Saw a baby being force fed earlier. I felt close to tears. Awful to watch.

[princessProudmel]

I know some of you will say 'mind your own business' but this was really awful to see.

I was at the local farm. In the soft play with my baby. At a table near to me a lady was feeding a baby. He looked about 9/10 months old. Think it was beans from her jacket potato. She was spooning it in for him. Some mouthfulls he was taking fine. But she was also poking it in when he was clamping his mouth shut, turning his face away and pushing her hand away with his little hand.

She continued trying to get the spoon in his mmouth. Then she actually held his arm down with her hand so he couldn't try and stop her. I wanted to go over and say something like 'surely he's telling you he doesn't want anymore'

After that she was flapping a napkin in his face to distract him so she could get some more food in.

Then she tipped his head back and held his forehead and spooned more in. I was close to tears for this poor boy.

Thankfully after that she stopped and ate her lunch and he had some cheddars to feed himself from his highchair , and drunk his drink, feeding himself. He looked much happier.

Then I saw him playing in the soft play and was happy.

Anyway I know I am probably judging but imo there was no justification for this treatment. Not sure why I'm posting, maybe to see if others would feel sad about like this I did. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive....

Tried blw with ds, he was irritable, hungry, not sleeping well.

In short he was starving and didn't have the skill or the focus to feed himself what he wanted at 6 or 7 months. He manages finger foods well at 10m but can still be a monkey, pursing his lips and batting the spoon away despite being hungry. God knows why. Made him his favourite leek and potato soup today, he point blank refused it from me, dh came in and he happily gobbled it from him.

Babies are very distractable and often don't eat what they need if left to their own devices, they're too busy with other stuff. Sometimes they need encouragement. I'm afraid I don't buy the BLW philosophy re eating to satisfaction etc. Not with my dcs anyway.

No, it's a leaflet just about weaning, as I said initially.

I don't really see what's so confusing about telling people not to force food down a baby's throat. Until I read this thread I had no idea there were people eho needed to be told that.

Habbibu ...well said!

amothersplaceisinthewrong Mon 02-Aug-10 21:43:21
Here, here onedeadbadger. What is this craze that with Baby Led Weaning..... baby does not know what is best, Mother does.

Oh FGS. Yes, my 6 month old son wrote me a frigging shopping list and I followed it to the letter.

Read up on BLW before you slate it. Parents still decide what their children choose to eat.

Am now hiding this thread.

For what it's worth I understand why the OP got upset.

Ds will get so frantic around mealtimes he sometimes won;t even try what's on offer and just screams and chucks food around. I have to push him to have a little taste because invariably once he's done that he's frantic for more.

I can't say I've ever held his head back or forced his arms down though. That sounds a bit much.

"What, you've done an analysis, have you?"

No I've read this and other forums, it's hilarious, baby is picking at two meals a day and still wants to breast feed 4 times a night and is two next week, was one that immediately springs to mind, any advice lol
I believe she bought herself a couple of spoons in the end.

Minx at 6 months, if thhey weren't full with the solids they were feeding themselves, then more milk would do the trick.

This is not about blw - even if you want to spoon-feed a baby you shouldn't be forcing their head back and shoving a spoon in their mouth.

That's ONE anecdote. How about reading the many, many posts from people whose babies thrive on BLW, such as mine, and then making the rational conclusion that it suits some people very well, and others not so well? Would that be so ridiculous? Because your sweeping generalisations do not support your argument terribly well.

I was just about to type something similar.

princessproudmel ds is my second, at 5 months he was bf every 1.5 hours day and night, got mastitis, v poorly swapped to ff, having 35+ oz of formula a day including through the night. he was a big baby, he needed to eat, not have more milk.

Also having had 2 life became immeasurably easier with both of them once they were weaned and eating 3 meals a day. Dd especially was so much happier when she had food.

So you either BLW or forcefeed?

Funnily enough I've managed to spoon feed many babies without forcefeeding any of them. What the OP has described isn't a normal or reasonable way to get a baby to eat.

My post was wrt Skidoodly but agree with Hab too.

Yes spoons or no spoons. Either way, holding arms down and tipping heads back can not be right. Ever.

How frightening for the baby.

I can well imagine myself in the position of that mother before.

My DC would refuse the lovely healthy food that I offered them but I would know that they were still hungry as they hadn't eaten enough but would be batting away what I was trying to give them. However pop some crap on the highchair and their little hands would have been stuffing it straight in cos (a) they were hungry and (b) they liked it.

Why would you pop "crap" on the high chair of a 10 month old baby?

Not great treatment, but I think it's not worth getting very upset or angry over when you consider proper abuse and neglect happen to children every day, tragically. Being force fed is nothing compared to that, is it.

Not read thread, so sorry if I am crashing in but I'm commenting on the original post.

Yes maybe if you ( or the mum/carer today) had offered some healthier options the baby would have been 'stuffing it straight in'

minx, my dd was 10lb 11oz at birth, and did just fine on milk until 6mo. It does sound like you had a tough time, and can see how weaning probably made sense for you at the time, but I do hate the big baby = early weaning thing - dd was glued to the 99.6th centile on milk, yet people kept telling me to wean...

And yes, how has this turned into an assault on BLW? Aren't most children eating some sort of finger foods by 9/10 months?

Anyone else think Onedeadbadger was at soft play today?

LOL poppet!!!!

Off to bed. Thanks for all the replies and opinions.

Op from what you describe it does sound liek she was forcing him to eat the food. tbh at that age (even with my own ds now at 14 months) i would expect him to eat little and often. if ds was turning his head away i would stop feeding him til he showed interest again in his food. if he didn't show interest before everyone had finished eating then teh food gets removed and if he is hungry half an hour later then he can have the rest or something else. forcing food into a baby's mouth seems to me like a good way to give the baby a food issue.

Agree TBE.

Off to get some sleep before my BF/ BLW ds2 wakes me a million times in the night