Boots Parenting Mag article on weaning...

[HiccupsAllDay]

My DH got it for me and I flicked curiously to the weaning article as we were discussing it at LLL meeting yesterday. OMG it made my eyebrows raise and I consider myself to be fairly laid back about things; I quote

"As soon as your baby turns six months, she's ready for more than just milk, it's time to move on to the messy business of mushy foods"

"Kit yourself out... and a blender to puree them"

"try offering your baby her first solids when she's just hungry, rather than ravenous - perhaps before her milk feed"

"Scoop a little on to the spoon, encourage your baby to open her mouth, then gently guide in the spoon, almost wiping the food on to her lips... be prepared for some strange reactions... if she continues to turn her nose up, try something different."

there is also some small print at the bottom that says

"*If you decide to stop breastfeeding, it may be difficult to start again, and you should consider the financial implications"

now I've had no sleep for the past 3 days and my brain isn't functioning right but from what I understand about BLW (which I thought was the 'way to do it these days') this is total tosh! Has anyone else read this and am I alone by being slightly bewildered?

I agree that BLW is more widespread, and yes it was more the attitude of feeding your baby food before milk that got under my skin. I guess the reason it annoyed me is that I've been through hell to establish bf this time and now it's all going really well I've come across this sort of rubbish.

I don't want you to think I'm over reacting though - I didn't mean it to be a massive deal, just felt like expressing my opinion.

"BLW is just a diferent way of weaning which is only popular in the mumsnet bubble. "

Totally untrue ! I recently went to a weaning session run by the HVs - where they advocated BLW and specifically did not recommend puréeing but lightly mashing instead.

"so lay out lots of little bits at one time - a total faff. "

How can it be more of a faff than boiling a vegetable, pureeing it, putting it in a bowl and feeding with a spoon then washing it all up ?
Cutting a grape, a bit of cheese etc into pieces and putting them on a tray is far less hassle in my opinion. Which is why I will be BLWing DD. I can't be bothered with puréeing

Unless I have my wires crossed, the baby led bit is the faff bit. Unless giving the baby exactly what the rest of the family are having is what blw means (as opposed to setting out a variety of things for the baby to pick and choose from)

my understanding of it is that you simply let baby go at its own pace and feed itself when it is physically ready to chew etc. I didn't think it was about letting the baby eat whatever it wanted to, simply about giving baby space and time to develop eating at its own pace.

I may be barking entirely up the wrong tree !

PotPourri - You just give the baby whatever you are having. Preferably food with 'handles' (like broccoli). You pop it in front of them and they eat what they want.
It means:
a)no pureeing
b)no special equipment (i.e blender)
c)no sitting there with a spoon trying to get food down your baby while your own tea goes cold

I don't think your HV is very accurately informed.

Yes, with BLW you give the baby what you're are eating and they eat the same as you. The baby led bit is that they choose (from that selection) what to eat and when they eat it, rather than you pureeing it and physically putting it in their mouth (where you are leading the feeding.)

I do feel that mags like the Boots ones are full of out of date crap not always in line with current advice, but they are just trying to sell their products I suppose...

As with some posters above, when I said to my HV that iwas interested in BLW, she said that that was what they were now promoting and she was glad i was going to try it.

The big deal to me which the OP was trying to get across is that it talks about spoon feeding your baby at 6 months in a way you would have to do for a baby who is four or even 5 months old.

IME a 6mo old baby would be grabbing at the spoon and trying to say lemme at it! Or trying to get it's fingers in the bowl and feeding himself.

So all Boots is nodding it's head at the 'wait till 6mo' guideline but keeps writing a load of marketing tosh anyway.

Babyledweaning is more popular than you think. In the backwoods of Co Durham where I live the HVs have been promoting it for at least the last 3 yrs in my PCT.

My mum used BLW on me and her other 5 children in the Caribbean. No one out there does purees or did special weaning anything. So by default they do BLW.