To BLW my dd in restaurants without comments or disaproving looks?

[hughjarssss]

I have always done a mixture of spoon feeding and BLW.
When me and dp go out with dd (10 months)to a restaurant, we make sure we order something she can eat as well.

Then we just put it on her highchair tray and let her get on with it.

So if we go to the local carvery, we give dd lots of different vegtables, yesterday we went to a Tapas restaurant and she tried a little bit of what we had (as long as it was suitable). She had fun and tried new and different flavours.

But other people seem to have a problem with feeding her like this, and along with the nasty looks I get, people also make snide comments like 'shouldn't she have a bowl', 'can't she eat from a spoon?'.

This makes me feel like a bad parent, so am I being unreasnable in feeding her like this?

How many people have actually made comments?

I would tell the to mind their own business and ignore them. Try not to look at others then you won't notice if they're looking/judging or whatever.

oh just tell 'em that finger food and mashed food is what the dept of health recommends nowadays from six months, hughjaaars, because it is. i had some cracking conversations with old biddies about how their babies teethed on lamb bones etc, things change and will always change.

Now I know that I'm doing nothing wrong I will confidently tell that Aitch

look here

Thanks Aitch.

I do read you're blog, and I regulary pinch ideas off it for finger foods.
I will be doing BLW when I have dc2 as its just so much less hassle

This thread is soooo middleclass.

Forgot to add .

Really??
I'm working class born and bred!

So [proud emotion] that I managed to produce a middle class thread!

Habibbu it isn't just one post, that was a typical example of the posts. You'd think millions of babies had never been weaned onto normal food before, the way some of them go on.

bollocks, christy. or links.

Brought up working class too!

I'm a Cockney, sparra, aint I?

Innit!

oh dear Aitch...the bowl we used had a "quick release" bit on it....oh dear...my youngest is a little thicko isn't he...sigh

actually he was just extremely love with food at Babyage and also was quite placid with things like that....(my excuse and I am sticking with it ;))

oh dear oh dear...

does anybody really give a crap how anybody feeds their kid? i couldn't care less!

actually lol i DO remember getting tutted by a mum giving her child some puree for handing dd a chip. funny thing is, she was probably spooning in potatoes anyway, just in a different form. i'd forgotten about that.

i totally give a crap about how i feed my kid, i have deffo given a crap when i once saw some proper rough house force-feeding going on as it seemed so totally unnecessary but aside from that, couldn't care less.

i meant how anybody else feeds their kid?

FFS, who cares what other people in a random restaurant appear (and I emphasise the appear) to think? Unless they are going to ring social services for seeing you hand a 10 month old a chip (or a Gregg's sausage roll, for that matter, like I would have been doing ).

i think that some people do like to indulge in a bit of one-upmanship, probably, but that cuts in all directions. for some people it's saying that BLW is shite/nothing new/smug etc, for others it's that purees are bad. except tbh it's more that they're a faff, i can't think that i've seen an all-out declaration of war on purees in the same way that people are quick to deride self-feeding.

as for the OP, she's saying that she's getting comments and she is bothered by it. if you think she's lying, say so. if not, some more constructive advice than 'ffs who cares what people in restaurants appear to think' might not go amiss.

It does rather appear (and I emphasise that) that they disapprove when they are telling me so.

And the point of the thread wasn't wheather I cared or not but to establish if I was doing something wrong.

I hate fools posters that don't read the thread properly

What do you want to do? Do what you want and ignore others, their comments and their looks, do you know these people? Do you care that they are different from you. If you ignore it will be a waste of their energy in disapproving. Take delight in that.

I've been tutted at for letting my DS2 have chips. At the age of 18months, no less! And in Cafe Rouge which is, erm, kind of a chippy joint. He just had the normal child's portion of fish and chips with extra ketchup and was happily digging into it, and waving his chips around as you do, when you have something important to say at 18 months.

I've only had two other negative comments when eating out - which I used to do a lot - with two children. One from a stupid git of a woman (the owner) who was cross with me because I had let my DS1 have a knife to butter my teacake. He was two but she told me I was irresponsible and he would hurt himself. We had a bit of a ding dong .

The other one was as I let my DS2 feed himself something a bit too messy in Wagamama. It was full of younger babies being spoon fed and the two women in the group next to us starting talking about it in comedy loud voices.

So, people do comment. Not very often, and they are gits for so doing. But it ain't specific to how you feed you child - it's just because they are being git-like.

I would ignore them or chuckle. Fighting back can be a bit of a waste of breath .

I wonder how different this is from the whole breastfeeding in public debate. We all know how that can attract disapproving looks or stares. If you're confident in what you're doing, then ignore those who don't get it, and give cheery positive answers to those who seem to query.

I did use some purees, and I couldn't even be bothered to make them myself so I bought the posh organic ones - Ella's Kitchen seem much nicer to cart around than those jars (lighter). But I loved finding things ds could feed himself out of laziness. Not boasting in my case, I just like not having to spoon food into his mouth.