Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Original poster

Baby Led Weaning

79 replies

TheDevilWearsPrimark · 05/06/2007 17:14

Enough of this argumentative chat and one upmanship.

My DD has fairly poor hand eye coordination, can't tell a spoon from a rattle etc.
We have started weaning her on purees, and that is what we feel comfortable with and what is right for her.
Fair enough some of your children were sitting upright at 7 months and able to grasp and eat finger foods without choking but that is not the same for everyone.

Stop your militant interruption onto every thread linking to BLW websites. Some babies cannot handle it, and some mothers are not comfortable with it. Surely your 'prophecy' is about it being easy and free for thebaby and the mother, so please just get out of our faces.

OP posts:
PutThatInYourPipeandSmokeIt · 05/06/2007 23:27

that post was meant to follow on from the bogie post!

welliemum · 05/06/2007 23:27

VVV

Aitch · 05/06/2007 23:34

of course, twinkle. BLW (caps, proper name etc) does not mean that everyone else is ignoring their baby, so your point is valid with regards to your weaning. but it's not BLW (caps, proper name etc) though. same as i'm a Conservative and i'm conservative, kinda. I'm not, though .
i can see why people might feel upbraided by the name a little that as it is wankissimo. baby self feeding would have been so much better... but unfortunately we're a bit lumbered.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 05/06/2007 23:42

YEs please!!!!

Cant believe you finally finished writing it.......

welliemum · 05/06/2007 23:46

What's your article aitch? [excited and nosy]

Twinklemegan · 05/06/2007 23:48

Oh I know Aitch. I just meant people shouldn't get so hung up on it, that's all. What baby wants is best for baby and all that.

Aitch · 05/06/2007 23:56

i do agree with you there, twinkle, totally. but tbh i think writing a pissy OP telling people that they are 'touts', 'militants', making 'prophecies' , 'argumentative', indulging in 'one upmanship' and to 'get out of our faces' etc etc is just designed to make people feel like shit. and that's not on.

if TDWP thinks that people are being insensitive (and i may have some sympathy with her there, actually) then insulting people who are after all only trying to help rather hacks away at her moral high ground.

i'll email it to you, vvv. and i couldn't possibly say, welliemum. (becasue it's a pure brass neck now all you ahve to do is find a glasgwegian to find out what that means...)

welliemum · 06/06/2007 00:03

grrrrrrr Aitch.... there isn't a glaswegian for hundreds of miles and I'm writing an exam in a couple of hours time and now I'm going to have to work out what "brass neck" means... grrrrr

Good luck with article. Am consumed with curiosity now!

kokeshi · 06/06/2007 01:56

Ta da!

kokeshi · 06/06/2007 02:07

I've heard it used in two contexts here:

  1. Cheeky
  2. Embarrassing

Hmmm, now I'm curious about the article you're writing!

nappyaddict · 06/06/2007 06:21

i had one of these children who had no hand eye coordination til about 10 months but we did do BLW. before he quite got the concept i was feeding him every 1-2 hours which for me i felt was ok. however a friend of mine tried BLW and like ds her dd couldnt quite grasp what she was supposed to do, but her dd was wanting to feed sometimes even more than once an hour so she decided to go the puree route instead which i think is perfectly fine. if you have a very hungry baby that isn't developed enough to do BLW and is wanting to be fed that often then it just isn't going to work. her dd just ended up very bloated and uncomfortable. you could hear the milk swishing around inside her!

Original poster
TheDevilWearsPrimark · 06/06/2007 09:42

Okay, firstly I will apologise for the wording of my posts yesterday. I strongly believe what I have said, but definitly could have phrased it better.
I didn't want to offend anyone. So I am sorry.

Secondly I will add this to my list of topics to not get involved in. It seems every point of both sides of the arguement have been exhausted in the past, and nothing really can be added.

OP posts:
lulumama · 06/06/2007 09:46
Smile
Aitch · 06/06/2007 11:15

tbh TDWP, i thought i'd added something to the effect that your OP was uncharacteristically harsh to my last post, because you're normally very reasoned i think. i take it you'd just Had It Up To Here..?

PS how long's yer list? mine's huyuuuuge.

Enid · 06/06/2007 11:20

TDWP - BLW is a subject that it is impossible to discuss here unless you agree wholeheartedly with it.

FluffyMummy123 · 06/06/2007 11:21

Message withdrawn

Aitch · 06/06/2007 11:33

btw and now that we are all pals again... 'over an hour coaxing solid food into the baby's mouth'? no coaxing, that would defeat the point of BLW. and an hour playing with food i could see, because it's play but it never took dd an hour because i called a halt to proceedings as i was generally goiing somewhere and had finished my own lunch. i never was worried about the nutritional thing so much because i knew from her nappies she was getting something.
and the food's fun thing? well, i was recently reminded by a friend that we were told that at a Salvation Army weaning talk, you know the one where they tell you about ice cubes and sell you cheap blenders... so it is actually not a BLW slogan. it's just an interpretation of the WHO guidelines about milk being only 'supplemented' by solids and an exhortation not to stress. which, i feel, could do with being heard by the many mums on here worrying about their wee ones not eating much.

and the small study? don't think the size of the study's the thing, tbh. it was qualitative, not quantitative and was done for a thesis (as yet unpublished). i've read a paper from it, it raises a lot of interesting questions - largely 'why puree at 6 months if you don't have to, what are the reasons for doing it?' and doesn't actually come up with any good nutritional, physiological or developmental reasons for purees and spoonfeeding.

also, if it's a sizeable although admittedly unscientific study you're after, why not have a look at the pics of chunky babies enjoying food on the blog, or join the yahoo group to see what people actually encounter?

there may be some pluses to not doing spoonfeeding, or not, we'll have to wait and see. in the meantime, who honestly cares how anyone else feeds their children, so long as they're healthy? but that has to cut both ways, and if people see posters on MN having difficulties with purees then really i think they're quite within their rights to sensitively suggest upping the finger food or swapping altogehter to self-feeding.

Aitch · 06/06/2007 11:35

oh enid, what utter rubbish. did you actually read the OP? did she want a discussion about BLW? don't think so.

Aitch · 06/06/2007 11:36

and LOL at cod. of course it do.

Enid · 06/06/2007 14:33

aitch you make it impossible to discuss.

oliveoil · 06/06/2007 14:38
Enid · 06/06/2007 14:39

i agree the OP was a bit, ahem, aggressive. But plenty of people have started threads questioning the merits or otherwise of BLW and you always, always shout them down. It is quite depressing actually.

oliveoil · 06/06/2007 14:41

alkjklkeiiialijfglkjlkjalkjgkjalgkjladkjglaskj

HenriettaHippo · 06/06/2007 14:56

Enid, I have to agree with you. Aitch, sorry if this seems like a witch hunt, but I have been avoiding weaning threads too because my baby (DS2) just wasn't interested in picking food up and eating it AT ALL until the last week. He's now over 9 months old. However, he was desperate to eat, would shriek and reach for my food, get it in his hands and then squidge it and chuck it on the floor. Over and over again. If I didn't help him out, he would cry and get really frustrated and angry.

When I read many of your (and others') saying how BLW is the only way to go, and so much easier, I just wished you could come and try a meal in my house. You have had one child who has taken to it really well. This hasn't been my experience in any way. So DS has been getting along fine on purees, mashed food, little bits off my fingers, and I always put out a few pieces of blw type food, just to see what happens. Finally, I nearly cheered the other day when he picked up a bit of parsnip and put it in his mouth, chewed it and swallowed. But it has taken 3 months to get that far.

And to add, I don't make him separate purees. I have a little mixer, and just put a portion of whatever DS1 and I are having in there. Takes about 20 seconds. So it isn't any more work at all.

I have been holding my tongue til now. Feel better now I've let it out.

saralou · 06/06/2007 15:05

i'm very grateful for knowing about BLW.. i have the opposite problem that my boys won't eat purees... but i persevered with ds1 until we had both built up a fear of mealtimes

ds2 i did try purees for 2 weeks and in those 2 weeks he's eate 1 meal... i started BLW last week and it's much happier at mealtime here! i've seen the content of his nappies, so i know somethings going in!

purees work for some, but others it doesn't

BLW works for some but others it doesn't

doesn't mean either way is the right wy