in the baby stage.

Those who say "my dc never had mashed anything", do you mean that you as a family never eat anything mashed or pureed? Or that your dc were not allowed? Or merely that you didn't do any extra mashing and pureeing for the sake of the baby.

We are having (home-cooked) mash tonight and pureed soup on Wednesday, though we are all grown up- is that so unusual?

I agree that 'never had mashed anything' as a badge of honour is silly. Do mashed potatoes not feature in your house then? Or mashed root veg? Or soup?

We all eat mashed/puréed food. It's part of western food habits. Why on earth would you avoid it?

I suppose the more accurate expression is baby eats what we eat. Simple. And I think the closer people can get to that the better (provided you have a good diet obviously) without worrying about baby led vs mum led or stressing about spoons, etc.

Speaking for myself cory I gave whatever we were eating so yes if we were having mashed potato I gave them that. Soup I made thicker than we would usually have so it would stick to bread and spoons better.

What about when out and about- would you e.g. sit on a train or at an airport or in a cafe or at a dinner party and let baby handle their own food?

Still remember dd happily scoffing boeuf bourgignon at her christening; no way I would have let her loose on that herself surrounded by guests in their best clothes.

Or does everybody just stay at home?

I absolutely get the idea of letting baby explore their food; I am just a bit non-plussed with the thought of life being such a steady routine that the same approach works every day.

Cory yes many people who do BLW would let there children handle their own food in all the settings you mention. Agree it would be a bit tricky doing beef bourguignon though! I guess I would potentially take a little lunchbox of less messy foods to a function like that (which I did actually to a christening yesterday although their food would actually have been fine). Sat in Starbucks today and me and my baby shared a tuna baguette and some fruit. Yes you need to deal with the mess when out and about. I tend to put a couple of muslins under the high chair to catch some of the food, and of course do a good clean up with wet wipes after.

Interesting, ZZZ.

Don't waiters and waitresses find it makes their work more difficult if customers have to crawl around the place with wet wipes? (relatives work in waitressing so I have some idea of the stresses and dangers involved) And what would you do if your child threw the food at another customer? Thinking particularly of the train/plane situation, where space tends to be cramped. And dd, in particular, would have found it hilarious if she could have plugged another passenger in the eye or smeared the seat in front of her with tuna.

For me, with regards the grandparents aspect, I felt that it was a broader issue of them being able to accept that this is probably one of the first of many parenting tasks we will do differently to them. We are living in a different time, we have different info available to us, and we are just different people!

I felt it was important for them to respect our decision to do BLW. I was happy to discuss it with them and hear their perspective on it. But for me (although their don't provide regular childcare) if they just did it "their way" after us explaining why this is important to us, I would find that a bit disrespectful in a broader sense.

If we go out say for sunday lunch I give ds a couple of pieces of veg and some Yorkshire pudding. Actually find that easier than purees as he's happy to feed himself while we eat.
Purees here tend to be more if we are rushed, or if dp and I order a takeaway. Will feed ds while we wait for our food to arrive.
I do however get annoyed at places which have highchairs without a tray, but the highchairs don't fit up to the table.

I was probably more of the view that if we were in somebody else's home (including grandparents) then it would have been disrespectful of me to do something that meant more work, disruption and/or the potential for something being ruined. Ditto if my parents were looking after my offspring.

In my house, and when I was doing the catering/laundry etc, my ideas went.

I have to say, some of these posts read as being less about baby led and more about mother wanting to stamp her authority over the grandparents. How is it 'baby led' when mother makes it clear is is her way or the highway?

Cory my baby hasn't thrown food at anyone else yet, just the floor!

It's difficult to make any blanket statements about how people cope when out and about. Obviously as parents we know our children and need to be flexible! But that doesn't necessarily mean you don't let your child self feed.

I can just speak from my experience (and I've only been doing it a couple of months). Restaurants have been ok, I have chosen things that I know my child will be able to handle ok and that are not ridiculously messy (e.g. no spag bol). I'm attentive and make sure we don't make too much of a mess. I make sure I don't get in the waiting staff's way when cleaning up. We haven't eaten on planes or trains yet but I wouldn't be too concerned about doing so as would give him easy non messy foods such as sandwiches, cheese, breadsticks etc.

I think some of the posters need to get out more, tbh.
All this obsessing over essentially nothing must be exhausting.
I think your parents probably think you are slightly mad.

Well DS just had his first solids about an hour ago :)

He had a lovely time smushing sweet potato around his high chair, a few crumbs may have even gone in his mouth. He also had a sip of water.

I think I may have overcooked the veg a bit too much though as it disintegrated before it got anywhere near his mouth.

And yes to the poster who said they are all marvellous eaters when they are babies.
About 2 is when they start to turn, in NY experience.
So, from be to be smug about sharing tuna baguettes, olives and steak now, but I would not assume this will last forever, no matter how many books you have read.