Baby led weaning – well what a cracking concept that is. Touted by many as the lazy mothers route to feeding their baby solids. Just in case you don’t have the foggiest of what I am bleating on about let me quickly explain. Baby led weaning or BLW as us cool kids call it basically means chucking a lamb chop and a few chip shaped veggies in front of your child and letting them at it. To puree food is to show weakness to your child, to use a spoon is unforgivable. Bring out the choking hazards and let baby eat what baby wants and mother should be content with that.
So I am all about the lazy, the memory of pureeing up food for Twin boy and girl still causes me to shudder. Valuable hours of my life were wasted on a love affair with my food processor. Lovingly removing strands from sweet potatoes, coaxing sloppy pureed pear into perfect ice cube shapes, sterilising said ice cube trays so the twins could never blame me for their snotty noses. Although they were formula fed so I suppose it was my fault initially!
So bb gets to eat grown up food, she can gum her way through pretty much anything from roast beef to tuna sandwiches, she laughs when I put a spoon near her choosing to bat it away preferring to immerse her whole body in whatever is put on the high chair.
But whoever said this way of feeding was for the lazy mother is clearly a fool, or a rich person with a maid. In one meal alone bb can repaint the dining room in pasta sauce, I now have broccoli splattered walls contrasted with a shepherd pie mottled floor. Bibs prove ineffectual against the extreme messiness of meal times and I now prefer to feed bb wearing only my underwear to ensure that less time is spent bonding with the washing machine. There are size zero models that could increase to a size ten just from looking at the waste that is left every mealtime and whereas I used to spend hours boiling and mushing up food into smooth pastes I now spend it with my arse in the air and my hands on the floor bleaching and washing every surface and floor tile.
The high chair is never clean unless I ‘forget’ to put it away and leave it with the dog’s tongue for some special alone time. But even then I have to recover it with a fine layer of Dettol – as even I have minimum hygiene standards that must be adhered to.
I have noticed that my invitations for lunch have dried right up since bb started eating grub, probably not helped by the fact that she adores re decorating other people’s houses more than her own.
But still what baby wants baby gets and it seems my baby wants real grown up food!
Oh you’re naughty! I love those photos, but sugar before the age of 1?! *shock, horror*
I’m not one for baby-led weaning, mainly ‘cos I started him at the age of 4 months (bad mother). That’s not to say I disapprove of it, each to their own preference.
Marshmallows!
Sounds like she’s getting in plenty of practice for all the food fights she will have when she’s older.
Food fights??????? Help me
Teehee – adorable photos XD
I’ve done a bit of a mad mix of BLW and manic puree-ing. Does this make me extra lazy?
fab post,
With my first i was ultra lazy and jar fed my son at 4 months (i really, really wish i knew better! ) he then struggled with lumps at 7months,
Then with my daughter, at 6 months she was weaned and mainly ate what we did, but mashed up. nothing was pureed, but with things like spag bol,curries, i spoon fed it to her, so it ended up being a mix of all weaning types.
I think anything will work as long as you put less pressure on yourself and go with something that works with your whole family. not just the baby, or the health visitor who i havent seen in nearly 3 years, i think she realised i stopped listening to her and just got on with it in my own way and not word for word of her book she read.
xoxo
Brilliant post, perfect description of how it goes and I love your writing style! Thumbs up from me 🙂
The mess… the horror… the mess… yep, if you’re gonna do BLW then you need to cover yourself, your child and your house in cling film at every mealtime. But on the plus side, it is great to be able to eat at the same time, especially if you’re out. We did Nando’s with our 10 month old last week and we all had a great time eating chicken with our hands like savages. Then we left the staff to clean up the mess. Naughty but fabulous!!!
what a great idea!
x
Lazy, now there’s a word for any mother to cringe at. I remember my late father-in-law calling me lazy once, the git. He accused me of being lazy because I wanted to spend time “playing” with my daughter rather than “making his supper”. yes, I’m serious.
The people who class we lazy mothers, are usually the ones who do indeed have maids, cleaners, aupairs etc. And they would be get the decorators in when baby threw a bean at the skirting board.
I remember making dinners for Amy when she was little and she enjoyed them. I didn’t buy jar stuff though I see no reason why it shouldn’t be used. Maybe these mothers think breast feeding is lazy. After all, it’s not like you have to mix anything is it? Just flop ’em out and job’s done.
Bingo.
CJ xx
I puree’d and did all the stuff for ds, because I had the time. I even used that snotty Karmel cookbook. How I laugh now! However, dd arrived 15 mo after ds, and she weaned herself, because I was too knackered to be safe enough to use a blender, and because she basically ate anything she could grab/ left on the floor/ steal off her bro, lumpy or not. She BLW herself. I have a photo of her gnawing on a chicken bone at 7mo. Bad mummy! But hey, I don’t think she got it off the floor. Maybe off the cat.
BLW – tis the way forward – but if only it was not so messy!
Really funny! There’s imagery in there that I may not forget in a hurry…
Ellie’s always been a bit like that with food: always determined to feed herself, although she accepts a spoon. Jake’s always been the opposite: loves being spoon-fed but will feed himself now too. (I know what you’re thinking: “typical man!”). I’ve been told already. Several times…).
At least you didn’t put slate floor in your kitchen /diner: have you ever tried cleaning that stuff?! And guess whose job that is? I call our kitchen ‘WAG’: looks great; high maintenance 😉
Great post 🙂
I’ve always done a bit of both. Finger foods, a spoon to try with as a soon as they could wave it about, purees and ice cube trays and jars of baby food too. Why do people get so adamant about one way or the other?
I don’t understand how people without a dog manage with small kids though. My floors and indeed my children are often cleaned by the amazing power of dog tongue, and I have no shame in admitting it. They hardly ever get sick, either. Though the dog has got rather fat!
Haha…. that totally resonates! I was actually just bum in the air and knees on the floor scrubbing my dd’s splashmat after a lovely (and very delicious I must add) mushroom risotto (from the BLW cookbook…). My husband thinks it’s hilarious that at this age she already has her mummy on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor.
I do still get a bit paranoid with large bits and watch her like a hawk but she seems to manage them just fine and if not she always manages to somehow get them out of her mouth. The funniest is when she has a huge sneeze and a whole mouthful of food lands somewhere (usually on me!!)
For the lazy indeed…
Oh my word! there is a cook book? blimey must go read…..
it has been a while since I wrote this and I must admit last week I did get a bit tired of the endless mess so I went out and bought some beautifully overpriced jars – she wont eat them!!!!! lol
thanks for dropping by