Am I the only one who thinks baby led weaning is a stupid idea?

[chocablock]

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/mar/14/familyandrelationships

It seems as if everyone is doing BLW apart from me. What happened to the tried and tested traditional mashing up your baby's food and feeding it to them with a spoon? OK maybe let them play around with their own spoon a bit to get into practise but basically make sure they eat the food!!!Is there anyone else who thinks blw is new fangled stupidity? Or am I just a voice in the wildreness and hopelessly old fashioned?? :)

Yes you are. HTH.

Weaning on mush is a pain in the arse! all that fiddling and washing up. BLW - chuck food on clean table. Baby eats or throws it. Dog cleans floor. Done.

BLW is the lazy person's way.

I think mashing up and pureeing and spoon feeding is a total waste of time

everyone is different

Just you I reckon. BLW is fab - I hated the idea of forcing food into a baby's mouth with a spoon irrespective of whether or not they were hungry. No wonder most of us as adults have no idea how to self-regulate our food intake - we are taught from weaning to eat what is put in front of you, not what you actually feel like eating.

Why do we need to constantly monitor what they eat every mealtime? Isn't that a good way to start an obsession with food - never a good thing. Let them eat what they want to, and assuming their weight and development are OK still, they will be fine.

I think it's a bit if a fad. To me it's common sense to just mash up what you're having and use a spoon along with what they used to call 'finger food' which is now ' baby led weaning'

Am glad mine are all toilet trained so I don't have to endure 'baby led toilet training,' sure to be next.

each to there own as long as baby is fed who cares what you call it. meh

I don't think people in the past spent hours on pureeing etc. for all their dozen children. I suspect the children probably just started grabbing fistfuls of food from plates or the shared pot. I think making a whole big 'thing' about BLW is over the top and a bit precious, but nothing wrong with just letting your child help themselves to food at the table. I did that with DS2, much easier than all that pureeing for DS1 - and he's a much better eater now (which may be coincidence, of course).

Offs.

You take what you are eating. You mash it with back of fork. You take spoon and offer it to baby. Baby grabs spoon. Stuffs spoon in mouth. You take second spoon, baby opens mouth. You put spoonful in.

It is not difficult. Nor is it child abuse. And I never puréed anything. I just used jars/ pouches in the early days ( the horror!)

And for some babies BLW isn't fine.

BLW worked perfectly for me and ds - he ate whatever I was having, he knew exactly what stuff was, and has never been a fussy eater at all. He;s 5, and considers anything an adult is eating to be worth eating which has been brilliant

"You take what you are eating. You mash it with back of fork. You take spoon and offer it to baby. Baby grabs spoon. Stuffs spoon in mouth. You take second spoon, baby opens mouth. You put spoonful in."

Which is fine until you get a baby like DD who ate a stolen sandwich as her first food and then screamed the place down anytime anyone came near her with a spoon.

Blw is the traditional method before people used to purree etc

I did blw with ds2 and will do so again with dd.

However I would not say purreeing is stupid as to each their own.

I tried it with a cooked carrot stick, baby nearly choked and that was the end of that. Puree all the way! Mashing food with a fork is hardly any extra work anyway.

Do what you like as long as you feed your baby from a safe age.

But BLW isn't 'new fangled' or modern. Historically people didn't puree food for babies, they fed them milk until they could feed themselves, or chewed it up for them and put it in their mouths.

The terminology may be new but the concept is prehistoric. If a baby can sit up, hold food and put it in their mouth then they are developmentally ready to eat it.

Yes, it's much better to force feed your baby the same textured food so they have no control over what's in there body, struggle to deal with textures and strong flavours later and turn it to fussy eaters!

Actually, in most of the world and for most of history BLW (without the name) is the norm. Purees are just another marketing con to get you to spend a fortune on "special food".

Spoon feeding does not = force feeding.

I think it's the preciousness of BLW that is irritating as most parents allow children to chew on food it from table, help them out with the odd spoonful etc. it's totally run of the mill.

a few weeks ago I saw a woman spoonfeeding a baby not sitti g up yet with purée, lying her across her lap, head back, and that is not right. Equally you read threads on here from mothers with hungry babies who cannot cope with BLW and you do think just mash up some stew and feed it to the poor mite.

What is precious about giving your baby what you are eating and what they want to eat, which is what I did with DD?

They do gag, that's kind of the point. That's not "nearly choking".

Why do BLWeaners assume that babies that eat puree are being force fed??- it's obvious when baby wants food and when had enough. Most people used to do a combination anyway of finger foods and mashed up stuff. My dd loved pureed apple- don't think she would have enjoyed a chunk of raw apple the same, think she would have missed out on many tastes and flavours if she had only been fed food she could manage herself at 6 months. We did a mixture of finger stuff and pureed and she's a great eater now, not fussy, likes lots of different textures etc.

Meh.

Do what works for you OP. I did. Probably best to try and avoid labelling other people's choices as stupid though. :)

That is not precious.

" we are BLW Horatio, you know, so he won't scream for cheese strings in Waitrose and refuse to eat anything but tomato ketchup sandwiches like those awful spoon force feeders"

Is precious

I 'blw-ed' my two who are now 5 and 3.....they eat fine, it worked well enough. I have seen babies being force fed (fed lying down and spoon fulls shoved in/food snuck in while they wave their hands in protest) I doubt everyone who feeds with a spoon does that.

Meh. DS was BLW and then at about a year refused everything which wasn't coated in orange breadcrumbs until 22 months. I don't think it makes any difference.

It's a wanky, meaningless name.

DD didn't want to do finger food so we did a mix. Proper BLW led by her.

God, i hate the up their own arse people who claim spoon feeding is force feeding. Twats.