Does BLW make for a great eater?

[rosealbie]

Have posted this on CHAt topic but probably better here. I didn't BLW with my dc as hadn't heard of it but am interested to know if children who are BLW are more likely to be good eaters later in life?

dunno yet, but it's interesting to find out, isn't it? there's been no research into it but as our babies get older we'll have a better idea. tbh i don't want to buy into the 'great eater' thing anyway, eating sufficient for their needs and not being a pain in the arse at mealtimes will do for me. so far, so good.

That's really what I meant by 'great eater' too

It just seems that if they are used to making their own choices about what they do and don't like to eat they may not arrive at the stage where they start rejecting food and becoming fussier.

but why would they, though? we do need to eat. food is nice, especially when it also means socialising with the rest of your family.

i think the line of thinking goes that fussiness is often a control issue (see any episode of House of Tiney Tearaways)... even longer term, so is anorexia in many cases... so perhaps, just perhaps, by never taking away control but always making sure that what is available to eat is nutritious and tasty they will not choose that rebellion. iykwim?

i fully anticipate that dd will rebel in other ways, lord knows, but i could do without one on food.

also, speaking personally, i was brought up to always clear my plate and i don't think it's done my waistline or my attitude to food any good, so i'd like for DD not to have that pressure.

lol, i mis-read what you'd said, i now realise. i thought you'd said 'they may become fussier' with more choices, not they may not.

I BLWd DS and so far so good for us too. He's great eater and likes a wide range of things. In addition, it's been so much easier taking him about and about, knowing there was alsways something on a menu that he could eat, without the palaver of cooking and packing puree for him. I'll definitely try this approach again.

Here's my experience:

DD1(aged three): weaned onto purees with difficulty. Now a great eater.

DD2(aged 22 months): impossible to wean onto puree(refused to be spoond fed), BLW was more successful. Now she is a very good eater.

Actually that is something else to mention. DS was used to feeding himself with the chip-shape approach, so didn't like it when I tried, occasionally, to feed him yoghurt with the spoon. He took the spoon off me pretty much straight away and now, at 15m, is brilliant with both a spoon and a fork.

Actually that is something else to mention. DS was used to feeding himself with the chip-shape approach, so didn't like it when I tried, occasionally, to feed him yoghurt with the spoon. He took the spoon off me pretty much straight away and now, at 15m, is brilliant with both a spoon and a fork.

I'm hoping that blw will mean non-fussiness later, but so far he rejects quite a lot of things at 10 months... When he likes something though, he will eat what seems to me more like an adult portion

Well Ds is 11 now and was weaned long before this BLW fad. He is one of the unfusiest eaters going and will eat practically anything put before him, except if it was badly cooked. Unfortunately he has nut and seed allergy so that is all that limits him. In those days the theory was there was a window between about 6 and 9 months for a baby to try new things and accept them, after that if they hadn't tried the food by then they would reject it as toddlers.
DD is not so bad eater, however she does have heightened senses. Optician says her eye are very light sensitive, she can hear very well, and love to feel materials, and also has a very strong sense of smell(can smell smoke long before anyone else, so she probably has a strong sense of taste as well, so she is not so keen on strongly flavoured foods.

christy-whisty:

'In those days the theory was there was a window between about 6 and 9 months for a baby to try new things and accept them, after that if they hadn't tried the food by then they would reject it as toddlers.'

well both my dds disprove that theory!!!How on earth do they come up with these theories in the first place?

Did BLW with DD and she's less fussy about trying new foods than DS is. OTH she's more adventurous than him about other things, so it would be silly to think it's anything to do with BLW and not their different personalities.

But surely BLW is just another of those theories. It's a trend in parenting that will last a few years and then change again.

Have no other of my own children to compare with, but dd was blw (of a sort) and is a fantastic eater, friends dd was puree led and a nightmare to feed. Probably not strong evidence either way, but blw was just so much more convenient for us. I loved not having to worry about what she would eat when we were out, she just had what we had or bf. Next one will definately be blw.

I think it is very difficult to tell, as you don't know what they would have been like if you had done it differently. For me, BLW works as I think that like many others, I have found that DD at 6 months had no interest in being fed but loves feeding herself. On the other hand, most 'puree' books recommend starting finger food at 6-7 months, and many suggest that a child should be largely self feeding by the beginning of the second year - BLW wasn't really around when DS was small (2003), but his nursery expected him to feed himself when he started at about 14 months.

Feeding an 8-9 month old child just with purees and really trying to shove it in is IMO not a great way to create a healthy relationship with food, but you won't find anybody advising that even if you do start with purees.

I think all young children go through a picky stage with food. My theory is that this is an evolutionary development to stop them from poisoning themselves.

maybe, or maybe it will just be absorbed into a general continuum of 'weaning' as children are weaned later according to the WHO guidelines. it's hardly a fad, it's just something that 6 month-old babies have been doing for years. the change was the guideline, principally, i think. BLW just allows babies to behave in the manner to which they are developmentally capable. no point treating them like 3-monthers if they're getting their first solids at 6 months, is there?

that response to christy, btw.

ooooh, tell us more about your theory, madameP... what do you mean?

okay, if we're talking theories...
i was talking to a pal and we were both commenting that our babies ate less after a year-ish than they did before (when both were packing away hooyuuge portions) and we were discussing our theory that by the toddling stage, mothers withough access to contraception would have another little baby or even two to bf, so toddlers' systems must be able to tough out a good bit of, er, neglect.
i wonder if that might tie into the poison thing as well? that because they expect to be left to their own devices pretty much, they dial back their intake in order to protect themselves?
both of our children are growing and healthy, so we're not concerned at all, but it was somethign we'd noticed. any thoughts?

I'd heard of a different theory - that natural child spacing would be more like 3 years+. I can't remember the details but they made sense at the time (as these things tend to).

hhmm, true, i suppose it would depend how long bfing would continue in a scarce food situation. which until recently in the west has been how everyone lived.