Annabel Karmel or Gina Ford?

[MrsWembley]

Just starting weaning and have got DD used to baby rice. However, now two top teeth have appeared, I have realised that I need to get a wriggle on with the whole thing. Before I go and order any old thing from Amazon, what do yooze guys recommend?

I see (nearly) everyone else has already jumped in with BLW as the best suggestion.

2ChildrenplusLA (hello ) your description fits me exactly. Ds2 was so much easier than ds1 to wean and that was even with severe reflux... go figure.

I never did follow AK rigorously for ds1 but can't believe I ever bothered with freezing silly purees into icecubes. Once, albeit only once, I even cooked peas for him, sieved them and took out all the skins!

I used both. I know they aren't strictly necessary and you can just give the baby what you are having but I tend to live on pasta and arriabiata sauce and wanted to give ds a more varied diet. I loved cooking little meals for ds and enjoyed the faffing around.

AK's recipes looked nice but I found with a lot of the recipes there was even too much faffing for someone like me who generally likes a good faff in the kitchen. Gina Ford went down a treat, initially I thought that some of her recipes were quite old fashioned (vegetable oat crumble and lots of lentil recipes) but ds loved them and it inspired me to make those sort of dishes. I also found that the recipes gradually increased in texture and flavour with the babies age.

Ds has always been one of the most unfussy eaters I have come across and I put a lot of that down to the varied recipes in GF's weaning guide.

Shock! Horror! Praise for Gina Ford on Mumsnet.

I thought AK said that banana was a good first fruit. I flicked through my friend's copy and I could have sworn she mentioned banana as a first food.

Lol @ seventypercent's post! I thought so too!

I only came to watch the fur fly!

Neither. I did BLW with my DS and we've never looked back. He just eats whatever we eat.

Just watching 'Life' and nearly cried about the octopus mother. I remember one story from another wildlife programme about a spider that dies when her young are born and she is their first meal!

No problem with BLW there then...

Headless, I used BLW fairly early on but my DS didn't cram the food in. He's now 3 and he still doesn't - when I compare him to his peers, he has a smallish appetite. It's taken me just under 2 1/2 years to realise that that's just how much he wants to eat - he's extremely healthy (never gets ill), a good weight, taller than many of his peers; and is thriving in every way.

So be warned, weaners - never, ever stress about the quantity of food your child is consuming, and never, ever compare them to their peers!

[slow-to-learn-icon]

Another thing - there's a difference between choking and gagging - gagging is the normal reflex, which babies use to remove food chunks that have gone a little too far. Choking is - well, choking. And you can choke on anything - a friend of mine said her DD choked on breast milk, so badly that her lips went blue and my poor friend called an ambulance. I say this not to put the fear of God into you all about your children choking, but instead to reassure you that if your child gags (or occasionally chokes) on a lump of food, it is not because you are a bad mummy.

Oh, and re weaning on bananas and avocados, all you need is a spoon - just gently scrape the flesh onto the spoon and it 'purees' itself as you do so.

It is probably worth getting both Annabel Karmel and Gina Ford's books out of the library, to see if either of them appeal to you. The Gina Ford weaning guide has a week by week guide on how to introduce solids at the right times so that the milk intake is not reduced to quickly. Great if your breast feeding.

lowrib "She is however very accomplished at self-promotion and selling books" - when did you last see her on TV, radio, or doing a newspaper interview. Fine if you don't like the woman, but she has worked for a lot of us, so no need to distort the truth.

priyag: Gina Ford's routine is usually death to breastfeeding long before your baby gets to 17 26 weeks.

DD1 would never have coped with either routine. My work colleagues gave me an AK recipe book. I looked at the meal plan (twice) and both times they gave me palpitations. DD1 weaned onto solids at 56, yes 56 weeks. I guess you can call it 'toddler led weaning'.

we tried blw and dd went blue and choked. Dh said no way back to purees. Dd is now 8 mths and onto mashed food and soft finger food. I personally think this is more natural than giveing a baby with no teeth exactly what your eating. Dd also seemed to get indigestion with blw as she swallowed lumps of food.

mrsfossil- I'm sorry about your bad experience with BLW but there are a few things that I'd like to point out to other's reading this. Babies can just as easily choke on mashed and pureed food, especially if they are introduced before 6 mths and are not in control of what they are putting into their mouths.

Real choking is rare when the following guidelines are in place, gagging, although frightening to watch is not harmful and it actually means that the child is coping with the food and has a tongue thrust reflex. Partial choking is what happens to us when a piece of food goes down the wrong and can happen to anyone at anytime. Again, they are dealing with it.

Is it possible that you have confused gagging with partial choking mrsfossil? Both can be very dramatic and frightening for an anxious parent standing by.

• Making sure the child is at least 6 mths old and that they can sit up unaided.

• Allow the child to be in control of what they put into their mouths.

• don't distract them whilst they are eating

• Give foods that are cut into chip shapes.

A child has to learn to eat solids with their fingers at some point and doing it BLW style does not increase the risk of choking when done properly and safely.

In my experience as a Child minder the children who have been puree-fed are fussier and more difficult to feed and are less competent with feeding themselves. The parents fret about their child's feeding habits and are hovering over them whilst they eat trying to cajole them to eat this and that and creating stand-offs at the dinner table.

Honestly it drives me potty sometimes when I know that it doesn't have to be like this.

priyag how is that distorting the truth? Bearing in mind Gina Ford's history with mumsnet I was very careful to stick to the facts, so as to give her no excuse to threaten legal action. Her books are seem to be in just about every bookshop I've been to recently, and also, if I remember correctly, within the Contented Little Baby Book she several times reinforces the message that her way is a great way to do things, and so I would say I think it is it is fair to say she is good at self promotion and selling books, the proof of the pudding being in the eating.

According to what I have read she has no formal childcare qualifications. This is a fact.

If you want to get into opinion, I do understand that some people swear by her, and if that kind of prescriptive approach works for you then great. But her lack of qualifications does concern me. Personally I have more respect for an expert if they have formal qualifications.

I am also wary of her because in my personal experience the friends of mine who have sworn by here also do seem really quite stressed about sticking to the routines. Also, the mums I know who followed the routines spent a lot more time at home than I did in the early months. I was out and about visiting friends when I could and also attending baby groups, and not worrying about whether they fitted in with a routine. Building a network of new mum friends has been very important to me, and personally I would have found it harder if I had been sticking to a routine designed by someone else. Breast feeding on demand also seems to make more sense to me than sticking to an artificial routine, particularly with regards to cluster feeding in the evenings.

My DS is in a routine now, but it is one which we have developed over time to suit us as a family, and IMO this suits us much better than sticking to a routine prescribed by someone who has never met us.

Teeth or lack of teeth has nothing to do with weaning choices. My friend's LO was weaning at the same stage as my DD she had teeth, he didn't. The gums are so hard he could tackle anything that she could. Anyway first food should all be soft, soft enough to crush on the roof of your mouth so whether it is pureed sweet potato or a 'chip' shaped piece of sweet potato that has been cooked properly teeth shouldn't matter.
Indigestion can occur when introducing solids as it is a big change from milk only - again method of weaning is irrelevant.
The only baby in RL that I am aware of having a genuine choking incident was puree fed.

I just wanted to agree with BornToFolk that BLW is not the only way to encourage self-feeding and non-fussiness; it is just one way. I did the whole pureeing thing, and enjoyed the planning and cooking etc and both my two were self feeding earlier than some. I think it is down to giving them a spoon from as early as soon as they can hold it, ignoring the bananas up the walls, and letting them get on with it.

I think the whole, "come on, just one more mouthful" thing combined with bribery is more likely to create fussy eaters. Children should be allowed to stop when they are full (with no filling up on snacks). Although I know some children have health problems, most children are not going to waste away if they don't eat much at one meal.

I guess my point is, have a look round and see what suits you and your family; that might be GF or it might be finding your own way.

Message withdrawn

lowrib - The point I was making in my previous post was that Gina Ford's books are successful because they work for a lot of parents, not because she does publicity, which is what you implied in your post.

lowrib "She is however very accomplished at self-promotion and selling books" - when did you last see her on TV, radio, or doing a newspaper interview. Fine if you don't like the woman, but she has worked for a lot of us, so no need to distort the truth.

I used both Gina Ford from day one as i like to know what I am supposed to be doing and it got DD used to loads of different foods very quickly and now I am using the recipes from AK and GF. They both have loads of great recipes you can batch cook and freeze. Buy yourself loads of tupperware!

I must say I've enjoyed making all the AK recipes. And the baby seems to love most of them. Peach and vanilla puree in the small square book is really nice.

But we have also done some BLW in a non-purist kind of a way - finger foods at every meal etc. The baby likes that as well.