Feel very sad having just witnessed my friend force feeding her son 17 weeks.

[geordiemacminx]

Had a friend and her son round for a coffee this afternoon. He is 17 weeks, she plonked him in the highchair and begand feeding him bananna custard type thing... It was so sad to watch, he clearly wasnt physically developed enough, every spoon full she was puttin in was gettin pushed back out by his tongue. He has been on solids since he was 3 months... Although I can kinda see why she would try, as at 4 months he is 21lb, which is heaier than my ds who is 8 1/2 months, but clearly he isnt ready.

This isnt a rant about jars, or purees or anything as that what I started my ds on, think he was 5 1/2 months when wegave him pureed fruit but this poor litle thing clearlydidnt understand what was going on.

witnessed makes it sound like you think it was a crime, well it's just not

Fio - that isn't what I said at all. My first post was in response to you telling the OP to ring SS and listen whilst they laughed at her.

I am merely saying that I have known a woman who had her children removed for force feeding and over feeding them.

It isn't about giving a child from a loving home purees - it's about making a child ill from forcing them to eat too much when they don't want to.

I have never said that this is the case here, nor am I advising the OP to call SS - but you seem to think that it's a trivial matter when over feeding children is just as bad for them as underfeeding them.

my dh talked to a woman at his work who says she weaned her last child at 4 weeks. this child is now 6 years old

geordie, we've all seen whoppingly large babies who've been exclusively breastfed for six months too.

Honestly, (and I guess you're going to take this the wrong way), I think you should find something more pertinent to worry about.

I never said I was worried, I said that what I SAW made me sad.

Geordie, I know what you're trying to say I've seen something similar with friend trying force bottle of milk into baby that clearly wasn't hungry and she wouldn't wouldn't feed baby when he was clearly hungry because it wasn't feeding time (routine, routine) and it made me feel just terrible. My friend is a lovely person and a good mum but this just was not nice to watch. And while in a perfect world you'd be able to voice your opinion and tell people what we think it doesn't always work like that.

Force feeding is a strong word and it makes people think of holding the child down and sticking a funnel down its throat but I know what you mean when you say that.
So don't feel bad about feeling bad and I bet if others had been there and actually seen it, they too would have had some stirring of emotion, whatever it may be.

Message withdrawn

I'm with you, Geordie, must have been a miserable sight. I watched a baby being force-fed once and it was distressing. God knows why his mother felt quite so driven to shovel so much food into his gob that he was practically choking but it was horrid. She's a nice, intelligent woman who loves her son but just had this weird loss of perspective about food.

I know someone who fills her children with crap before bed so they don't wake up. It doesn't work they don't digest the food properly because they are asleep. Same children seemd to be constantly constipated when younger. She also force fed them when they were babies and I used to make my excuses and leave. It was horrible to see a baby crying with mouth open and more food being shoved in. Made me want to hit her.

Has anyone here been fed by a toddler? You get a mouthful... then, before you can chew or swallow, another mouthful... then another mouthful.... you close your mouth- they prise it open, you turn your head away-they follow you round. You hurriedly swallow a huge lump of food and immediately the next lot is being pushed into your mouth.

All you have to do is imagine the same thing happening - only the person feeding you is 3 times your size and can therefore carry on as long as it suits them.

Apart from spitting the food out, you have no way of telling them that you're not hungry and hate the taste. But if you spit the food out, they just scoop it back in.

And this will happen several times a day.

No wonder we as a society have such a F**d up relationship with food.

i would hate to see any child clearly not enjoying the food being made to eat it.

my ds had a small amount purree at 6 weeks because he couldnt take the volume of milk he needed to fill him up because he had reflux. he never once shoved his tongue out after the food had been put in.(this stopped after about 48hrs when he was no longer interested, same happened at 12 weeks, then he BLW'd at 6months)

dd however who was weaned at 5.5 months had the tongue thrust reflex things for months, although she wanted to food. i used to have to feed her the same spoonful 5 times, but she reall enjoyed it so i kept going!

VM that is bloody awful

Some Women bring their own negative issues regarding food to their children - eating disorders are passed down.

How can anyone believe that making the eating experience so traumatic will enable the child to have a healthy relationship with food.

I think our relationship with food is psychologically very complex. We use food to demonstrate love - so feeding your child 'well' is a way of caring for them. Dh used to shovel food into baby ds even when ds clearly didn't want any more - not out of nastiness but because he wanted to look after ds. I put him right, though!

Agree, edam.

I have to watch myself so carefully because I love cooking, and it's really satisfying watching the dds eating food that I've made for them - but on the other hand when they don't want the food it's hard not to take it personally.

I know, of course, that this is rubbish - they're not ungrateful or rejecting, they simply don't happen to feel hungry at that moment - but I think these instincts run very deep.