BLW is all very well if....

[babybore]

1. Your baby has very good gross motor skills
2. You are not concerned about their weight gain
3. You have the time and money to prepare a wide variety of foods, most of which end up on the floor.

My dd is 7 months, weaned at 6. I was looking forward to weaning her as she was under her growth curve and I thought it might help her get back on it (it has). I have been trying finger foods but have mainly relied on home-cooked mashed or pureed food as she does not yet have the dexterity or the brain development to understand that the stick of brocolli put in front of her is her lunch, no matter how long I leave her with it.

If I had done BLW, my baby would be unhappy and underweight (she loves her solids) and I would be miserable and worried. So while it works for some babies I really think a degree of caution needs to be exercised in believing that all babies can eat finger foods from 6 months.

will everyone stop going on wbout harps
I keep thinking you're talking about me

hahahahahahahaha... I would say, ooh get her, middle class or what, but DS loves lychees

Another non puree purist here as well. I fell into BLW as DD1 refused a spoon. DD2 was picking up peas at 7 1/2 months she is a complete dustbin though and would eat anything (bet you she would give your DS2 a run for his money on the eating stakes hunker - must have been something about that month ) I believe BLW enhanced her fine motor skills and it gives them something to do chasing food around a high chair tray whilst you eat your dinner.

DD1 who has always eaten far less than DD2 slept through at 6 weeks, DD2 took a year, both BF and BLW from 6 months so I think BLW has nothing to do with sleeping.

eating has dick all to do with sleeping imo.
also at the risk of boring myself, the BLW isn't just about finger food but about letting babies control their food intake according to their hunger and that really IS a radical idea

Harpi, radical like, ooh, breast feeding on demand?

I did BLW with ds. Well I think I did. I tried to feed him pear puree and he spat it out and grabbed my roll out of my hand and ate it. Is that BLW? Anyway, spoons were for weetabix after that. Everything else, I put some of our food on his tray and he did what he liked.

He is 2 now (yesterday, in fact) and is the most appallingly messy eater. He finally decided to use cutlery about 2 months ago and now tries to eat everthing with a fork, including sandwiches. He spits out half of every mouthful (and then puts it back in later). He is grim.

BLW does not equal "nice tidy eater". There were (still are) times when I would have loved to shovel the contents of a jar into him. So quick, so mess-free! But it is nice to be able to eat your own lunch at the same time as them.

I said this on a thread I started last week - why is it, that people get so upset about BLW (giving normal food to babies in Dejags' world)?

I would think that people would far sooner take issue with the concept of giving a baby a foul-tasting jar of non-descript mush. Yet, I don't think I have ever seen a mum who does give her baby whole foods (as opposed to pureeing or giving jars) getting upset and saying nasty things.

Yet I see this topic raising Blood Pressure all over MN time and time again. Phrases like "red mist descending when BLW comes into the conversation" and other fairly vitriolic responses are becoming commonplace.

I just don't get why it causes such a fuss. It's just normal.

littlelapin where will it all end??
what about the centiles???
you're making a rod for your own back you know, you mark my words

i think it can be difficult to get your head round blw if you've been used to knowing how many ounces of milk your baby's been drinking. it can feel reassuring to have a plan that tells you how many ounces of milk to drop, how many spoons of food to feed etc etc. if you like that sort of thing then blw will probably seem very uncomfortable, as the OP said.

I don't get it either dejags. I did the pureeing with dd1 and read about BLW with dd2 and it's been great.
I don't think it's a particularly wanky name either. I think it's pretty factual

yes I was educated on the name front last week Harspi - I was given a royal MN arse-kicking on my thread when I likened it to "glorified finger-feeding"

Having read the study and other information on this, I am happy to stand corrected. BLW, finger feeding, giving food. Tis all the same to me.

Of course AK is not going to be in favour of BLW - might mean people don't buy her books or buy her branded jars!

Same with any written/packaged 'method' of child care.

The authors do not want you or your baby to discover anything for yourself, or just to build up your own knowledge and confidence by doing, and observing your baby.

If people find it easier to follow a book and a spread sheet or some 'maternity nurse' or whatever, then who am I to argue with them?

But I think it says something about our society that they quite often do this not out of convenience (which is a perfectly valid reason, BTW) but out of anxiety.

Note: this does not apply to everyone.

I don't understand why Baby Led weaning is a trendy or wanky name....isn't it merely descriptive?

Of course you could call it 'Age-appropriate, infant self-directed and unprogrammed dietary and nutrition plan'.

Or you could call it 'Fred'.

let's call it fred

LOL Harpsi

I agree that BLW is a "trendy" name for finger foods (although it does describe the thought behind it, but anyway)... if we call it Finger Feeding there will be small babies all over the country subsisting on fish fingers, you mark my words.

lol at 'fred'

'Finger feeding' is also a technical term for mothers who supply expressed breastmilk down a fine catheter attached to their finger, for the (sick, pre-term, otherwise vulnerable and non-feeding) baby to suck at.

'Finger foods' are what the weanling feeds himself.

Lets keep to Baby Led Weaning

BLW is a 'method' though tiktok

Do whatever you want. Although I suspect our ancestors would have been mashing food for their babies since the year dot. That's why I'm happy to be mashing my lo's food - I think he's evolved to eat it that way. Oh and he has plenty of finger foods too

I don't think mashing is incompatible with baby led weaning....where's that idea come from?

Enid, I know....but it's not especially methodical and no one makes any money out of it

I have mashed, spooned, chopped and (while out) chewd for my baby. It really doesn't matter. Nobody will care when baby isd a stroppy 5 year old, and what's more, nobody will even know

and there is an insidious pressure to it which comes from the idea that BLW babies control their own food intake better and this sets up healthy eating patterns for life.

(AITCH I am NOT out to get BLW I promise )

Actually, I like hiding veg in my pasta sauces. It gives me a huge sense of satisfaction having got one over on my children. Mwahahahahahahahahaha.

DS was BLW. Not in the term most people here are using it though. Sometimes he wanted a spoon. Sometimes he just wanted a spoon and no mush on it. Sometimes he wanted finger food, sometimes he just wanted a missile to lob at his fatigued, stressed-out mother. Sometimes he just wanted to smear food all over his face. Sometimes, he ate what was put in front of him. He's not really progressed from there. And if you are wondering what that orange stuff is in my hair, its possibly a baked bean that was launched my way this lunchtime.

What I don't understand is how all you BLW's seem to eat at the same time as your babies. Obviously those of you with second and subsequent childen will be doing this as the children will just eat when the rest of the family do.

Those of us with PFB syndrome couldn't possibly have done that . In the early months of weaning ds he seemed to always be asleep whenever I wanted to eat apart from breakfast when we would eat at the same time.

He pretty much slept through lunch time most days so I had the choice of eating at 11.30am or 3pm. Because of his terrible sleeping at night he was often asleep at 5.30pm for the evening so again I had the choice of eating at 4.30pm or when he woke again at 11pm/midnight to start the night shenigans.

As ds had slept so badly in the day for his first 7 months (he started sleeping better during the day at about 6/7 months old just as I started weaning) there was NO WAY I was waking him from a nap to eat - so the fact is he often ate at different times to me and dh.

This along with the fact that we actually loke our food with very stong seasoning and flavours meant that BLW was in fact more hassle than mashing different food up for him as cooking for him and then for us was a bit of a pain and it meant we had to change what we ate. I never actually pureed anything though - just batch cooked veg, mashed it and froze it once a week or so.

At the time I never understood how anyone ate at the same time as their child. As he got older things changed obviously -as they do