To think most people don't understand baby led weaning

[Londonforestmum]

I hear so often people say they are doing a mixture of baby led weaning and spoon feeding. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but this is 'traditional weaning', which always advised finger food from 6 months as well as purées. It's not doing a bit of both. BLW means you let your child feed themselves all the time. To say you're doing a bit of both is like saying you're a bit of a vegetarian because you eat some plant based foods alongside meat?

BLW also doesn't mean children don't use a spoon, you can use a spoon straight from the start but you just preload it for them and then let them hold it / put it in (or somewhere near lol) their mouths.

I think maybe people feel under pressure to do BLW but don't want to so they say they're doing a bit of it. There is nothing wrong with doing traditional weaning (purées and finger food) though!

I imagine we'll be back to weaning at 4 months before long for allergy reasons.

Sorry but BLW is the most awful Emperor's New Clothes and is detrimental to both child and whoever has the responsibility of feeding the child and cleaning the house.

I think most people don’t care…
Just feed your baby and shut up about it.
These are just made up social media labels.

The dog gets a good diet as they take up position under the high chair.
My pet hate is the cake smash.

A lot of the time I will say I don’t eat meat (but do eat seafood) and it’s other people that label me vegetarian, people just assume if you don’t eat meat you are vegetarian for some reason.

My pet hate is the cake smash.

They seem very similar to me. I've never really understood why someone would embrace one and despise the other.

Because it's not even nearly similar.

There's a third option, I just fed mine what I was eating (obviously I was watching salt content) mashing with a fork and shredded meat with 2 forks, neither puree nor blw (which hadn't been "invented")

Why not? Kid engages with food in their own terms, makes a lot of mess, eats some. Clear similarities there.

I broadly did BLW and hate the cake smash. BLW has a purpose - you're trying to get the baby to eat healthy foods. Yes there will be mess and waste but that's not the aim.

The cake smash sets out to make a mess, and seems to involve giving the child an entire cake to play with rather than just their own slide - wastefulness is the goal, not an unavoidable consequence.

The only party I've been at that did it used a sugar free baby-friendly healthy cake. The baby showed absolutely no interest in it. If they'd just given her a slice of the normal cake I'm sure she'd have loved it and they would have gotten some very cute photos. And they wouldn't have had to bake a cake with the intention it would be destroyed rather than eaten.

When the nhs catches up with many other countries then they will change their recommendations to this. But will probably take a while still!

I broadly did BLW and hate the cake smash. BLW has a purpose - you're trying to get the baby to eat healthy foods. Yes there will be mess and waste but that's not the aim.

BLW is not solely about eating healthy foods, though is it? Any kind of food can be baby led?

I did a cake smash with my youngest with a sandwich cake (savoury "cake" made out of bread and sandwich fillings) and he ate it for lunch over the next few days after he sort of smashed it, so no waste

You know exactly why, because BLW is mostly done by middle class parents and cake smashes aren't.

The cake smash sets out to make a mess, and seems to involve giving the child an entire cake to play with rather than just their own slide - wastefulness is the goal, not an unavoidable consequence.

If you tally up all the food ultimately wasted during BLW, it would come to quite the pile I imagine

Ok, true - but I think most weaning is about healthy foods for most parents. (I don't think any particular method is better than any other, it's just the way that worked for ours.) It's still not about purposefully wasting food.

I was going to spell it out eventually, but thanks for jumping in 😂

I say “I’m doing a bit of both” if asked. I often spoon feed breakfast because we’re usually on a clock and I don’t have time to clean porridge off the walls. The rest of the time he gets to go to town, hands, fork, spoon, slurping it up like a cat, whatever makes his little heart happy. Definitely not just with ‘finger foods’ either, as you’d be able to tell from the spag bol and curry remnants I was scrubbing from underneath the table earlier. Does it really matter what people call it?

Likewise, if you have a friend who wants to eat fish and call themself a vegetarian, who is that hurting? Other than the fish I guess.

Do you really not see the difference between a bit of dinner going on the floor because a baby is feeding themselves and can't yet eat neatly, and making a whole cake with the intention that it will be smushed and wasted for the sake of photos?

I just read through the thread properly... you really do think you're superior by doing "PROPER, BY THE BOOK, BLW" don't you, OP? 😂 And us doing tradional feeding or finger foods or "a bit of both (BUT THAT IS COMPLETELY WRONG!)" are just utterly inferior and our babies will never learn to self feed (or speak, I guess) and it'll be all our fault for being dense about THE TRUE DEFINITION OF BLW!!

I don't think having a "all or nothing" approach to teaching kids how to feed themselves is appropriate. I did both.

P.s. I know plenty of people who are vegetarian some of the time but will eat meat at the weekend etc. might not be the complete correct way to say it but you understand what they mean.

Over many months I'd say there's far more food wasted in BLW compared to a one off cake smash - no?

Do you not think the intent matters? Weaning is as much about creating an attitude to food as getting food down their throats, surely?

@Natsku when are you advised to start weaning and what suet of foods.

Looked at some photos when DH was a baby and one was when he was being given food at early age and he couldn’t hold his head up (this would be in 70s) did not look safe. MIL also did the rusks in baby bottle from about 6 weeks. She wanted me to do that too with DC but I refused. Was breastfeeding anyway

Cake is about enjoyment. I don't think there's anything wrong with that particularly. Like I say, it's a one off, it's not something you do daily. 'Wasting' food in the form of over indulgence is common in celebratory occasions.