BLW is not possible during the credit crunch

[believer07]

Having had a go at BLW I am not going to continue as basically I can not afford to give my child organic food every day that it throws all over the floor and gets very little in its mouth, and is still screaming hungry at the end of the BLW session.

It seems to me like BLW is some new thing to keep western mothers occupied, because if you were living in Zimbabwe you would not be letting your six month old waste copious amounts of food.

The aim of eating is to eat the blardy food not paint the house with it.

I am back to putting in baby's mouth with a spoon, sod BKW and the rest of the rubbish them come out with.

Oh now I see you can eat penuts in preg because now to many kids have nut allergys because there mothers where told to avoid them rather than introduce them over a long time.

Are there others who find the old fashioned way easier and more economical

Is it not then how come the HV gestapo try to enforce it?

did your HV tell you to do BLW, believer? that's unusual.

although i too am a bit about spending our way out of a recession. am KICKING myself for having done my christmas shopping early, have missed out on SO many bargains.

I would have just picked up the banana off the floor and tried again with it. Surely if he didn't want the first one then to try with a second is a little foolish.

Their motor skills develop with practice so much better for them to practice at 6 months when milk is still their major source of food than at 1 year old when they have never fed themselves before but are really hungry.

No one is forcing you, if it doesn't work for you don't do it. What would have been a more useful OP would have been something like "Struggling with BLW, am I doing it right? How can I get my LO to eat more."

People would be much more responsive to that sort of post rather than one insulting us mothers who have done BLW.

Yep I'm giving it time Aitch. He's 6.5 months now and a big boy - over 9kg - but he loves his milk and has only a sort of academic interest in food...

Does she look like this?

What's with HVs, anyway? I've not seen one since my DD was 4 weeks old. She signed us off, said "You know where you can find me", and left it at that...

Can't you just ignore her, or not see her?

My HV hadn't heard of BLW. She was like this

I do think you should have the choice. But should you choose not to follow advice you risk the unhappy frowns of those who would have you do it.

Anyway I must go now as I have other duties.#

HV gestapo? lordy.

anyway, it's most unusual for an HV to mention BLW with anything other than a scream of 'if you want your baby to CHOKE then go ahead'. mine was aaaaaaaaall abouot the annabel karmel, you'd have thought she was on commission. middle ground has to be the best way with hvs, that they give you all the choices and you decide. would that they behaved like that though, eh?

ach, believer. you've got other kids already, i just don't believe that you care about whether an HV frowns at you or not. i think you were just blowing off steam here, hope it's done the trick.

arf at academic interest, doggies. purely on the basis of what i think i've observed on here and my forum, it seems to me that boys can take to BLW a bit slower, esp if they're bf guzzlers. if they don't want to do it at 6 mos (dd was right off the blocks) then the next age for a 'click' of recognition seems to be 7 mos or even 9 mos. but that's from NO academic or anythingy sort of background, that's just me asking questions on my forum. so i wouldn't waste my time pushing it, iykwim? just as and when you can be bothered, really.

Thanks Aitch, that's interesting about boys vs girls (mental note to look at your blog)

i just think they're born tit men, even on formula.

Your worried about your 6 month old wasting food? I am poor most of the time (Im not really really poor just have too much to pay for, but I'd be classed as 'well off' or comfortable even without things to pay for)

I have an 18 month old whose favourite game is to wear her bowl of pasta as a hat and try and 'feed' the dog. And a five year old who no matter what you give her wants something else. She doesnt get something else but nor does she eat what she is given. She generally gives it to dd2 who in turn wears it and then feeds the dog with it.

I don't know if anyone else has told you this I havent read the full thread, but they will keep wasting food. And why the hell are you buying organic if you can't afford it? If you are that skint use frozen veg and shop around at butchers and greengrocers for good deals.

i'd never be classed as well off. wishful thinking coming out in tpying there, must all this talk of organic food lol.

believer, i wanted to apologise for calling you a troll. it's not because of your criticism of blw, which i share partly, it was more that your op seemed to lump lots of different topics together and seemed designed to get everyone fighting, rather than arguing in a civilised fashion. as it is, your subsequent posts and everyone's responses ahve been more than civilised, in fact really constructive, so hats off to you and sorry again.

incidentally, the peanuts thing, there is a growing body of evidence that avoiding peanuts contributes to allergy.

having said that, i feel extremely uneasy about the "just give them whatever you're eating" approach, because not everyone is as aware as the people here about things like salt content, allergies etc. so by all means do blw (i myself am doing a bit of both), but do not do it in a way that puts your child at risk. i would still strongly advise anyone introducing new foods to do so one at a time, and to defer things like fish, eggs, soya etc till well past 9-10 months. in effect this rules out most grown up diets till quite late in the game, so you are going to have to give them slightly different things to you.

No worries sunrise, as I said, maybe I was venting.

I eat organic, but as a family we don't do alot of things that others take for granted. We live a pretty low key lifestyle, but food and nurtrition are very important for health.

I was not intending to start a fight, maybe a rallying call to those who think the same.

Feel a bit now.

Now I open my eyes and see a thread for puree lovers. Skulking off to join them.

as i say believer, i do agree with you a bit... unfortunately my baby is nt that interested in purees...

i agree, beforesunrise, about the salt etc. but tbh from what i see on this and on my forum, it seems to be that because parents make an active choice to do BLW or to do as you're doing and introduce finger foods a bit earlier than the norm, they seem to be pretty clued-up as to nutrition. in fact in those early months of BLW i think i sharpened up my own diet considerably, eating piles of steamed veggies etc. i've seen quite a few people say that weaning their children made them focus on what they were eating, which i think must be true whether you are mashing or finger fooding. purees, otoh, might give people an opportunity to side-step the issue for six months longer. but it's inevitable, mwah ha haaah, comes to us all in the end.

lol at you skulking off, believer. BEGONE from this place and take yer peanuts with ye!

I dont worry about waste. The way i look at it is this: if it goes down to the belly or down to the floor, either way it's gone! When i cook dinners I reserve a certain amount of food for DD. It's up to her if she wants to eat it or chuck it on the floor! She gets no more if she chucks it on the floor - she's obviously had enough by then.

I think of it as learning about eating and they learn through play.
Can't visualise two uneaten bananas, DS (7mo) will eat a banana even if everything else is untouched.
He ate a whole one last night in about 5 mins.
I agree with RGC, wherever it's gone, it's gone!

I know what you mean about being clued up aitch. When DD was a bit younger and I was feeling a bit depressed I suggested to a HV that maybe I was lacking in vitamins, could she recommend anything. She said very reassuringly "You're doing baby led weaning. I think you probably have a pretty good enough diet". Complete generalisation on her part but I thought it was pretty funny!

My friend's mum is a HV and she asks her questions like "when can I give DD salmon" and her mum says "I don't know, I'm more likely to be asked when can I give them chicken nuggets!"

Anyway, aitch, how's the bfing going?

ok they where smallish organic bananas, not the gigantic mutant. Any they were pounded to a pulp, I cut them up into smaller sections.

I think I shall put the whole incident down to a modern art type lesson, on the whole he got a A.