Why is traditional weaning now looked down on?

[tlove]

I feel like traditional weaning is the 'lesser cousin' to BLW recently which is quite frankly bizarre! Anyone hazard a guess as to why this is?

I'm currently weaning my 7.5 month old first with purées and now with much chunkier sauces with pasta for example, and some finger food such as toast and banana.

Some people I know are doing total BLW and seem to almost brag about it! Weird.

Eh?

Nothing weird about what you are doing. Mine weaned younger than yours! Trends change, new research etc, but in a year or two it will be different again.

I know mine thrived after weaning and very healthy now as an adult.

Children are individuals, I believe one can tell when the time is right either for weaning or potty training or whatever. It's not a good idea to pay too much attention to current trends unless it has been proved there is actual danger to a child.

I remember my mother saying I was weaning too early and would 'overload the stomach' or something like that but the only experience she had was exclusively bottle feeding me (I was adopted), weaned about eight months and grew up quite healthy.

My cousin who exclusively breast fed to all three of hers, I don't know for how long as I was a child at the time, is quite smug about it. However her middle child was underweight and height - 'failure to thrive' was the term used - at one point so she had to use other things, probably introduced solids at an earlier age. He grew up fine but the whole scenario makes one think.

It's all swings and roundabouts so don't worry.

Blw worked for us. I'm lazy and it involved a lot less food preparation.
Three dc, two of which are great eaters one of which is the fussiest child on the planet, so I don't think it makes much difference in that respect.

People do what they feel best for their children. Why start a thread like this about it?

In my experience, most of the parents I know have done a mix of purees and BLW, but they don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s only the hardcore puree devotees and BLW-ers that are vocal/judgmental about it!

@dontticklethetoad Why not start a thread? Isn't it the point of Mumsnet? Its whole raison d'etre?

Thanks @Rebecca36, some good advice

There must always be something for mums of babies to be snobby about

@SnuggyBuggy Yeah! And I'm snobby about certain things too! We're allllll guilty 😂😂

I started with purees then moved onto blw, if you want to call it that. But that didn't work with DS, he was on purees for ages as just used to gag and I was too freaked out by it all. Each kid is different.

Well then, what is your issue?

Gagging is different from choking though. I

It's one of those psychological things innit. We have to feel like we're doing better than our parents' generation because Baggage, so we have to do things the New and Fashionable Way (and pretend like there's research to back that up--I'm adjunct to research and I know just how much data massaging goes on to get publications). So since the Olds did purée, we have to make like it's terribly special to do BLW. There's not a lot in it imo :)

@aidelmaidel 😂😂😂 hahaha maybe you've hit the nail on the head there.

@dontticklethetoad What's your issue? You can scroll on past you know 👋🏻

By that age my kid was just on normal food... What kind of weaning is that? Natural weaning?

@RoboJesus 8 months? That's good going!

I did traditional weaning with ds 1. It worked well for him, he's now got a healthy appetite, eats at regular meal times, no snacks and eats pretty much what you give him. But the boiling and pureeing was a pain, especially as it took him ages to get off lumpy puree. But I was glad to get rid of bottles and formula milk completely at 12 months.

I was going to try blw with dc2 but, after reading this I'm a bit put off. I want my baby on proper food and off milk by 12 months. Not snacking and chucking food around then expecting milk. I don't want food to be play time either. I'm all for exploring food and texture but it's still for eating not playing.

I’m doing traditional weaning at the moment. I stress out too much with BLW. I also love combingig new flavours and whizzing it up. It’s fun!

and chufty badge

Agree with what a lot of others have said. It makes no difference really either way in the long run (especially from an evidence based perspective), just about what you prefer and what suits your family. I did purée food and finger food, various proportions depending on preference at that time.

People do just like a "thing" partly because it alleviates that creeping sense of not knowing what you are doing. So, buying the books, reading all about it, doing it 'properly' (whatever the current "thing" is). It follows then if you've read the books that of course have to really big up that particular thing, you end up thinking it's better than the alternatives.... just so happens that BLW is the new thing so it's what people are buying the books about. There's not really anyone whipping up a marketing frenzy over purée at the moment.

I'm a bit bemused by the assumption that BLW = not eating proper food. We just gave DS food to eat, and he ate it. By the age yours is now, he was having proper meals that he fed himself. It doesn't matter if you choose to do it or not, but you seem to be very against it considering you don't seem to know much about it....

Do whatever suits. It doesn’t matter that much. Don’t feed them too much salt, sugar or stuff that is likely to choke them (some babies being more prone to choking than others).

FWIW however official guidance is probably going to change in next few years to weaning anytime from 17 weeks when baby is ready, not to have started later than 6 months - as opposed to waiting to as late as possible but not later than 6 months.

Therefore purees will probably come back into fashion again and parents will find something else to be weirdly competitive and preachy about .

I don't care how people wean, I did traditional weaning as it suited us. What does annoy me on here is when someone asks a question about traditional weaning and someone comes on and says 'just put what you're eating in front of them, you shouldn't be feeding purées nowadays' or something like that.

It's just a fashion isn't it, rather than 'best practice'.

Most people who say they did blw actually just did traditional weaning in my experience - they spoonfeed soft food and gave finger foods. Not sure why people feel they need to label it blw or 'a bit of both'.

@FenellaMaxwellsPony No, never said I was against. Chill.

@NerrSnerr No I agree! Not very helpful is it

FWIW however official guidance is probably going to change in next few years to weaning anytime from 17 weeks when baby is ready, not to have started later than 6 months - as opposed to waiting to as late as possible but not later than 6 months.

My oldest dc is 8 and people have been saying this since at least then

@Mindchilder I think there has been genuine new studies that show leaving weaning too late actually causes more allergies. I think they are now saying between 17 weeks and 6 months is best depending on the baby's readiness.

I was sooooo Braggy about weaning my baby. Probably unbearable. But I had never cooked before and I didn’t breastfeed so I basically felt like a rockstar making food and feeding my son. I’d imagine to anyone listening to me I sounded like I thought everyone else was crap. In reality I just thought I was the greatest thing on earth..... not the same thing right?