I want to explain BLW to my DH - he already thinks I'm a crackpot - where can i find a simple, convincing explanation?

[Caz10]

dh is wonderful and so good with our dd. he works shifts so when i go back to work when dd is 6.5mths he will be doing a lot of the childcare. he is v keen to do this and is looking forward to it.
yesterday we were at the shops and he said we'd soon need to look for a blender so he could make up purees for her...now i am not anti-puree! but the more i read about blw the keener i am, and i'm aware that i won't be around as much as i'd like when she's starting on it
have already partially converted him to things like on-demand bf-ing and having dd in our room etc, but bless him, i know at the back of his mind he would feel more comfortable with routines and 4 hrly bottle feeds etc. he already thinks i am a "left wing bf-ing hippy loony" but to give him credit, when i can show him evidence of the benefits of my choices he does understand and agree.
so now my next mission is to make sure dd is not fed from pureed macdonalds or something while i'm at work - can anyone help? i've been on aitch's blog and i think it's going to be an amazing support but i know dh will not take the time to trawl through it.
i've found this: http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html adaptation of gill rapley paper

but can't find the actual paper, is it worth looking? what else can i show him and how did you convince your dh? thanks!!

hiya, sorry i dont have the info youre after... but i do sympathise as your description of your parenting style and dh's is so much like dp and i...
now we've been parents together for the past 4 and a half years (and the 4yo is the eldest of 3) he trusts me and my relaxed ways more, so you can look forward to that!

i do know a book called 'letting go as children grow' was v nice for validating my laid back and instinctive approach to parenting. not that he read it, but if you do, you may have a couple more of the rational-sounding explanations for your approaches to hand when questioned about your methods and motivations.

The way I look at it (one of several ways , actually), if someone came to your house for dinner and was able to hold their food and eat it, would you blend their dinner and poke it in their mouth? If your child can hold their food and chew it, selecting what they'd like next and stopping when they're done, surely that's the sensible thing to do?

And you don't want what I've got, an 18 month old BLW DD who sits and feeds herself and a puree-weaned 4 year old who says "help me!" pitifully and expects spoonfuls to be posted between her lips! (Takes lazy to new levels!)

oh yes. my third was the first one who was out and out blw (other two were mushed, tho second one used to feed himself the odd slug in the garden, not sure that counts?) and he was confidently eating SOUP with a spoon, properly and not spilling, which is quite a technical thing what with the angles of tipping etc... at around a year old. 'mazin. the 4 and 3yos are not that dextrous now let alone at that age.

PMSL at the thought of eating a slug being blw.
I suppose it is.

I haven't got much advice, but I can imagine it is hard to explain to some people.
Recently on our local freecycle someone was asking for any unused jars or baby rice and a blender. I sent a polite email with links to blw sites and mumsnet and she sent a rather nasty email back saying that she had no intention of choking her 5 month old baby. I felt a bit bad.

thank you! dh likes nice scientific explanations for things, and while i know there are plenty of them for BLW I am just not very good at relating them, and to be honest I just really like the sound of it, it FEELS right. But that does not convince him, esp when we are the last of our group of friends to have a baby and NONE of them are bf-ing, all have routined, sleeping through the night babies etc. he thinks i am being a hippy for the sake of it! (in the nicest possible way!)
Currently doing the housework with dd in a sling...now that piece of newfangled hippy equipment is ok for some reason....{grin]

any more advice/experiences/suggestions very much appreciated!

boysontoast i can very clearly remember eating worms in the garden...must tell my mum she was doing BLW!

(mum v supportive too, but keeps saying things like "i can buy you some bottles, you'll need them for afterwards" - afterwards being when i stop bf-ing...she will freak if i manage to do it for as long as i'm hoping to!)

There's a section on Aitch's blog about dealing with the sceptics which was useful when explaining BLW to the grandparents. Basically, if you're weaning a baby at 3 or 4 months as they were told to you have to use purees because the baby is physically incapable of feeding itself. But a 6mo doesn't need them.

I wouldn't worry too much about doing a mixture of pures and finger foods at first. Even the stick-in-mud Department of Health recommends introducing finger foods from the start of weaning if the baby is 6mo. You'll probably find that the joys of pureeing will wear thin after a few weeks anyway, especially if your DD is good with finger foods. Your DH will also no doubt notice how impressed everyone is when his 6 mo daughter is feeding herself.

So if you have to take a mixed BLW/puree approach at first as a compromise between you, I think you'll find natural human laziness and fatherly pride will quickly put paid to the pureeing

I do consider myself a BLWer but I've always spoon fed DD things that are naturally sloppy like porridge. It doesn't seem to have confused her. I used to let her spoon-feed herself but then she learnt how to throw

strap him to a chair in the middle of the kitchen and spoon fed him some puree. Be obsessive about wiping his face when stuff drips Then lie him down on a mat while you sit down and have your lunch.

I got the BLW DVD out from our library and it explained the whole thing really well, so if you can get hold of that, I'd recommend it.

thanks all! mrswaggsnapps that dvd sounds good. i looked on amazon but couldn't see it, do you know the exact name of it? thanks!

months after my dsis challenged me as to "why blw?" I thought of the best answer - "why puree?"

from 6m they can handle finger foods, so why wouldn't you give them?

a scientific approach - try comparing us to cavemen

Surely only for the last hundred years or so, since we complicated feeding to a huge degree have we been using mushy food ?

In my (slightly loony) head I think of "before interference" (from overmedicalisation) and "after interference"

It's really sad that until I came on here it never even occurred to me that you didn't puree - shows how far we have become removed as a society from our natural parenting.

Hello Caz10 - I've been looking into BLW too and have found references to the DVD.

Try here

Not exactly cheap - about £27 for a 15-min film. But perhaps invaluable. I'm tempted to get it but will be pretty if all it tells you to do is to offer broccoli spears with a handle and carrot/courgette batons.

Does anyone else know if it's worth the money??

I would let him do a bit of pureeing/feeding while you stick with the BLW

I think men tend to like the more 'in control' feel of baby feeding with purees

However he will soon get pissed off with the cooking/pureeing/scraping it off the floor, so it will be a very short-lived phase

Think PhD is right - put the ball in his court. Ask for good scientific evidence as to why 6 month old babies need pureed food, when NHS advice is to introduce finger foods at 6mo.

Oh yes that's a very good point-dh kept trying to spoon feed dd long after I'd given up but once he realised it was pointless he was very proud of her feeding herself and would brag about it to all the other parents!

My dh is SAHD and is really please we did blw with dd2. He feels that dd1's pickiness is due to the purees and stuff we did with her.

He hates messiness, but says it's worth the mess because:

a) It's less stress cos she just gets on with it.
b) She'll eat what he's having so he doesn't have to make something different or faff about with cubes
c) He doesn't have to think of taking food out with him, which is a pain when he's already got nappies, water, milk etc. etc. to think about.

Basically dh feels its been a success short term and long term (she's now 15 months and eats just the same as the rest of the family, uses forks and spoons well too).

He does refuse to go near the yogurt though - too much mess for him

so reverse psychology is the key?!

he is already very proud of his dd and convinced she is a child prodigy, so the "look at my clever little eater" angle will probably work well. he is also a compulsive neat freak so don't know if that will work in our favour or not!

thanks for that link tallis! the infant feeding co-ordinator at our mat unit also works with unicef, so i'm going to ask her if she has a copy to loan out - if she does and i get it i will let you know if its any good!

Caz maybe these will help if he is a clean freak

puree

more puree

finger foods

just don't show him the floor!

lol NoBiggy - I have the opposite, despite BLW, my DS once opened his mouth daintily and expectd Grandma to hold his teething ring while he chewed it He has her wrapped around his little finger!
In answer to the OP I would definitely explain the purees at 3 or 4 months / finger foods fine at 6 months thing. If you say your DH now gets bf on demand, compare it to that - you are letting your dd eat on demand.

she says, while on other threads stressing that her DS eats too little...think I need to listen to my own advice!

LOL at DH getting bf on demand

My family took a bit of convincing, and a couple of my friends think I'm out to choke my DS, but at 7 months he can sit and chomp a bit of toast while I eat my cake healthy sandwich - while they bugger about with spoons and bibs and things. It's just easier, once you've got going.

oops yes I meant gets as in understands and accepts

i think the happiest person in our house when dd starts solids will be the dog hee hee! he's a silly big lab but i bet he'll have the brains to figure out that sitting under the high chair is a good bet!
clairybee your pics are FAB!