Aibu or is this really, really disgusting?

[Mrsknackered]

Chewing up food and then transferring it into your baby's mouth.
Or sipping a drink and then putting that in baby's mouth.

It's not just the germs that gross me out but the actual action of it.

Aibu?

I would bite my babies food into chunks for him (apples, biting grapes in half etc). Always seemed fairly instinctual to me

Are you saying you don't own a knife, Barrow?

Yuck .

Germs build up the immune system and are necessary for healthy development.

But most of us managed to grow up healthy without the benefit of someone else's chewed up food!

Are you saying you don't own a knife, Barrow?

Seriously? You'd get go and get a knife to do this rather than just biting it in half? I've done exactly the same - feeding baby, toddler is eating something - I'm not going to put baby down and go and get a knife when I can do it v quickly and efficiently with my teeth.

And yet, there are other interesting things many women are quite happy to have in their mouths. except its gross imo for the baby not for me so penis' etc don't come into it. I fed my child food he could manage without me having to pre chew it. So I other blended it when I was making it PR cut it up into small enough pieces. Don't understand why you would bring out meals for everyone but one of them be something you had to chew first. Also surely it looses some of the flavour

Barrow did refer to 'her babies food' rather than biting a bit off what she happened to be eating.

I haven't chewed up my children's food in my mouth for them, I just cut it up and pass it over.
I haven't seen anyone doing this either.
I have seen someone suck a dummy and pop it in her babies mouth, and my nana used to spit on a hankie to wipe our faces when we were young! I hated that. Even the thought of it now makes me feel ill.

I just don’t see why you’d do it? For what gain? I can’t think of any reason at all for it, except maybe for a child who has digestive issues & if it would help them if the digestive process was started for them. Maybe.

If there was an actual need for it, I’d do it, and have done worse.

I think things can often sound worse when written down than in actuality.

no wonder there is a rise in allergies amongst children. People are germaphobe and get grossed out easily.

But there has been a rise in alergies (together with a massive rise in people who say they have alergies) in very recent years and, while I'm quite old, I have never seen anyone pre-chew their baby's food in my lifetime. However the the spitting on the hankie and wiping your face thing was very prevalent when I was young.

It's DP who does it, it drives me mad. I was almost willing to ignore the food thing if it wasn't in plain sight, but he did it with a McDonald's hot chocolate this morning into his mouth 'because DS asked'
I think it's out of laziness personally, he'd rather not clean up the mess DS makes after feeding himself.

Absolutely foul!!!

Alicia Silverstone (Cher from Clueless and self taught parenting guru) recommends this as the best way to give your child all the right nutrients.

Jimmy Kimmel did a great video on it:

He didn't ask btw, he's 13 months and has 3 teeth. He probably just watched DP drinking it, the same way that he watches everyone who is eating/drinking, in the hope someone might share!

What do you think people did before the invention of puréed baby food in jars or pouches? Some spit from an adults mouth mashed up with some food going into a babies mouth isn't gross or spreading germs if you are not ill. It will all help build up the babies immunity. I often share food with my DD, I will bite things into bits or put whatever it is I'm feeding her in my mouth to test the temperature before giving it to her, I have good oral hygiene and have never had cold sores or STDs so I don't really see the problem, DD is 15 months and has only had a sniffle once in her life. If DD spits something out I will often eat it to save on mess/clean up. Bodily fluids don't make me feel sick because I'm not a germaphobe. Is open mouth kissing with a partner disgusting? That means lots of saliva sharing around and mingling.

My DM had the pleasure of being fed a chewed up chip by DD in a posh restaurant, it would have been far more impolite for her to have spat it out than to just eat it, which she did. We laugh about it because it was just Dd trying to be nice by sharing, DM didn't realise it had been gummed by DD prior to being shoved into her mouth but didn't make a fuss because she isn't a total moron.

On a similar note I read that the vaginal fluid that gets into the babies mouth and nose when they are being born naturally helps to create a healthy variety of gut flora, and some women who have C sections swab the baby with vaginal fluid collected immediately beforehand so they are getting that good bacteria that they would otherwise miss out on. Gross or good practice? I was planning on doing this if I had not been able to have a vaginal delivery.

I don't get how he got it into his mouth with less mess! Eww. Warm saliva'd milkshake.

What kind of food does he pre chew? If DS can't chew it simply because he is 13 months with 3 teeth is it stiff he should be eating?

So he spat hot chocolate into ds mouth?!

Why on earth didn't he just pour some in a cup?

Why does he say he's doing it?

Thing is Silky in ok eating what the toddlers forces into my mouth, I bite bits off to check temp and so it is small enough for his mouth if its a new food etc. All fine. But I can't imagine bringing a tray of food out for DS that needed me to pre chew it iyswim.

That's the thing Sleeping he can eat everything! We're pescatarian so it's not like he's chewing through a blue steak for him.

It's so bizarre. He says it's bonding and normal.

What do you think people did before the invention of puréed baby food in jars or pouches?

The marketing of pureed baby food in jars and pouches, as well as domestic ownership high powered blenders that would turn just about anything to mush, led to the very early introduction of solids (sometimes as early as 6-8 weeks); something that is now absolutely not advised. Prior to that people would have left introducing solids till later and used foods that are naturally soft and things that could be mashed up with a fork.

I just don’t see why you’d do it?

I live in the "developing world" and while blenders and sippy cups are fairly common even here, I've almost never used one for my baby anyway. I also don't chew and spit for him either! Or buy jars of purée! Wow, how do we manage?

We use these clever devices called knives and forks to cut and/or mash food up. Yes, even in the third world, we have knives and forks! Shocker

There's just no need. All this 'it's what they do in other cultures', 'what did we do before pouches' is irrelevant.

It's a yucky habit.

I do this occasionally, didn't realise it was disgusting

(I also did BLW, co-sleeping, natural term breastfeeding, carrying them about in slings - all of which seem to annoy people on MN. I'm pretty lazy so if there's a shortcut, I'll take it!)

I’ve done this with both of my children. Not the drinks, but the food. Often if we’re out and about and don’t have access to knives etc, but also if I’m trying to do two things at once and less chewing but more breaking up into pieces. I have chewed or ‘softened’ when they were very young. Also cleaned their faces with a bit of spit on my thumb. What else are you supposed to do when you go to kiss your child goodbye on the playground and only then notice the weetabix/toothpaste smears? AND I stick my tongue into the centre of the food before the youngest has it. Easiest way to tell whether it’s cool on the outside but going to burn his mouth as soon as he bites into it.They’ve both survived. It’s not a big deal, surely? They came out of me...

Why not joist govevyour child food they can eat themselves or chopping it up? Chewing it and taking the taste out then spitting it out and feeding baby a soggy tasteless mess doesn't sound that much less work than using cutlery