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?? :)

DD loves her milk too. She loved it so much that she hardly ate anything before a year. I remember posting on your BLW forum Aitch a few times as I was at the end of my tether a few times! I just kept saying to myself, it's fun till it's one, and that kept me going. Once she started nursery and having time away from me (and my boobs!), her eating came on marvellously, and now she eats nearly as much as her brother sometimes. Although she is still a boobie monster and we have a lot of night time feeds still

ha! those bf babies... see if you'd had 'em on fishy formula (like moi) they couldn't wait to get off it.

Hi choceyes Mine were the same - they are now 12 and 10 - Just to say they did grow out of the bobbie monster phase eventually

I personally feel that baby led weaning is skipping a stage- the bit where we historically (pre blender) would have chewed up food and put it in our babies mouths. Using purees is more likely to stem from this natural stage rather than being simply a marketing ploy.

Having read the Gill Rapley book cover to cover and having the baby led weaning theory forced down my throat (excuse the pun) by middle aged nct breastfeeding counsellors at a weekly breastfeeding support group, I felt BLW was the ONLY way. I enthusiastically purchased the BLW cookbook and we rearranged our evening mealtime so we could all share magical meals together...

However after 2 weeks of watching our son eating nothing and gagging on whatever did make it into his mouth it just felt WRONG. So I swallowed my pride (again please excuse the pun)! And went back to that stage that we're missing out with BLW. Purees. Which he devoured with gusto. When he had enough he turned his head. End of meal. Simple. Finger foods alongside for him to play with, knaw on etc alongside his meal are giving him all the practice and exploration of textures he requires. Now at nearly 7 months he continues to follow his growth and weight curves perfectly and is enjoying a wide variety of tastes and textures through a mixture of spoon feeding and self feeding. In the next couple of weeks he will be ready to enjoy the same meals as us, and feed himself. Now he knows what it feels like to have a full tummy and what his favourite flavours are. And hey he may even have a tooth or two. Rant finished! :)

Rorster There's not that much evidece of pre-masticated feeding of toddlers - although of course there's not that much evidence full stop.

Of course. I'm talking about weaning baby not toddler. And intuition. But thank God for blenders.

Rorster but what evidence there is for weaning is of toddler - breastfeeding continued well over 1 year old. There's not much evidence for babies being fed anything but milk.

I puree fed my DS 6 years ago because I hadn't heard of BLW.

I am now PG with DC2 and plan to use both, mashing our food and giving finger foods but won't be pureeing as such. Mainly because I have to return to work by 6 months and won't have time to blend etc but this is my decision and it may go wetting but I'd like to try.

I mentioned this to my mum and she laughed at BLW, not the concept but the name because this is how she fed me and how my Gran fed her. I am 25 and my mum is 42 so its hardly a new fad!

This is an old thread.

Never even noticed, really must start checking dates!

Does it matter that it is old? Some people are new on here.

I recently wrote a lengthy post to an op who had asked for advice, only to discover it was posted in 2008.

I don't mind folk posting in old threads, but I'd like them to know before they choose to comment.

i am so sick of people saying purees are bad and that it means force feeding. you only put the spoon in when the baby is sitting up screaming for it with a big wide mouth...then smacking their lips opening mouth again and waving arms with excitement.

there is no force involved at all. I always did a combination of both puree and finger foods. one child became a spoon refuser, so that one had a mostly finger food..but the other one loved my purees in the beginning. they are both amazing eaters with no problems.