Feel a bit judged by this mum

[locomelons]

I have a 3 year old DS and a 6 month old DD. I have met a mum who has a 6 month old DD as well.

We go for coffee sometimes.

Recently the topic of weaning came up and I showed her a video of me feeding my first baby his first few mouthfuls from a silver spoon. She remarked if that was OK, because it was metal. I have plastic spoons as well, but this particular time I used this silver spoon that was gifted to us. No harm done. Minor comment.

Then it came up again and she said how she was going to do all the baby led weaning stuff and absolutely no way any fruits until all veggies had been tried. All this stuff about it being so unhealthy etc, to let your baby try an apple first is wrong.

I weaned my first successfully with a slightly different approach. I didn't do baby led weaning and also started with baby rice and fruit and then slowly onto other stuff. I can say that my first baby definitely didn't prefer sweet stuff or anything. I've tried a similar approach with my second and actually, she prefers veggies at the moment and tends to eat more and be more eager on broccoli, rather than banana.

My friend was again pointing out how that's not how you should wean etc. it's better to do all the veggies etc. she fears her DD will grow up and only want to eat junk food. I said I think it's normal for me, once they're toddlers, that they have the occasional ice cream and treats, in moderation. She's seen my older son eat ice-cream when she went out for a meal. So she said, well if you don't even let them try it, then they won't know it. Like how goes XX know he loves ice cream so much, you must have let him try it at some point ?

It's minor, but I didn't really appreciate it and now feel a bit self conscious about what I give my older son in front of her. I understand her point, but I really think for my children, they'll be allowed to have occasional treats and it's completely OK. I'm not going to deprive them of this stuff, as it sounds like she plans to. I'm not judging her approach, but she's judging mine, I feel.

First world problem of course, which doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things at all.

There's so many people like your so called friend around. Just ignore her & quietly hope she gets a fussy eater😄It's great fun when the perfect weaning doesn't quite go to plan...
It sounds like you've got a very well balanced approach which will benefit your dc greatly.

As a teacher, I often see kids come from homes where "we aren't allowed sweet stuff" and they were raised on super strict five a day healthy diets. Yeah, what the parents miss is that these kids more often than not then get a bit of independence in school, eating with friends or access to pocket money and when they teens part time jobs/baby sitting money etc...and boom, suddenly they are eating all the junk food and drinks they can get their hands on. Getting off the bus into or on the way to school to go to the shop for junk food they can eat away from home because it is seen as the forbidden thing they were denied as a kid. They have no self control then and gorge the stuff.

The idea your kids won't eat junk or develop a taste for sweet things because a parent withholds it when they a young child is nonsense. Ignore this preachy idiot.

You do what works for your child and everything in moderation.

She's on the fence about sending kid to nursery because is worried about all the disgusting food they give children there and doesn't want child to get fat from there.

Lol. I basically weaned all of mine on baby rice, mashed potato and smushed banana. Now they're all at school, doing really well, are totally fit and healthy, eat all sorts of foods and it just really does not matter at all what they ate for the first time at six months old.

It feels enormously important at the time. But in a couple of years, when you're washing play pit sand out of your toddler's mouth, you'll wonder why you ever cared about this woman's opinion on vegetables.

Ah I haven't sent my kid to nursery largely because of the food situation either!

She probably has anxiety around food. Are there gastro problems in the gene pool?

She also sounds like she has disordered behaviour around food, which she will inevitably project onto her kids.

Urgh my best friend is a bit like this and I just try to let it go over my head. But tbh it's got worse as they get older and we parent very differently when it comes to discipline, etc.!

It's not even the correct approach to BLW 😅 (before someone jumps down my throat there isn't a right or wrong way in regards to traditional weaning Vs BLW, do what works best for you) but there's more to BLW than it just being finger food, and one of the main focuses is eating together and they eat whatever you eat none of the whole "try this and then try this" it's just a plate of appropriately cut up food which they model you eating. (Well that's the idea, the first few weeks - months is definitely them more playing with it than eating)

I have to laugh at all the you must do this you must do that or they will never learn to hold a slice of cucumber, drink from a cup or use a utensil. Just fuck off already 😂😂😂 unless you have some kind of disability I’ve yet to meet an able bodied you couldn’t drink water from a fucking open glass. Christ on a bike!!!

Oh I was like this with my PBF. I look at back and cringe. Followed Annabel Karmel to the letter and was quite obsessive about it all. 😳 it was a bit of an anxiety thing, with hindsight.

I thought I’d succeeded wonderfully, with nothing sweet or processed for over 2 years, all veg before fruit etc, because he grew into a child who liked vegetables. Now… I have a 17 year old who seems to live on Monster drinks, McDonald’s and just general crap that he buys with his own money. He was a sugar fiend as soon as he was able to get it without me around.

My later DC’s did not follow the same regime. They like sweet foods as well as vegetables but they can take or leave sweet treats in a way that their older sibling can’t. Whether due to my obsessive weaning or not I don’t know!

I agree with her, but wouldn’t actually say anything to you. I’d just think it.

The average British diet is dismal and it starts from the baby stage. Sweet foods as default. ‘Occasional treats’ (why some people think processed trash is a ‘treat’ or ‘daily’ = ‘occasional’, I have no idea). Then beige oven ‘kids’ food (oh, Sarah doesn’t eat veg/doesn’t like sauces/is super picky, NO idea why). Then a nation of obese adults, with strange relationships with, and attitudes towards, food.

It’s all connected, nobody wants to talk about it because ‘it feels like lecturing’ (nobody hated Jamie Oliver until School Dinners) and ‘people need their treats’. Apart from the horrorscape that is America, you’d be hard pressed to find another developed nation with such deeply entrenched food issues.

The response you're looking for is "What a lovely idea. Do come back in 10 years and tell me how that worked out for you" 😊

This made me laugh.

I had a similar attitude to you with weaning. Very casual, trying bits of this and that as they seemed interested.
One of my oldest friends did like your friend. She pronounced VERY early on during weaning that she was ONLY doing organic, whole foods and all home-made.
Now her two are the junkiest eaters going. I met up with her, her kids and mine about a month ago to go to a soft play. Mine both had a sandwich and a juice carton for snack. Hers had a bag of quavers and a can of coke!

I was like this with my PFB. Embarrassing! I have my second now and he's getting spoon fed purees, mostly fruit so far. She will calm down eventually!

I used to do childcare as a teen for a right on family. The kids weren’t allowed any sugar or processed food whatsoever. They were pale snotty and whiny and the oldest became a drug dealer despite them being very posh. So a cautionary tale there!

She has got a PFB and as a result is a complete expert in everything.

Smile and nod and then ignore if you want to keep the friendship or ditch if you don't.

Remember she's weaning her PFB.

Chat to her again when her child is 3 and see where she is lol

She'll learn!!

There's nothing unconventional at all about the way you weaned, it's really a very normal basic way.
You do worry about being judged quite a bit though, I would worry more about that than how your friend is choosing to raise her child, as it impacts your life and friendships.

I did BLW starting with carefully steamed organic vegetables. Child is now an extremely limited eater with ARFID.

Also blw the second, waiting until the 6 month mark and she refused to eat at all throwing me into a tailspin worrying about depleting iron levels.

So much angst trying to get it right and it’s only now I’m out of that stage that I can see clearly that the whole concept of a right way to do anything with babies is usually rooted in the attempt to sell a product, a book or a system.

Bless her. Be kind and quietly laugh to yourself later.

From my very limited sample of mum friends, I found those that had wanted to breastfeed but couldn't became so evangelical about BLW.

I used to get so many judgey comments from these mums because I (shock horror) weaned at 4 months and used baby rice, purées and spoon feeding (medical reasons for the early wean btw)

Hold on OP, so it is all because she doesn't want her DC to get fat? If so that poor child is going to have more problems than how they were weaned. There is no right or wrong way of weaning. I made all my own purees for my first and then did BLW with my second, but your friends obsession with weight is slightly worrying.

That must be really difficult.

If you don't mind me asking, what do you think leads to ARFID? Or perhaps a better way of putting it, is there anything that those of us with young picky eaters can do to avoid it developing into full blown arfid?

I genuinely don't understand why this is upsetting you? You already have a child, it's clear whatever you did with that one it's ok to replicate with this one!

Honestly I would just give her a charming little head tilt and say "oh bless, it's easy to have all these ideas with your first isn't it!". If she's not bothered about being a bit judgey and holier-than-thou then you betcha it's ok to be patronising back!