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?

I’m with 53rdWay here. My son refused to be spoonfed. But I could put yoghurt on a spoon and hand it to him and he could put it in his mouth or throw it away, whichever he saw fit. I still wouldn’t be able to give him medicine on a spoon at 20mo, I use a syringe. This doesn’t make me “militant” or any other bollocks - just responding to my son’s preferences. I don’t give a shit whether others feed purées or not.

Interesting how many have jumped to “she is so ridiculous / fad-following / stupid / I would never have been such a silly mother” etc rather than thinking about why people might do things differently to you.

@hadjab @midnightmisssuki baby led weaning is letting the baby control what they have. I'm not an expert but I think mums just put things our on their tray and let them eat what they want.

mine just ate whatever i put on their tray

shock horror - we also did puree and spoon fed. AT THE SAME TIME

they definitely are not traumatised and pretty good eaters!

oh dear. its like a cult! haha

Why is it like a cult? There are quite a few on this thread who seem very set on their way being the only way (and anyone else is a fad-following simpleton) and they aren’t all people who claim to have done “BLW”. I couldn’t care less how anyone else weaned their child - I assume they did what worked best for them and their families

Another vote for both puree and self feeding. To me, Baby Led Weaning meant following your baby's lead with weaning. It doesn't mean finger foods only. I know that isnt what the books say, but it made the most sense to me. Both of mine would turn their head or whack the spoon out of my hand when they were done. Both took hold of the spoon themselves and self fed. Both picked food off their high chair and ate it. Breakfast was often porridge, lunch a sandwich and dinner a mushy meal. 🤷‍♀️ It worked - I have two healthy, unfussy kids. Both were also a nightmare to get medicine in under the age of 1. I would regularly give them calpol through a teat of a bottle, or via syringe by whipping the dummy out whilst they were sleeping and slowly syringing the medicine in again.

We did BLw. Dd loved yogurt, but I had her do the spoon herself. Super messy. Crazy messy.

So spooning medicine wouldn’t be my first choice just because she was used to holding the spoon herself, but I wouldn’t rule it out automatically.

She's an eejit. Giving your child medicine is FAR more important than a weaning method. DSis (paediatrician) helped us massively when she showed us how to push a syringe of Calpol/Nurofen to the back of DS's cheek (not throat! cheek!) to make sure he swallowed instead of spitting up. She hates getting anti-medicine parents in who have a child with a serious fever but, when asked if they've given Calpol, respond indignantly that they "don't want to fill their child full of drugs"!

Having worked in a nursery with a baby room I've seen plenty of babys that spoon feed themselves well - with one nursery nurse to every 3 babys some get impatient!

DS was terrible for taking medicine as a baby up to nearly 3, I'd have to hold him still and squirt it into a corner of his mouth. Its soo much easier now (nearly 4!) he'll just eat a bit off a spoon, drink water, eat a bit more, drink water till its gone then gets rewarded with a sweet.

Sometimes it is the type of medicine and it’s nothing to do with how it is administered - my son was given an antibiotic that he just couldn’t keep down, it was changed to one he could. I have only ever been able to give him medication via syringe as he has never accepted me offering anything on a spoon

What the hell is BLW, why cant a baby have yoghurt and why wouldnt you use a spoon to feed a 9 month old ?

I did blw as I had no choice, my baby had a spoon reflex, every time I brought it to her mouth she'd clamp.her mouth shut like a disapproving Dot Cotton.

When mine were little they were weaned on baby rice off of a spoon at 12 weeks( 10 weeks for No2 as he was starving) by 4 months it was lumpy food and by 8 months it was what the rest of the family ate. By 18 months they drank from a glass and by school agee could use a knife and fork. My babies are in their 30s and they are fine and healthy

She sounds annoying and irresponsible. When your baby needs medicine you just need to give it to them however you can. If they start ar$ing around them sometimes all you can do is tip their head back and shove a syringe in their mouth...u shouldn’t mess around worrying about using a spoon or not when your baby is really unwell I’m afraid....just get it done.

Oh and yeah I mean I cannot really understand anyone who has the time to fuss over whether to feed their baby with a spoon...I mean seriously just feed your baby one way or another. I used a spoon and finger foods ...it didn’t do any harm.

“ If they start ar$ing around them sometimes all you can do is tip their head back and shove a syringe in their mouth...u shouldn’t mess around worrying about using a spoon or not when your baby is really unwell I’m afraid....just get it done.”

But from the OP, the woman has been using a syringe...

Tell her to put it in the test off of a baby bottle. Watch her faint

Teat, goddamnit!

The OP is much more neutral than people are interpreting - it just says that the woman said that her baby is not spoonfed. As a PP says, it doesn’t say anything about whether the woman is “militantly” anti-spoon, just that spoon-feeding is either not something her child is used to, or perhaps not something her child accepts. Which is quite important when it comes to administering a specific dosage of medication. Everyone is very quick to jump to “ridiculous faddy woman endangering her child”, when actually it sounds as though she was trying to get ideas for ways to get the medicine into her child, not avoid it

I do purely BLW (I must be part of a cult). My daughter has yogurt, like PP I load a spoon, hand it to her, she decides whether to eat it. The childminder she has recently started at has tried spoon feeding (as she wasn’t eating much there when feeding herself) and has found it tricky, as my daughter isn’t used to a spoon being put in her mouth so she just grabs it. If I tried to give her calpol on a spoon alternating with yogurt like is suggested in the OP it wouldn’t work as my daughter would grab the spoon and it’s unlikely the medicine would go in. I expect that’s what the lady meant.

Incidentally, I’ve never come across anyone in real life or online who does BLW who acts like it’s a cult or the only way to wean or preaches about it. I more often see people who did ‘a bit of both’ talking about how obvious it is and why does everything need a label and mocking BLW.

My ds wouldn’t take a bottle or let me put a spoon in his mouth and it was not for want of trying believe me. HOURS I spent trying to persuade him.

He was about ok with a cup and spoon himself by 7 months but I would not have trusted him with medicine on a spoon - I’d have had no idea of dosage.

I don’t know why the very thought of BLW winds people up so much. I’m not weaning YOU, ffs.

The mum's a twat.

Everyone is very quick to jump to “ridiculous faddy woman endangering her child”, when actually it sounds as though she was trying to get ideas for ways to get the medicine into her child, not avoid it

Precisely. But ‘ridiculous faddy woman who I can condemn in order to feel morally superior about my own parenting’ is a lot more fun than ‘mother asking for help with common problem’.

@Monkeynuts18 what would you reccomend for the mother? Maybe I can comment on her post. She said syringe didn't work and spoon wouldn't work so how else can you get medicine into a child? Breastfed too sk no bottle teats.

I have nothing against BLW by the way,I do get the ideas behind it but I niavely thought babies would still use spoons for things like yoghurt, it had just never crossed my mind before that it might be a problem.

whipping the dummy out whilst they were sleeping and slowly syringing the medicine in again

Not a criticism of this method but pretty sure this is what set off my DD1's phobia of medicine, when I did this and she woke up and kind of panicked/gagged while I was trying to get it in her without fully waking her up. Just unlucky that time I suppose.