BLW - what are the pros & cons??

[Nannyto2]

Basically what the title says!

Really curious as to whether I should try it with my little charge

Help along forfeiting dinner or lunch
Oh dear...I had actually written "during"
but my phone's autocorrect went horribly wrong!

sowaddayasay I completely agree re far too many doesn't cook at all. I know it's easy to say feed your baby family meals if you are used to cooking from scratch. I like salt so it's an adjustment for me to cook entirely food that you can salt at the end. We don't eat sausages, bacon or ham though. And i strongly believe baby should share family meals, and it doesn't matter if you purée them and spoon feed. It's bizarre how we think they only like really really tasteless food.

Pros: shared meals, baby eats with you, gets to explore, eat normal lovely food, less stress and worry about cooking separate meals for them, more laid back overall.

Cons: messy. Mt DD used to eat weetabix straight off the table. I'm sure there's still some left, two years on.

OneLittleToddlingTerror I agree entirely!

sowad salt isn't the issue with marmite anyway, it's that it's vile and on that basis alone shouldn't be fed to anyone, ever

Flisspaps I dream of toast with lashings of butter and marmite! Marmite is a basic human right!

One negative I found was eating out and about - mess can be easy enough to deal with at home, but not so great at other peoples place or in cafes etc.

DD1 took to finger foods etc and then feeding herself with a spoon/fork really well. She's a bit of a nightmare now at 4.5 re food though by all accounts she is brilliant at nursery. So I don't know what long term good it did her (if any). She was largely "BLW" though I never called it that. She was just eating.

DD2 wasn't really interested in feeding herself at all. Even now at 15 months she prefers to be fed, though she is getting better all the time. Still not hugely keen on cutlery though finger foods are growing on her.

I feel that regardless of the method in, their diets were very similar. DD2 is less messy for sure.

"Baby eats with you" never really worked with us either - I don't eat at 5.30 and even if I wasn't working FT I wouldn't be eating then either. Plus I like spicy food and my children aren't too keen on it (despite being long term BF!! :))

DS was BLW. Fussy as anything. Only eats 2 veg - broccoli and carrots.
DD - spoon fed with purées. Eats everything.

My imaginary 3rd child would be purées all the way. It's not hard to purée a few veg. I can't prove that BLW is the cause of fussiness in my son but I think it's a factor.

I BLW'd DD and it worked pretty well. The thought of making all those purees etc filled me with dread. Am pg again with DC2 and if all gies well, BLW will be my method of choice again! it is messy, but have seen traditional feeding be just as bad. We try to eat together anyway and it made DH and me eat better food, so was a winner al round for us!

She's a toddler now and can be temperamental about her food, but more in that she'll eat something one week and then not the next .

I waited till 6 months to do BLW with DS. Turned out he didn't like food, probably due to bad reflux. He is also extremely active with a very short attention span and is not focused enough to self feed a decent amount. And i'm too controlling to be ok with him eating nothing for lunch as he is a very small guy. So BLW didn't work for us. Unfortunately he won't take a spoon either :(. I believe that this is because by the time we introduced it he was old enough to know he didn't want it.

I now put table food into his mouth with my fingers with the help of serious distractions. He's 17 months. I really can't see how he'll ever use cutlery as he doesn't even want to eat.

But BLW worked amazingly for one of my friends. I tend to think that if you have a good eater they will eat well and if you have a bad eater they will be difficult, whichever method you use. Have fun!

I've been through blw with both mine and would heartily recommend it. Salt can be tricky but we now cook with no salt and take out the kids portions before we season. They are both great eaters although they were amazing at eating everything during blw they still go through the usual toddler fads it's not a magical prevention for fussiness. Bright orange eyebrows after spaghetti bolognese is a reason to do it alone!!!
Oh and we managed thailand with a ten month old blw by bringing plastic sheets to cover tables/high chairs as well as antiseptic wipes, the high chairs in most restaurants were bamboo and even dosing in Milton wasn't going to clean them!!! There are ways around everything.