To silently judge my friend?

[namechangew4nker]

I have a friend with a baby who is almost 6 months, we live close to each other and see each other on average a couple of times a week. My friend is an excellent cook and her food is amazing, I have tasted it many times, she has even taught me how to a cook a variety of foods from her heritage! However, she constantly feeds her baby crap. I have seen dc eat a magnum ice cream, a cornetto, a character jelly lollipop covered in sugar, a milky bar for breakfast and 2 packets of cheesy biscuits one after the other. She constantly posts photos of her baby eating these things on social media. A few days ago she told me that her baby doesn't like food without salt and won't eat it unless she adds salt to it first. She is aware of feeding advice and is an intelligent lady so it isn't due to a lack of awareness or education. I am no earth mother myself, I have fed my dc crap in the past but not at such a young age and I do feel awful for judging her but I am worried about her child's health and the eating habits her baby is likely to develop in childhood if she carries on!

Have you encouraged her to get the cravings checked out medically? Salt cravings can mean minerals are lacking and given the baby's overall diet it really wouldn't be surprising but it can also mean that the adrenal glands are struggling to keep up. Are there other 'symptoms' such as poor sleeping? it's difficult sometimes because the symptoms are potentially common childhood ones too. Suspect personally that its bad diet but perhaps don't be silent but encourage her to get it checked out. Might make her pause to think overall.

I am finding this very, very hard to believe as my DS is 6 months old. It takes him forever to suck on a couple of carrot sticks or some avocado. There is no way he’d even manage two packets of cheesy biscuits. Unless most of it ended up down his chin (likely), but it would still take forever for him to get through a first pack.

He’s hand dexterity is okay, but he’s still a baby and just can’t eat the same way as an adult.

I think you might be exaggerating a little bit.

I'd be more worried about the salt than the sugar. It's too late to comment on the early weaning.

the baby will die with all that salt
you need to tell her to stop it or tell her health visitor
stupid woman

I did a case study at college of parents who weaned their baby on mashed potato and gravy, the salt content in the gravy nearly killed the baby. I’d talk to the health visitor and they can check it out

I had a friend that was literally starving her baby as she didn't want him to be fat. Was feeding him two rich tea biscuits mixed with milk for dinner. Her childminders and I fed him on the sly and we raised it with her health visitor.

Autumnal my parents weaned me on that. I hope it hasn't done any lasting damage! I had to argue til when I was blue in the face when I had dc1 that this wasn't the right way to introduce solids!

What a terrible example. The US has incredible diversity at a regional level.

But is it known for that in the rest of the world, or do we generally think US=burgers, like we think Italy=pasta & pizza, Japan=sushi and so on?