Am I the only one to think BLW is a load of old tosh?!!!

[Jakeyblueblue]

I seem to be the only one who has gone down the traditional weaning route. I did look into BLW but just can't see how it can be a good idea! Ds is seven months now and on 3 freshly cooked spoon fed meals a day plus breast feeds. We are just starting to introduce finger foods and he is also now able to have mashed and chopped food rather than just
purée. He is a big boy and has been on the
98th centile since birth and he continues to gain steady weight. He was clearly hungry and ready to eat at 5 months and he took to food straight away.
I keep hearing about how fantastic BLW is but am struggling to see the benefits. I am not criticising just generally interested in others opinions on this issue so please feel free to correct me if I am wrong!
Firstly, surely not alot is actually eaten at first? I would imagine that if I had given my ds food to feed himself, he would just make an almighty mess with it at first.. Not sure how ethical it is to give a hungry baby food that they can't realistically eat. Secondly, surely the point of weaning at six months is that there is not enough iron etc in breast milk past this age. If the baby isn't eating much at first then surely they aren't getting the nutrients that they need. Finally, the gagging issue. I appreciate that this is normal etc and different from choking but surely it isn't pleasant for a baby? If I give my ds something he can't manage he really gags repeatedly. He really doesn't like this whatever anyone says. His eyes water and he goes red, sometimes he is even sick. I don't see how this is teaching him anything or how this could be a positive experience.
I am happy with how I have chosen to wean my lad and he will get to the same stage as all the BLW babies at probably the same time. It is more work making all the purees but I have actually really enjoyed it and suspect what I have cooked for him would have been more healthy than if I had just given him some of what we were eating. I am also happy that I know exactly how much he has eaten! If BLW worked for you then great, every child is different but I just can't see how it would have worked for us!
Am just wondering if this is just the latest phase? Is anyone out there agreeing with me? Or does anyone want to convince me otherwise??

Well I never really got it but I don't think it's tosh. Anyway of feeding a baby is perfectly fine, puree is fine, self feeding is fine, jars are fine as is organic sown by the light of the new moon home made stuff.

No way is better then the other. I was happy to use purees with mine and they have both thrived and will now eat absolutely anything now at 3 and 7.

What is tosh is the fanatics who wear the way they feed like a badge of honor - like cloth bum/babywearing.. if thats they way someone wants to do that then thats great, no-one else gives a shit and it doesn't make you a better mummy.

I agree, ditto co sleepin, attachment parenting, continuum parenting and home schooling

no you are not the only one, there have been lots of threads like this

I just wanted to point out that unlike your ds, my dd was BLWd and is 20 months old and has gagged precisely once. She did not throw up or become remotely upset by the experience. So I have no idea why you think BLW=gagging?

Anyway, you are wrong on the iron etc so am guessing you haven't done your research before posting.

And they do make mess at first (well, a little - dd wasn't actually particularly messy) - just like they can't crawl properly at first, or walk properly, or talk clearly straight away - it's a learning experience. They can't eat food from a spoon straight away either.

I don't normally pile in to defend BLW as I think each to their own - but I feel a bit put out by the "ethical" thing. My contented little pudding of a daughter certainly never felt hard done by because I gave her finger food. Which she managed perfectly well. At her own pace.

didn't mean to post such a rant, or to be snippy - just feeling a bit defensive, sorry OP. glad we are both happy with our choices .

Well you're not the only one to think it, but if you're that concerned you probably should read up on the details before criticising something you admit you know nothing about.
I did puréed with dd as that was the norm then but didn't want to condem blw out of hand for ds as I knew nothing about it.
So I went to a blw workshop which answered all those questions about wasted food, playing with food, does baby get enough etc etc.
I did mainly blw to start with but also gave food like yogurt.

I do BLW because then I can get on with eating while DD feeds herself. . Seems to me that they are less likely to gag if in control of eating and pace than if being force fed like a foie gras goose.

Not sure why you've posted OP if you think it's ok for others to do it, but it's not for you? Isn't that true of hundreds of things?

I'm lazy, so it worked for me. And DD is greedy, so it worked for her.

Every baby is different. I tried 2 weeks of purees and my DD clamped her mouth shut on the spoon. Or she grabbed it and fling it around. I tried baby rice, carrots, sweet potatoes, butternut squashes, apples and pears. I ended up with a freezer full of ice cube baby food. It's a good meal if I can get one spoonful in her.

Do you think it makes sense to keep trying in this case? DD was 24wk when I started so not exactly young.

My HV suggested to me to try giving finger foods instead. She loved it and put everything I gave her in her mouth. I can see the food in her poo the next day. I moved onto 3 meals a day because she is that keen.

I went back to work at 7mo and she self feeds at nursery.

She never gagged. She is very good at pushing skins and large lumps out with her tongue. She will push something out and then pick it up from the tray again. The food gets progressively smaller. She only has 2 teeth at nearly 10mo and that's how she deals with large food.

If she gags regularly I'm sure nursery will let her eat finger foods. Instead they keep saying how great she is. They are the first to give her some really difficult food like raisins and noodles.

I can see the argument from both sides as I've done both, unintentionally. DS had puree's from 5 months, and didn't move on to lumpy food til nearly a year old. It turns out he has a LD and has dyspraxia so obviously that would have slowed him down

DD however, wouldn't touch puree's. But she loved to steal food from our plates and was chomping on carrot strips and breadsticks from 6 months. No issues with gagging etc with either of them

I'm glad your happy with the choice you've made, and that your DC is thriving. but why the need to rant about the other options?

It works for some people, purée works for others. I could post to say that purée weaning seems like a load of old tosh to me, creating extra work for yourself and doing something for your child which they could easily learn to do for themselves - but I don't. Just because it wasn't the right route for my family doesn't make it any less of a good choice for anyone else.

Thanks for your replies guys, makes interesting reading. The reason I posted is because literally everyone seems to be doing it, i look at my ds and I really can't see how it can be so successful! He is a very bright and forward little boy but I just can't see how he could have eaten what I was eating, and actually managed it, at such a young age. Just wondered if i was missing the point or anyone else felt the same or if there was anyone who would like to convince me otherwise.
Methe, I totally agree with your post. Have felt a bit like some people I have met, have been almost trying to say I was a shit mummy for sticking to the old fashioned way! Goldengreen, I think you were a bit harsh to be fair. If you re read my post, I specifically said I wasn't criticising, just interested in others opinions. I then went on to state mine, just as you did yours. My HV did actually tell me that weaning needed to be done at 6 months as babys iron stores deplete around this time and breast milk wasn't enough alone. She even gave me a list of iron rich foods I should give to him. However, I admit I didn't look into it further. I just have and fair play, you are right. My apologies! I should have known better than to believe a HV! As for the gagging bit, my ds obviously has a very sensitive gag reflex. He has gagged on quite alot of stuff i have given him. I did start with finger foods early on and he gagged on everything i gave him! In fact he still does it now, although this is improving. The other reason I think that BLW = gagging is that everyone who has told me they are doing it has also told me that the gagging is all part of it and it's how they learn to eat more difficult food by learning to deal with the gagging. Obviously this is where every baby differs and if your little one has only gagged once then I can see why you feel it's good.
I don't have an issue with the mess, all babies make mess with food and I do understand that it's an important part of learning to feed themselves. I also wasn't implying that BLW babies starve as this obviously isn't the case. I just feel that my ds was hungry and if left to his own devices, he would have remained that way as most of it would have gone on the floor or gagged, spat back out.
Anyway, the debate goes on! Am still happy that traditional weaning was for us but Have definately thought more positively about BLW after reading your posts though, so thanks .

I agree with Methe, feeding method really isn't that important though some might have you believe otherwise.

. We also gave him yogurt by spoon, and after a month or so of exploration we mashed up any leftovers and let him feed these, or fed him if that was what he wanted.

Baby-led weaning is not about disavowing spoons, it's about following a baby's cues. You can follow your baby's cues in how you spoon-feed too. Many speech therapists offer training to health care and special needs assistants who have to feed adults and children with chewing and swallowing difficulties on how to do this. As an experience, you can replicate this by having someone other than your partner feed you by spoon.. it is very easy to misread cues and put in too much/too little, which can increase gagging risk. The idea of increasing finger foods is simply to increase your baby's control over what they eat and allow them to experiment and explore with different textures/biting/chewing etc.

Ds never had pureed foods, but he did have smooth consistencies (yogurt) and pretty much everything else. He had great big chicken legs and chopped up soft meats, like homemade sausages etc. You can't really assume the food will be less healthy, as if you really do want all of you to eat exactly the same, the adults have to tailor their diet accordingly - not eat takeaways or ready meals etc, reduce all salt. Essentially, eat the pureed food before the pureeing...

Ds could eat a yogurt with a spoon at 14 months independently. He could drink out of an open cup independently by 15 months. He eats a wide range of foods. However, sadly his early fondness for vegetables has waned (though he loves fruit, which is something!). He has fussy phases, like all two year olds, but these seem to be similar to his spoon-fed counterparts. He went from the 25th centile at 6 months to the 50th at 8 months and he has maintained this since that time. It does work, just as all the other methods do, it's not all pie-in-the-sky or tosh.

I thought I would do BLW... but my DS had other ideas. He has lots of finger foods but gets very upset if he doesn't have a good amount of spoonfed food too (he LOVES his food!).

I thought I would be baby wearing too... I had been given/loaned 7 different slings but he hated being in one (until after 6 months when he could look out properly) but loved being in his buggy so that's what we did.

I don't think there is any 'right' choice on so many of these issues... just what suits a particular child. They are all just different things in your armoury so to speak.

The biggest shame is parents who can't see that and persist with their own agenda and don't look at the particular baby in front of them.

The idea is that if baby is able to eat a food (not talking burgers and deep fried pizza though) then they can eat it be it a chunk of steak or a stick of cheese.

As BM (or FM) should make up the vast majority of their diet to start with on commencing weaning (130kcals from 'solids' at 6-8m) you don't want them to eat far more than they are able to if they were self feeding so BM (or FM) isn't displaced too soon or by too much. They shouldn't be hungry for solids, just needing a little top up on the milk.

If you are worried about iron levels then introducing foods like steak (a lot of the iron is in the 'juice') and iron rich foods like spinach, broccoli or other green leafy veg is a good bet and they can be good for BLW or pureeing.

Glad you and your DS are happy with your weaning method - that's all we can ask for as mothers!

lucy it's funny I thought I was going to do annabel karmel! All the mums in my group are doing her book. But DD has other ideas.

Oh and she LOVES her food too. I haven't seen anything she doesn't like except chilli seeds. Nursery actually always comment on he good appetite.

I think 'a load of old tosh' is a bit rude, personally, but no you are not the only person to think or say this. There are lots of people just as rude as you around!

DD was weaned entirely on finger food (and other things that might not be traditionally eaten with the fingers but are perfectly possibly to get into your mouth by that method if you have at least one hand that works). This is because two weeks after I started weaning her by the traditional purée route, she flat out refused to have a spoon put in her mouth by me or anyone else. The alternative to BLW (only I had never heard of it and had to make it up as I went along) would have been sticking with milk until she was able to use a spoon at about a year old, which I don't think would have been a good idea.

She ate rice, vegetables, pieces of meat, pieces of fish, fruit, pasta, toast, dips, yoghurt, porridge, potatoes in various forms (not mashed, she still loathes anything puréed or mashed at five years old which may have been why she was so against being fed with a spoon), bread, popcorn (homemade, not salty or sugary), polenta, cereal, cheese, basically anything you can think of that a healthy adult with no weight issues would eat apart from ready meals or takeaways. She also ate about twice as much as she had been doing off a spoon. As she was very small and slight, I was completely delighted that she was eating so much more. And she eats really well now in terms of variety if not quantity, though obviously she's been through her fussy phases just like any child. Actually, at six months, she was probably the unfussiest child I've ever met. She'd eat salad leaves, cabbage, spinach, asparagus, olives, all kinds of things that would have been unlikely to make it into purées. She did gag occasionally in the early days, but was not in the least bothered by it and I don't think she ever gagged at all after seven months. She did sometimes spit things out but that's not a risk confined to BLW. Nor was she messy - at least no messier than any other baby of under a year that I have seen eating. A bib is a pretty good idea for all of them. We'd abandoned a bib by about nine months, though. She didn't like them either. But as she was perfectly able to eat a meal without getting it down her front by then, it didn't matter.

As she was eating steak and whole chicken drumsticks shortly after weaning, I was not very worried about iron.

However I had plenty of friends who were very happy with purées. I'm pleased to say that I never felt the need to question their choices and they were happy to see that my daughter was eating after the worry when she refused to have a spoon anywhere near her.

i'm sure i read somewhere that a lot of the puree a baby is fed initially comes straight out the other end largely undigested, so you see spoonfuls of food going in but the body may be digesting the same as the baby sucking/chewing on a few chunks of fruit and veg each day.

ds2 refused to let a spoon of anything near his mouth at first so i just gave him chunks of food and let him get on with it. however, when he was still waking up hungry at night at 7months i did start spoonfeeding to fill him up more. ds3 has gone the other way - started with spoonfeeding purees and he's now more blw. it doesn't have to be blw or traditional weaning. i couldn't stick rigidly to one way or another, just like every other aspect of parenting.

Apologies if you feel I was being rude, it wAsnt my intention as I have stated several times. Wow, I did not realise it had been around so long. I had never heard of it prior to having ds. Nor have any of my friends or my sister who all have children who have just reached school age. It seems there are some great stories about how BLW has been successful. Obviously not all babies gag as much as mine and love the spoon as much as mine either. I originally thought this may be an interesting debate to have with other mums, but blimey some of you get on the defensive! Think I will keep it to myself next time!

I think the reason people got defensive is that your title was worded in such a way that it immediately came across as an attack on a particular parenting choice - calling it a load of old tosh - rather than your intended plan of creating a debate

I was a bit sceptical with dd2 baby no 5 but she point blank refused to be fed so i had no choice,she didnt gag and she had a cleft palate

At about 8 months she got lazy and wanted to be fed.
Now tho at 11months she has started to snatch the spoon to feed herself so we are back there again.

Ds1 was weaned the traditional way, purees then spoonfed alongside finger food. It worked very well and he has always eaten anything put in front of him.

Ds2 started off the traditional way but he was having none of that and made it clear that he wanted to do it all by himself. He is underweight and we are under the health visitor. Whilst I wouldn't say he was overly fussy he is quite picky and certainly fussier than ds1. He refuses to eat anything that is messy so shepherds pie and fish pie are off the menu he won't eat meat unless it is breaded and day to day I struggle to think of different things to give him.

People say that blw is easier because you just give the baby the same food as the rest of the family. It hasn't been like that for us, our spoonfed baby ate curries and spag bol etc whereas our blw baby won't have any of that and we have to give him different foods.