To think baby led weaning is a scam?

[pardon]

Isn't it normal to give dc's a bit of finger food?

Kewcumber, not at all, but I have heard all of those things from parents. Of course I don't think everyone who doesn't BLW does that.

I don't think BLW is a scam, I agree it may be a wanky term and you don't need to conceptualise everything, but it is certainly easier than saying "no purees here mate, just sling a bit of whatever in front of them and hope some of it goes down their neck!"

It's not a scam, it's just a sh*te name.

Holidaysqueen, I guess that book is just a way of getting information out to parents, those parents who like things "from a book" and see them as more valid than a bunch of strangers talking about it online.

DD's going to be in that book BTW, I'm sure I've mentioned it a few thousand times though!

BabyDragon was an absolute f-ing nightmare to wean either by spoons or fingers. However, there's no way it was anything other than Baby Led

Kewcumber why would they need to? Historically and still around the world people are weaning babies a lot later than 6 months anyway, the latest I've heard is 2 years. The examples I've heard for how animals wean are birds - who don't wean anyway as they're not mammals so they don't have milk. I've been watching the Michaela Strachan programme about baby animals over the summer and I've noticed that it doesn't happen and they've spoken about weaning a few times.

"I guess that book is just a way of getting information out to parents"

Absolutely. I'm sure no money will be made out of it at all.

Bumperlicious - but isn't that probably the way that Annabel Karmel started - just wanting to inform people of healthy foods rather than being reliant on jars? And then it was so successful that she is now a mini-industry. I doubt that was in her plan at the start. Just a thought...

Anyway, it's still not a scam - unless a range of BLW floor/wall/curtain cleaning products are in the pipeline

New! BLW dustpan and brush with specially designed rubber bristles for sweeping up soggy pasta. Dishwasher safe! Only £19.99! Available in pink, blue and line green.

They were going to interview me for the book and never got back to me

I think the book will also help professionals who think it's just a group of women talking on the Internet and spreading a craze. Fortunately for me professionals around here think it's brilliant and are trying to promote it (and there was me getting ready to defend myself!) so I had plenty of support.

There are more reasons for doing BLW than being lazy, but then that could be said of a lot of things - slings, real nappies, etc. But for me it's lazy, I know there are proper reasons but that's just nice to know while I'm not faffing in the kitchen with a blender.

Great thread. Have laughed and laughed. Please, my pg incontinence is getting worse, due to threads like this.

HolidaysQueen would you like to suggest ways to make money out of giving your child what you're eating?

It seems to be overly analysed. I can't remember what I did with my children, btu they all eat food now.

No I know that some money will be made out of it, I'm not that naive! But bringing out a book is a bit different to bringing out a Gill Rapley branded blender. She is selling an idea that no-one else is selling. AK is plastering her name on blenders, bibs, splashmats, ice cube trays.

Anyway, I love BLW, it worked brill for DD and I won't hear a word said against it!

WRT how animals wean:

I listened to a fabulous lecture by Diane Weisinger last year, who is - among other things - a zoologist (I think), and who showed us wonderful film clips of chimpanzee mothers with their babies. The mothers would sit their eating, and a small piece would fall from their hands, which the babies would pick up and chow down. Eventually, the babies got the hang of finding their own food.

I think most of careless mothers who practise "benign neglect" could learn a lot from chimps.

TBM - all of SoupDragon's ideas, special cutters/shapers to make veg into the right shape for babies to hold it, trays with high sides for keeping the food off the floor, splash mats a la AK's... Oh yes, and books like Gill Rapley's...

I know most people wouldn't need these, but a lot of people don't buy the whole AK range and instead do purees with a few cheap ice cube trays from a pound shop and mushing up leftover veg from their own dinner. There are always some people who will buy the products, and I don't think BLW would necessarily be any different once it goes 'mass market' which is what Gill Rapley's book may end up doing to it. That is really the point I was trying to make - to think that BLW is better than pureeing because nobody can make money from it is pretty naive. There will always be somebody trying to make money out of parents.

Anyway, FWIW I'll reiterate that we are doing a bit of both - if you like, we are making it up as we go along to see what DS prefers which is probably the essence of BLW anyway - and I am probably more in favour of BLW principles than pureeing anyway. But I just don't like it when people paint a picture of a binary world where BLW is the non-marketable alternative to pureeing and AK is some sort of nightmare Martha Stewart counting the pounds as they come rolling in when actually we could sit here in 5 years time and be surrounded by BLW products all in a delightful shade of red...

Right, off to pack for my holiday ('tis my name after all) and must remember to pack a knife to cut up a pear for DS's lunch tomorrow. Such a shame it isn't a BLW-branded one

I think it would be easy - new, first time mothers will generally buy virtually anything Unless they've had child care experience before that is.

Make it in gender specific colours and funky designs and you're well away.

Actually, you only have to look at the threads asking what to feed a BLW baby and you can see the potential for a cook book.

I agree with TheNaughtiestGirlIsaMonitor, I just don't understand what the big issue is with either approach.

Puree isn't evil, its food, so is a broccoli spear. DS eats fine and is very healthy. He was 26 week premmie, never breast fed, weaned early as main source of "milk" was fermented yoghurt so very little iron. Food was pureed and spoon fed because with 6 babies per carer to feed every mealtime faffing around with a broccoli spear with each of them really wasn't going to work (even supposing they could get hold of broccoli!).

He's fine. Not fussy (any more than your average 2 year old). Doesn't overeat. Doesn't undereat. He's fine.

Of course I may just be lucky with him but His compatriots in the orphange seem to be just the same now. Childlren are very resilient and whislt I'm not suggesting such an extreme appraoch is ideal, it really does show that there's no need to be quite as precious (about most aspects of child-rearing) as we are in the UK.

I'm sure BLW is lovely and if it works for you great and by all means suggest it to someone who hasn't heard of it but I really don't get the rather sneery attitude to people who don't do it by some.

I really am not very emotionally invested in this discussion - DS came to me way after weaning and I had no choice about how he was weaned, I do watch with amazement though some of the fingerpointing about what are really not terribly awful practices.

I should really sling my hook because as I said it wasn't ever relevant to me/DS.

I think kewc is spot on- there are many parents who don't use specifically 'BLW' method, but would never force food into their baby, distract them to get them to open up etc etc. When I weaned DD (2.7) it was baby led in the sense that I followed her appetite, switched when she didn't want something, let her do her own thing with spoons (usually one in each hand ) plus the one I had. She had finger food too, from a slightly later age- but these were the guidelines the HV gave us in teh weaning session- they advocated finger food alongside purees.

I do think there is a place for AK though- and I don't mean all the marketing branded nonsense- the books are actually very useful in terms of preparation advice, storing food etc.
There are many many adults who do not know enough about healthy eating (I say this as a well-educated 22we pg woman whose diet is frankly appalling atm! ) and are nervous, anxious, ignorant etc about what to give there child for the healthiest ie BEST start in life.
When I left home, I actually was pretty well-prepared for independence, but there are a far greater variety of foodstuffs available now, that I had no idea how to prepare- butternut squash, sweet potato etc. Who knew you could actually puree courgette? or that you needed to cut grapes up for a baby? not me!
There is a lot of sensible advice about nutrition and daily intakes in her books ( I am thinking 'Baby and Toddler Meal Planner') as well as great recipes that ALL the family can enjoy. I often made her recipes, kept just a couple of portions for DD, then DH and I scoffed the rest- some of her stuff is actually really tasty.

I am lucky- my DD will eat anything and everything (and in huge quantities too!). Yes- I was worried in the early days when she would only have 1 spoonful or whatever, but she got enough milk, so there wasn't anything she was missing out on.

Parents need to use whichever approach works for them- only they will know which is 'right'

Poor old new BLW. Getting a right beating. Why are people so anti it ? Very odd.
LOL at the BLW range , than PFB mums will buy, becasue they buy everything.

Pureeing was never a chore to me. Mostly becasue I just used a couple of spare carrots that I had cooked for dh's and mine dinner !!
So I can't be considered a true BLW'er, I am afraid. But I will also let ds2 take the reigns quite a bit.

aargh- massive x-posts Kewc!

But kewcumber, not trying to be sneery or anything, with BLW there is no faffing around with broccoli spears, in fact you often find people are more likely to BLW with subsequent children as with so many other children to sort out it is just easier to let them get on with it. And in a relatively short amount of time with lots of practise they can hold almost anything even at an early age.

And I don't think people on here are being sneery or snobby, they are defending themselves against the OP, which makes them sound evangelical (well actually I am evangelical about BLW, not because I think I know better but because it was such a revalation to me that I think everyone should know about it!).

I don't get taken in by all these silly movements in the baby world - I just try a wee bit of everything with my DS, and don't like all these categories. it's just a money making racket.

bumper - I wasn't directing that at you or indeed specifically anyone on this thread (I do take the point that some may be being defensive feeling the OP was attacking). But I have persistantly seen post on BLW being very sneery about non-blw.

I have seen a child virtually forcefed and it was upsetting and horrific and it isn't anything like what even those who keep trying to feed a child puree when they don;t want it.

Even the two extremes in this debate really arent very extreme is what I'm trying to say.