If you chose NOT to do BLW, what were your reasons?

[mrsb26]

Looking to start weaning dd soon and have been reading up on various approaches.

I understand that baby led weaning seems to be the 'thing' for many mums at the moment. I see its benefits in many ways, but also air on the side of caution with it for other reasons.

If you chose to wean traditionally (eg puréed food first), what were your trains for not doing BLW?

Am I right in saying that the NHS recommends a combination of purées and finger foods from around six months?

It may be possible to eat porridge/yoghurt without a spoon but that doesn't mean it's sensible or optimal. I remember a friend faffing around making 'porridge fingers' for her DD and me thinking that was madness.

I'm not at all concerned about mess (flashbacks to DS smearing spaghetti bolognaise all over his hair). It's just practical. I think thick porridge is gross and DS would have really struggled to feed himself enough normal textured porridge with his hands to feel full. He was always really hungry in the morning.

I just don't understand the need to avoid spoons. They're a practical implement - not a grenade.

Messy play grosses me out so that's probably why I never thought of that culrure. I see the appeal though I suppose

I like messy play and I also like thick porridge, I think runny porridge is gross. It's also not about avoiding spoons, that really wasn't what I was trying to do (hence giving DS a spoon to dip into things). I just saw mealtimes as a play/learning/sensory thing rather than about only feeding. At 6 to 7 months he was having plenty of breastfeeds so solids really weren't about hunger and filling him up. Breakfast was about an hour after a breastfeed, so he was never starving hungry, just enough to be interested in eating.

If it isn't what you'd like to do, that's great. Different options for different people.

culture I can see why that would work for some people, glad it worked for you

I don't like messy play with food, I don't think it teaches good habits and there's plenty of non food materials to use in messy play.

I just hate how we have all these terms for parenting and there's definitley an air of superiority amongst the blw I know.

I thought I would do BLW but my DS had other ideas! He just got incredibly angry and upset that he couldn't eat the food as his skills weren't advanced enough and he could obviously smell the food etc. so for him it must have seemed very cruel! Our solution was to offer pureed food together with finger food and he loved this. I think I ended up going the same with with my second, but I can't really remember (and she isn't even two!). It just became weaning/feeding after the first one rather than any method. I think it's a bit of a gimmick to be honest and babies are so different in their abilities and appetites etc.

I agree about not encouraging messy play with food.

Does my head in when my DS goes to his gran's and his cousin who's the same age sticks her whole first in her yoghurt and "paints" the whole highchair. DS usually just eats his yoghurt nicely with a spoon and barely even gets any in his bib these days but always bloody copies her and then it's awkward trying to tell him off for not eating nicely when my SIL is standing smiling saying "oh its fine they're just exploring texture, they're not hurting anyone"

I didn't like the idea of playing with food when I don't allow them to do that as children, and just could not be bothered with the faff of cleaning up. I pureed, fed them with a spoon, put down some finger food as they showed interest in it, and that was that plus the whole BLW thing is on a par with play dates and it makes my eye twitch

I did a mix as DD was underweight and I wanted her consuming calories as well as exploring food. Worked out great

Not to be pedantic but it's only BLW if you never spoon feed them and literally just let them get on with it.

Doing a "mixture" is just plain old traditional weaning.

Somehow DS has managed to escape BLW with his manners intact, and now aged 3.5 eats as nicely as any spoonfed child does. In fact, he ate nicely from about 18 months, and never painted his highchair with yoghurt - he was too busy trying to eat it. Manners are a red herring for me, it's perfectly possible to instil good manners, that's a separate issue.

Baby is 7 months. Weaned at 6 months. Started with purées, but DS would clamp his mouth shut. So decided to go down the BLW route as feeding him was a battle. He got on really well with feeding himself finger foods and seemed to enjoy it. But I just had him weighed about 6 weeks into it and he's actually lost a bit of weight. I'm really upset by this (although HV wasn't too worried). So now I'm back to spoon feeding him (high calorie) food, but I have to make him laugh for every mouthful so I can sneak the spoon in. And he still spits a lot out. It's so hard. I'm still giving him finger foods as well.

Btw am still BFing, don't know if my supply is an issue.

Feeling really down about this actually.

But if you don't like mess then I guess you'd find the idea horrifying.

I think that was one of the other things that put me off the whole fad, the blwers pushing it with a 'look how laid back we are' attitude.

I was never bothered about the mess involved in sensory play, from tiny my dc has been sat on the beach with me in any weather playing with wet sand, picking up hand fulls of wet leaves to stuff in he's bucket at the park, puddle splashing, enjoying mud, sometimes I actually felt a bit judged by other parents when they would usher their dc away from mine like toddlers are supposed to be sterile and I thought it was sad that the parks were so empty if it was raining.
At home we have always had paints/ glue/ dough etc and when we cook I let my kid do much more than just stir the communal bowl, I genuinely think preventing mess is more stressful than cleaning it up and there is alot to be said for encouraging dc to be carefree especially in nature.
But for some reason I just don't see meal times as time for sensory play, I see meals as social times to enjoy food together, and if I were to put yogurt and porridge down for dc to wade through it would just feel like mess for the sake of mess, rather than anything fun or playful I genuinely don't think my child would like food more because he got to treat it like a toy.

Best thing I ever did was to throw that Gill Rapley book in the bin. According to that if you spoon feed you'll end up with a fat child who'll only eat mashed food. Bullshit. Everyone I know did trad weaning, no fatties, no mashed food, some fussy some not.

Do what works for you and your baby, OP.

Aw mantaray try not to worry about it. Baby is just learning about food. Im convinced my dd has lost a wee bit of weight as went through a phase of taking half her bottles but wolfing down her food. Follow your baby's cues.

Mine gets so angry if we dont spoon feed her fast enough unless its actual finger foods, then she quite happily gum it into submission

She's also 7 months and some foods are wolfed down as i said. Others she treats suspiciously whilst deciding if she'll eat it or not.

Anything with white potato is spat out straight away!!

Try to trust yourself. There is sooooo much free advice on dr google that its overwhelming and confusing. I always keep in back of mind that every day they are learning. Learning new tastes, sounds and sights. As well as learning likes and dislikes. (As am I, as a ftm, its so hard though)

I'm vegetarian. Most of what I eat is pretty mushy. It is hard to eat lentils with your fingers so we all use implements. Mine ate the same as the rest of us by about 8 months. They now eat anything except lettuce but d's (4) would rather not bother with cutlery. It slows him down too much.

I'm a vegetarian too. Eat lots of lentils, wasn't incompatible with self feeding.

The statement about not liking mess was not meant to be a judgement, just a statement of fact. Some people don't like mealtimes to be messy, that's fine. I don't hold any strong views about what mealtime is meant to be like, so did what I felt to be appropriate. I have good table manners myself, honestly! I love cooking and I like sharing food with family and friends. I hope no one thinks that I take the piss with regard to meal times and BLW.

I don't mind mess, feeding purées gets messy and I enjoy sensory play with my babies I just don't feel that food needs to be part of messy play.

I also don't like that food before one is just for fun is often rattled out particularly by my blw friends, babies need more iron and vitamins from 6 months so I think its important their eating something.

Can i ask why? Just because it isn't something that would have occurred to me.

I also think "food is for fun..." is a trite and unhelpful phrase. It's something I'd not say tbh.

Just want to clarify a few things. Traditional Weaning is purees alongside finger food. BLW is baby self feeding all food but usually utensils as well as hands, depending on the baby. Neither method is more superior or better than the other & neither can guarantee a good eater (if only!). Find the weaning route that works for you & your family, try to enjoy it & stop belittling methods that others have chosen (especially if you haven't tried it yourself).

Traditional weaning used to start as puréed food when we weaned from 4 months, then quite quickly progresses to lumpy/ mashed food alongside finger foods. It evolves as quickly as baby develops (you could say baby takes the lead!) lots of people no longer purée ever and just start by mashing.
Its refreshing to have a pro traditional weaning thread I've never seen one on here before and spoon feeding has been given a lot of bull shit terms since blw has been pushed (certainly in my area anyways) I've heard it described as force feeding, the food described as 'mush' which I particularly think is insulting because a lot of people take as much care preparing their family's meals as anyone blwing, it's not suddenly some bland shit substance just because it's had a fork pushed through it. It was suggested to me when my child was a baby that he will not learn to eat 'proper food' if I weaned him the age old way and the hcp's pushing it so hard and women at their sure start groups devoting themselves to the cause would always come back to the same assumptions about jars of paste and the same old assumption that if you weaned by spoon feeding you were scared of choking or scared of mess, it's nice to acknowledge that people who are neither uptight nor anxious could still not want to blw.
With respect, and I do mean that, the op asked specific reasons people would choose NOT to do something so you will read comments in favour of the opposite way if you blw'd. For me personally when I first heard of blw I thought nothing awful of it, but if I'm honest didn't see the point, as in there was nothing missing from the world in my eyes before it was invented, I'd never known a person who had eaten mashed food all of their lives because of their weaning process as a baby and I've personally never know an over weight person who doesn't just eat the wrong things, rather than the right things the wrong way. But since it's became a thing I've heard a lot of belittling and inaccurate things regarding traditional weaning that simply aren't true and I know a handful of parents with dc the same age as mine who reluctantly blw'd their children because they had no knowledge of any weaning at all before dc and were made to think it's the only successful way. I like to think this thread among the tons of pro blw threads would give a first time parent a more balanced and accurate view point.

now my sons are young men and this BLW was never even heard off .am i getting this right you just make say mince or whatever put in in plate then just let them eat it with there hands or spoon you dont actually feed them .my youngest son would have just gagged all the time .he ate puree up until about two years old .

It's pretty clear that traditional weaning doesn't preclude healthy eating habits or a healthy adult weight, otherwise we'd have seen an obesity epidemic since - well - forever. The recent obesity epidemic has other causes.

As with most things, there's a pretty good idea at the heart of BLW (give babies chunks of food to eat, let them choose what they want, let them experience different textures) but a few people (weaning book authors, for example) have made it proprietary by claiming that it's a radical new Thing, there are Rules which only they can tell you, it has all these positive effects, and doing anything else will produce all these bad effects.

I believe that in reality either is OK, depends what works for you, and most of us would look at someone who was taking a different approach and think 'oh, OK then.' Obviously there are some judgy types about and some of us have encountered them, but most of us just say 'not for me, but whatever works for you.'

Great post Rabbit

Hear hear rabbit