F*cking Heinz

[hunkermunker]

Just that really

Is it no wonder , when mums say "well it says 4 month on the box/jar"

I mean, we are ment to trust these companies, arnt we?

Hunker, maybe this is the source of weaning early advice?

stretchmarkscream, I'm sorry I anoyed you with my 'educated' comment. I admit it does sound patronising, but I was feeling patronised myself by the face I'd had in return to my question.

venividivicki - I agree with you - mostly. Accurate and correct information is what is required. I don't agree with the Heinz packaging, as I said, but from my personal experience, I don't actually see that it is 'accurate' that most people wean at 6 months, even if it may be better that they do. You can't help anyone if you're not honest.

oh and "Society seems so obsessed about regimenting a baby's feeds and stretching them out. It's utterly bonkers, IMO." I didn't have a routine, I never tried to regiment anything about her feeding - I fed on demand which is why I was feeding 15 times a day. I was exhausted.

DS2 didn't start to try food until 9 months, he just wasn't interested until then, he was exclusivly breastfed up to that point.

Heinz are awful. I got an leaflet through the post about their nurture follow on milk with advice on feeding - they imply that jars of baby food are better than home made stuff.

Laugs,

I may not meet your criteria of being intelligent but I do have post-graduate qualifications!

My mixed fed dd1 was weaned onto solids at 25 weeks and my exclusively bf dd2 was weaned onto solids at 28 weeks.

I know loads of people who waited until 6 months. In fact, I would suggest that the better educated or better informed actually do wait.

My DD is 7 so far past this stage but I do still get shocked sometimes at parents who think it's fine to wean when their babies are ready at 12/9/7 weeks old.
I do sometimes have a lurk on other forums and they are truly shocking.
I weaned at 19ish weeks on the advice of HV, but she didn't say DD was ready for weaning, or that it was something to try, it was more that she was 4 months and I had to.
Of course I believed her

The baby food companies are awful with their advice and marketing but I do wonder where the Mums who start earlier are getting the advice from?

i'd say better educated or better informed people wouldn't rest a decision based on 'on HV advice.'

I must say the Organix crisps are actually bloody lovely, my two are well past weaning but I buy them for myself as they've got 5% of the calories and none of the crap as lots of crisps.

I'm not quite sure where the 'amanaged' bit comes in.
How did I manage not to go to the cupboards and find the baby some food before 6 months (actually, I started BLW at 25 weeks and 3 days) erm... well, believe it or not it was pretty easy.

DS2 is now 28 weeks, he hardly eats a thing, though for some reason eh thinks avocado is great I blame Aitch.

What worries me more and more is a trend for early weaning linked to an incorrect belief about a child's development/giftedness/advanced behaviour. On many other parenting forums such as er... coughBountycough, there is an abundance of women encouraging each other and congratulating each other under the guise that 'my baby is soooo advanced'.

It wasn't until recently that I encountered this in real life. My sil started to wean at 13 weeks (baby strapped down, reclined so far she was nearly horizontal, porridge shovelled in). I tentatively asked if she knew the guidelines and the research behind it and she was very well aware. She even went as far as to say 'I don't dare tell the hv in case she tells me off'. I asked why she was weaning so ridiculously early and she said 'dd is just so developmentally forward, I know she's ready'. So, ability to shovel food into an unresisting baby's mouth equals advanced? How do you fight against that?

I do think that labelling jars from 6 months would help in this case too. Perhaps mothers who can convince themselves that 13 weeks isn't that far from 17 weeks would be encouraged the other way by lack of available and seemingly condoned mush. If everybody said 6 months, food companies and hcps alike, it might help in these cases too.

There is no way at 13 weeks she would've been ready.
I think people don't understand why more than anything. If they understood what enzymes did and that these were mainly missing and what the open gut was and how allergies can eb created I'd imagine they would take more care to wait.

Laugs, I think Dalrymps's face wasn't aimed at you, it was probably aimed at the OP/topic of thread, your q just happened to precede it.

And to answer that question, I have a first class (hons) degree, MA, MSc and a bronze swimming certificate so does that make me educated? I started offering food at 7 months. Nearly all of my acquaintances waited until 26 weeks.

Oh VS, apart from not ready at all, she was a powerless, prostrate, defenceless wee thing. She was waking up at night though after sleeping through (growth spurt I presume) which contributed. I was to see it, especially all the pictures she posted on fb of her 'clever, hungry girl'. I tried to talk to her about the research, approached my brother about it and eventually got told to back off and stop being such a hippy. I believe they wheeled out the whole 'I was weaned at... no harm... blah blah' rubbish. I walked away.

Organix weaning info isn't great, but tons tons better

cow and gate isn't great either

this is why

Meant to add to the last post I genuinely beleive that many of the people who wean early and are then told why they shouldn't know that the person telling them is telling the truth but they bury their head in their sand. Kind of similar to the way some people use formula and try to make out it is as good as BM.

Sorry organix

I do tend to make a bit of a grrr face when I walk past all the Hipp/Organix/Heinz boxes in the supermarket that have '4 months' emblazoned very obviously on the front, with the obigatory caveat in very small print on the backs.

Laurgs - I started ds on solids (not that he ate much at first, was too busy playing with it) at 24 weeks, but then stopped when he didn't seem that bothered, and we waited another week or so before trying again. Before that, he'd had a suck of my nectarine at 23 weeks.

TDWP - I like the Organix 'crisps' too (ds doesn't) - they're a bit like Monstermunch without the MSG...

Oh, I know it's not just Heinz. But it was just so convoluted, the way it was written.

We live in a society where mums are often told by HVs that they ought to wean their babies and baby food usually says from 4m. Why not believe that that's OK? It's very easy to think it is.

As for Little Star weaning spoons from Superdrug - they say "suitable from 3m" ffs!

laugs - and the difference between holding on to only 5 months and then weaning or holding on to 6 months is..........................................?

i sadly fail to grasp the huge impact early weaning has - and yes i am ...'red brick' still dont really get the furore

DP's cousin weaned her baby really early, straight onto jars, "baby-juices" etc. She was asking us when he was about 8 months old when she was allowed to give him carrot.

I was so , I reckon she went down this route simply because when you go into a shop's baby section this is what you're presented with therefore it seems like it must be the right thing to do. Either she'd never been avised by a HV or she was ill-advised (what a shocker, eh?).

He'll be coming up a year old soon and I think he is still mainly on jarred food all the time, and barely any milk. Which is fine if that's her way, but I am sad that IMO she doesn't even realise there's any other way. And I'm not close or tactful enough to have had an influence on any of this.

Retailers and manufacturers have an extraordinary impact on what people perceive to be 'normal', and that's why they should be accountable for the information they present.

TBH, a great deal of jar food is okay in terms of nutrition. Most brands have simple, basic ingredients in them and are without preservatives, salt, sugar etc. There should be other foods offered as well, but, as long as babies are getting milk as their main feed for the first 12 months then it's not so much of an issue.

The concern is over the misleading labelling, and the implication that weaning should be started by a certain point or else it will be "too late".

I know Vicki, but my point is that for some mums they think that because it's advertised then it must be correct - therefore why would they hold back on solids until 6 months if 4 months is plastered all over everything they see in supermarkets?

I weaned at 4 months old, because that was the advice at the time - I didn't know that had changed until I read some of the threads here!

As far as the 'Experts agree...' line that Heinz use, well - you can usually find an expert or two to back up most things, so I'd take that with a large pinch of salt. In general, I doubt I'd rely on a company's packaging/marketing material for advice, because they obviously have a vested interest in getting me to buy their product so are hardly unbiased.

As far as I recall (this is 11 years minimum ago for me, and my brain is full of other things now) I did listen to my hv's advice - because she was unbiased, had the correct training and, most importantly, knew me and my child, so I felt that her advice was more relevant to us.

With ds1, I did make lots of purees - he got all sorts of interesting stuff. I spent a day each month making all these different purees and freezing them in icecube trays, so I could mix and match his meals when I got them out of the freezer. I did this a whole lot less with ds2 and ds3 - lack of time and energy, I suppose - so they got some purpose made purees, some meals that ds1 was eating, pureed, and some baby jars.

My main gripe with the baby jars at that point wasn't the advertising/blurb on the bottles, it was how horrible they smelt. I used them as little as possible because I thought that if I didn't want to smell them, why would my ds's want to eat them!

Right, trading Standards called me back, were very helpful but as it doesn't breach any law they can't do anything. The ASA would normally cover things like this but they specifically say on their website that they are not able to deal with misleading claims on websites (apparently this is a Trading Standards matter ... and so the buck is recirculated).

However, Mr Trading Standards was very helpful and said if I could get hold of some paper literature published by Heinz with the same wording (he is sure it will be replicated elsewhere, as am I) then it might be something the ASA would take up then. He has also suggested informing the English DOH (well, I'll try ) and went so far as to suggest campaigning or press to pressurise the company into changing.

He's going to inform Heinz's local Trading Standards people too, just to flag it up.

I have signed up for some crap literature from Heinz in the meantime.

It's just plain wrong, what they're claiming, and the more I think about it the madder I get!

Hey Laugs, I am an intelligent, well educated woman. I exclusively breastfed DD until she was 7 months, then weaned - There you go, now you know at least one!

I waited until 7 months as DD was 5 weeks early, so knowing that it could be dangerous to wean before 6 months decided to wean her on her 'proper birthdate' rather than her actual one. Didn't ask for HV advice as she was crap at the best of times "Dont lie baby on her side, she'll get a pointy head" "Why aren't you using babywipes - so much easier than water" "Babies must ALWAYS wear a vest" (38 degrees in the shade) et al.

I never gave DD jars though - Couldn't understand why anyone would when it is just as easy to boil up some veg as it is to heat up a jar. (Had I known about BLW then I would have gone down that route).

I do remember having a conversation with 'perfect mum' (the bane of my pregnancy) who weaned her DD at about 12 weeks "she is ready for food, she wouldn't have it if she didn't need it" and "Jars are more nutritious for her". I saw her again when our DDs were about 2 and her poor DD has allergies and gets kidney infections at the drop of a hat