AIBU to think BLW babies can still eat yoghurt?

[Russell19]

On a local parenting facebook page a mum asked about how to get her baby to have medicine as he was spitting it out or being sick. The baby was 9mo.

Someone suggested a spoon instead of a syringe, someone else suggested giving a bit of yoghurt then medicine and alternate until medicine is gone. The lady replied saying she couldn't do that because she is doing BLW and her baby isn't spoon fed.

Now my baby is a similar age and we do a mix of puree and finger foods (shoot me I know!) but it seems right for us so I went with it. But it got me thinking.... surely BLW doesn't mean a baby can never have a yoghurt or anything that requires a spoon?!

I haven't really thought about it before because I'm doing both but thought it sounded bizarre.

So.... AIBU in thinking if you do BLW your baby can still have a yoghurt?! Or AINBU and this mum is taking it too far?

Yanbu sounds like she's being ridiculous to not even try it. I've got nothing against BLW but find the concept of "a BLW baby" very strange ifsyim - like it's an "all or nothing" cult-type thing.

My baby had purées when he was little but if someone had offered him a stick of cucumber, would I have said "no thanks, he's a purée baby". Of course not.

Yes, but your ‘purée baby’ would have had a good chew on the cucumber. My ‘BLW baby’ would have taken the spoon, banged it on the high chair, waved it around a bit, poked at whatever was on it and then ate it upside down. Which is fine if you’re feeding them yoghurt but not a great approach when you’re carefully measuring out medicine.

My DC always fed themselves, although I didn't really know about BLW at the time. I just wanted them to regulate their own intake of food as they did when breastfeeding. Things like yoghurt and soup I just gave them a spoon or something to dip in it and let them get on with it. So of course babies who are BLW can have yoghurt.

But, it can be hard to spoon medicine into a baby who is used to having control over their eating. I expect what your friend meant was that she couldn't sneak in a spoonful of medicine in between spoons of yoghurt because her LO doesn't accept being fed.

We occasionally had to hold our LOs down and syringe in Calpol and it was horrible. Goes against everything I believe in... but it sometimes has to be done!

Never heard anything so silly as BLW, who thinks these things up ! and then gets hundreds of women to follow suit. And you just have to go forth if a child has to take any medicine,with no faffing about.

Of course they can. It’s messy as hell but yes, they can.

I did BLW with all 3 of mine. Just gave them the yoghurt pot and about 6 spoons and grabbed the thrown spoons off the floor/mid throw.

Blow in his face. Babies gulp when the wind takes their breath away and then swallow the medicine in their mouths.

Some people are idiots
Don’t be one of them

BLW is a new name for old road but the difference now is parents have no cop on and it has to be one extreme or another.

Poor kids

Spoon refusing DS was BLW (or as I call it giving him the food I'm eating) and just ate yogurt with his hands. Which is why he ate dinner in just his nappy for about 8 months.

Still managed to get medicine into him though. He didn't like it but it was necessary.

I did blw. My 6 month old took the spoon off me and put it in his mouth! So yes, they can definitely have yoghurt!

My ‘almost exclusively’ BLW’d baby got to 14 months and regressed so he would only take food from me from a spoon or tiny pieces placed on his tongue like I was a priest giving him the sacrament. Babies gonna baby, in spite of parents’ best efforts

Yanbu op...bonkers.

DD2 completely refused spoon feeding. If I had tried to give her medicine in a spoon she would be liable to grab it and throw it at me. Or grab it and shove it in her mouth- you could never tell. She ate yoghurt with her fingers.
I had to pretty much pry her mouth open to get medicine in.

For blw you would usually put the yoghurt on the spoon then hand it to baby who feeds himself. Then it's still in the spirit of blw that baby is in control and feeds himself. Although, for medicine, the obvious thing is you just get it in them whatever way you can!

I have no idea what BLW Is, having had my last child 12 years ago - I don’t understand why spoons are an issue? Please, someone explain

Surely BLW is about them having control, not whether they are using cutlery or not?! I went with BLW because DD1 refused point blank to be fed by anyone from the word go (Little Miss Independent even at that age!) so I just put it in front of her and let her get on with it. Of course a spoon is hard to get the hang of at 6 months old while broccoli (or a fist) is much easier, but she still had the spoon and probably a fork (as appropriate) in front of her as surely the whole point is to get them to the stage of eating like the rest of us as soon as possible.

Same DD was a nightmare with medicine as well but I think that was coincidental, she got a phobia about liquid medicine and would gag on it to the point of throwing up every time. No improvement until she learnt to swallow tablets, then all was well with the world again.

I did BLW but still spoon fed foods that needed a spoon rather than fingers, until DC learnt to use one themselves.

Surely baby led means that the baby wants to eat it, not that it all has to be finger food? You could still put a bowl of yoghurt or puree in front of them and they can stick their finger in it, an then in their mouth?

I have two children and have no bloody idea what BLW means 🤷🏻‍♀️

As if people get so hung up on these labels.

My baby eats. Sometimes he feeds himself. Sometimes I feed him. But he just eats. Seriously cba with of these labels that just make other parents feel bad

Thats the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, does she have ANY common sense.
My son was always spoon fed puree like all babies in the 80's and he eats anything and everything as an adult and uses cutlery properly.
Fine if you want to do BLW no problem but occasionally you are going to have do give them something like medicine or as you say yoghurt that requires a spoon.
God if I worried that much about such complete trivia when my son was a baby we'd both be completely neurotic by now.

@madcatladyforever

PERFECTLY put.

Tbh the knowledge that I would one day have to make an “in control of their own food intake” baby take medicine would have been enough to put me off militantly following BLW (unless my child completely refused to be fed like some pps).

I blw both of mine and with yogurt and things that needed spoons,used to put in a bowl, give baby a spoon to use himself and then spoon feed some to him to make sure he ate some, a bit of a mixture, maybe not strictly blown the sense I was helping him, but worked for us, and both mine are fully weaned, with good appetites and know how to feed themselves!

She would pick spoon up and actually most of the yoghurt did get eaten. We just didn't put the spoon to her mouth

Now that all my children are past this stage, this sort of bollocks makes me laugh out loud. It’s the most absurd and entertaining fad. It was a very big deal when my eldest (now 10) too. People hiding purées and pretending their baby ate a steak by themselves. I spent a lot of time wondering what exactly the long-term purpose of it was.

I’m still not sure. Probably that spoon-feeding is associated with jars and therefore lower class? Some middle class person decreed blw a higher form of parenting and so everyone followed.

The middle—classes took over parenting some time in the early 2000s and have refused to give it back! 😂