Can we clear up once and for all whether you are 'allowed' to mention the possibility of spoon feeding on a BLW thread?

[Enid]

If the consensus is no, then I will happily bow out of any thread asking for advice on weaning, specifically BLW.

I always say that IMO it is fine to do both - ie a mixture of finger foods and spoon feeding.

Surely this cannot be in any way controversial?

I didnt say they werent...just "less likely"...some babies will be very clear with their signals...but not all are and some mums dont see the signs or just ignore them...Im talking from witnessing mums at restaurants etc not trying to say all mums who spoon feed with do this btw....

because Gill (and her followers) says so hatrick

because Gill (and her followers) says so hatrick

sorry for double post
genuinely parping off now

enid you have said that about me before - can I ask why you think trying to prevent serious health risks for my children is wierd

terramum...seriously?
Both my boys were weaned with spoonfeeding and finger foods.
They are a 3yr old and a 17mth old. Both know when they've had enough to eat and I would never expect them to eat more than their fill.
I think the implication that if you do not do BLW you are somehow forcefeeding/ coercing/ tricking your children into eating is what makes this a contentious issue.

perhpas mums in restaurants know their babies

"people are saying that finger food AND PUREES is not the same as BLW."

No, Teecee, they're saying you can't do a mix of BLW and spoonfeeding which is slightly different. And wrong. Today BabyDragon has had a mix of fend-for-herself/as much-as-she-liked fingerfoods and spoonfed bits. Some meals were BLW and some were spoonfed (not necessarily spoonfed purees either). It was a mix of both methods.

It's like saying you can't say "I'm a 4x4 driver and a Ford Focus driver" because you're not a 4x4 driver if you don't only drive one and nothing else.

The thing is people do that hippmummy - Ive read too many messages over the past few years about trying to distract babies & then sneak in another spoonful because they arent eating very much ....Im not saying all mums do that....Its obvious from the this thread that isnt the case with most mums on here....what I was trying to say is that it is very easy to give just one more than they would otherwise have if they were self feeding...its not intentional, not forcing....maybe just a misread of the signals...just too easy to do imo if you are in control of the food instead of the child....

Maybe I am a little too heavy about this...bit I just get a little het up when people say that there isnt any harm in spoon feeding when there isnt afaiaa any research that says this....there isnt any research about puree feeding at all.....it was only used because babies were weaned at an age when they couldnt chew, move food around, pick it up etc.....I am starting to wonder just how mums at the turn of the last century started solids....the recomendations back then was excl bm for 12 months....maybe I should do some research of my own

I think that the people who are complaining about the misuse of the term 'BLW' are focusing purely on the 'whole weaning experience' (baby's pov) or the 'whole weaning approach' (parent's pov), and the application/misapplication of 'babyled' to it, whereas the people who are talking about mixed experiences/approaches are much more focused on meals/courses/foods as 'units' of weaning experience. And at that level, it can make just as much sense to apply the term 'babyled', because an individual meal can be more or less babyled depending on whether or not a parent chooses to use a spoon, how the food is prepared, how it's presented, and so on.

Where the confusion comes in is that when someone is describing their personal approach to weaning, it could be taken either way. Aitch... and the others would, as I understand it, say only a weaning experience consisting 100% of babyled meals can have the expression 'babyled' used anywhere in its description. But meanwhile people who feel they have a free choice to make at the individual meal level are considering an approach that consists of some totally babyled meals/courses and some that are less so. So maybe what it comes down to is how we define the 'W' in 'BLW', or the word 'weaning'! If weaning means only the whole experience/approach, then you can't talk about a mixture of BLW and something else. If weaning means smaller scale food experiences too (meals/courses/foods), then you can.

I don't honestly see why it matters though. Surely it's simple to 'correct' people by saying "yes you could do a mixture of those methods for different meals, but you won't get the full benefits of the babyledness you are allowing, if it's incomplete"? After all, that's the point, isn't it? Surely rather than telling people that the problem with what they're doing is that they're claiming to be doing BLW when they're not, people could focus just on telling them why they think that's not going to be as great as making every meal 100% babyled?

Focusing on whether or not people are labelling themselves correctly, rather than on the underlying reason why the 'BLWers' are choosing a 100% approach, is bound to annoy people. It seems odd given that the point about the baby in that situation not reaping the full possible benefits of a completely babyled approach is presumably the important one, of the two.

How does this keep going back to what's the best way to wean when it was about some sort of "issue" around spoons.

The right way to wean is what is best for you and your baby, what fits in with your lifestyle and suits you both.

I believe obesity is more connected to premmature weaning rather than puree itself but obviously early weaning is puree as a 12 week old can't pick up the broccoli themsleves.

The nonsense about failure is IMO dependent on what kind of person you are not what type of weaning route you take.

I really liked the idea of BLW so tried it, had it not worked I would have got the blender out... evidently it did work so no dramas... but if it hadn't also no dramas... life's too short.

The only people that set themselves up for failure are the ones that would "fail" no matter what they do.

I don't think I've ever failed at anything... somethings in life haven't worked out but c'est la vie!

I gathered from this thread that because blw is an ethos with fundamental principles you can't mix it with purees

mothers have alwys made sops and sludge for babies of course they used to puree food 100 years ago

in fact they used to give it at weeks old

i had pea puree myself on monday with my dinner not a child in sight

you can always mash bits

I eat mash myself and I still have all my teeth!

crikey, this thread is still going at full strength then.

soupdragon- imo it's more like saying i'm vegan mixed with a little meat eating. of course a person can eat vegetables and pulses and meat, the majority do. but why not just say, i eat food, rather than, i am vegan and i eat meat. if one meal has no meat in, then the next is a steak, then that isn't a vegan diet with a bit of meat is it? there's no such thing surely.

Fair enough terramum
I just feel it's so easy to blame anything and everything for the rise in obesity these days.
When we all know it's down to eating too much crap food and not doing enough exercise

well said fflibble.

please tell me the porridge thing is not true, I don't have sliced cold porridge so in BLW why should my child

fflibble your post made me laugh when this comes to court we'll know who to expect putting the case forthe defence

it made me chuckle as well, i thought 'why don't they just copyright the terminology' I can just imagine loads of mners in court for wrongly using the words...its all madness i tell you

zippitippitoes - you are 100yrs+

Btw, I am not a 'BLWer' as they say - broadly I'm with Enid, I think. I find obsessing about whether or not someone is allowed to use the term pointless and something that detracts from more interesting discussion. But I was interested in why people seemed to be talking past each other in not understanding why people would do that, or be offended by it, and I think it's down to those different ways of thinking - weaning as a whole vs. the individual meal level.

PMSL Dizzy,

"i eat food, rather than, i am vegan and i eat meat. if one meal has no meat in, then the next is a steak, then that isn't a vegan diet with a bit of meat is it? there's no such thing surely"

That's an analagy my old boss would be proud of! He couldn't get enough of them.

Well put

I really honestly believe (I actually know for a fact) that Gill Rapley is a decent sort who would HATE to think that this was causing so much confusion and strife.

It's not a vegan diet, no, but if someone said they had a vegan cookery book and a chicken cookery book and they were planning to do a mixture of vegan and chicken cooking when feeding their family, then that would be quite reasonable, wouldn't it?

lol no terramum I am aware of the history of baby feeding that's all

and purees have always been used

interestingly Gill rapley is talking in a context of unicef and breast feeding

and also baby food jars