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 babies are fed nutritional food and a balanced diet then does it really matter which way? My issue is with putting food on a table or high chair tray instead of using a plate or dish.

I don't know what has been said to given the impression these mums want to "stamp their authority" on the grandparents. I respect my parents and in laws and was really happy to discuss weaning and different views. My inlaws had some interesting discussions with us, asked questions, and were happy to support us with it even though it was obviously different to how they did it. My parents were much less accepting. I didn't "stamp my authority" on them, just asked them to support us with it even though they did things differently when they were weaning us.

I have read some threads on blw in my time (I am an advocate), but this has to be one of the most wanky.

Is your baby being fed? Yes? Excellent, well done. Now let's just get on with our own lives, eh?

I am just a bit non-plussed with the thought of life being such a steady routine that the same approach works every day.

Our life wasn't a steady routine at that point - we travelled, ate out etc. It didn't prevent us letting the baby feed herself. We made liberal use of full-arm bibs, wet wipes and muslins, and common sense (I wouldn't have plunked her down in someone else's cream sofa and hand her a plate of spaghetti bolognese obviously).

Don't waiters and waitresses find it makes their work more difficult if customers have to crawl around the place with wet wipes?

I worked in waitressing and no, I really didn't care (or notice tbh but this was pre-DC). I wouldn't have been cleaning up at a table while customers still eating anyway! When eating out dueing baby stage we used to put a muslin or unfolded napkin on the floor under the high chair, eat, then pick up napkin - ta-da, 90% of mess cleared away.

And what would you do if your child threw the food at another customer?

Never happened - but surely that's more a toddler thing than a baby thing anyway? You can't spoonfeed them into adulthood...

Cath sorry if you thought I was trying to be smug when I said my baby had had steak etc. That wasn't my intention. It wasn't in a posh restaurant it was in Cote and it was part of a meal deal. I just chucked a bit at my baby and he gunned it for a bit. And I don't obsess over BLW either.

Just trying to explain the thinking behind people who BLW. If it's just the same as other people who don't label it as such then fine! And maybe it is a lot of fuss about just feeding the baby! But I don't know why parents try to put other parents down in the decisions they make about these things. As parents I think we are constantly questioning ourselves, whether we are doing the right thing for our children, feeling guilty about stuff. We don't need other parents judging us as well! I don't judge parents who do more traditional weaning and haven't made any disrespectful comments towards them. I know some of my friends who traditionally wean no doubt question themselves about it at times too and hope they are doing the best for their babies too.

Would be great if we could try to understand and support each other rather than just being dismissive and making belittling comments as demonstrated by many comments in this thread.

Yes, I agree with that cory. My mum was mid 70s when DD was a baby, I can't imagine making her do something that could be a right faff for her in her home. That would be disrespectful, and wouldn't be in the least detrimental to my child.

DS1 is still a good eater at 4 and a bit having done BLW with him, perhaps he will become fussy yet, who knows. Grandparents never batted an eyelid about BLW once we'd explained the idea. It certainly didn't affect our relationship with them in the slightest.

Sorry, not sure if those comments about "not giving pureed or mashed food on principle" was directed at me but just in case. No, I don't usually do mash-anything for the family, so that is why I didn't offer it. My DS had pouches on top of our normal food because he was/is a hungry boy and the little bits of food that he ended up swallowing after all the play wasn't enough. I personally find that I have to use twice as many potatoes if mash them than if I do wedges, so I rarely do any. Maybe once every two months. I'm not keen on soup either. I wasn't avoiding or denying that for the sake of it, I gave baby food to DS in the form of pouches or jars to complement. DD never bothered as she seemed to be ok with whatever was being offered plus milk.

On being out and about/ dressed, it made no difference. We had a baby foldable plastic mat with DD, we used normal plates with DS. They all got messy. I had big plastic bibs or overalls, I had a napkin on the floor or picked it up afterwards with s couple of wipes. Both my kids were baptised at 14-17 months and they both were messy eaters, I had no issue letting them eat as normal. Clothes are just clothes and at this age last a few months at best, I don't really mind much if they get stained, I buy cheap ones at this stage and those that have stains I cannot clean end up in the nursery bag as spares.