How common is BLW in your area?

[mamabear]

I'm wondering how common the approach is in various countries. I'm Canadian and I've asked 2 doctors and many moms in my area and no one has heard of BLW except 1 mom I met. She did a puree/BLW combo. That was my plan as well but so far Monkey refuses to open his mouth for anything on a spoon but happily sucks away at bananas and cucumbers.

[RainbowBright]

I'm from Yorkshire, England. I know a couple of other mums at work who've done BLW, but in my immediate circle of mums with babies the same age as my LO, we are the only ones. I have felt very isolated and most people's opinion is very negative. However, the health visitors and government advice is actually promoting weaning at six months and encouraging finger foods, rather than focusing on purees. I find it strange that the vast majority of mums ignore this advice, although I guess it takes a very, very long time to shift the views of wider society and when you're a first time mum who's not vet confident the easiest thing is to go with whatever everyone else is doing. BLW is usually mentioned in magazine articles about weaning, but the information given is very basic. I find the media hugely biased towards traditional weaning, eg recepies for purees, offers for free jars of 'baby food' and free '5 step weaning plans' given away in every baby magazine I come across. If it weren't for the support I receive from this forum, I think I'd certainly be persuaded to go down the purée route simply through all the negativity I've encountered.
My LO has never let me come near him with a spoon, he just grabs it and shoves it in his mouth. I am very glad we've decided to stick with BLW, even though it can be challenging at times. The challenges tend to come from other proofs negative views, mostly around my LO not eating enough (despite him being on the 91st centile!) All I would say is that to do true BLW, you can't really do pureeing and BLW, it's one or the other. However I know a lot of people, including myself, who are tempted to start with purees, mostly because of the fear of choking. From personal experience, my LO has hardly gagged at all, not sure if he truly has even, here as most of the spoon fed babies I know gag constantly, especially when they encounter lumpy/mixes textures.

[RainbowBright]

Sorry for typo- 'proofs' should be 'people's' and 'mixes'
Should be 'mixed'!

[wacky12]

we are the only ones in the area and used to freak out the mums at the baby group - who I often see giving their 2 year olds whole bags of crisps nd chocolate bars. *sigh* I would jsut ignore what everyone else says and do what you feel comfortable with.

[t&n's mummy]

When we started no one had heard of it (I'm talking about the English speaking expat community, the Ukrainians think we are bonkers anyway...) t was a great advertisement though and many mums have asked me abou it, now there are quite a few little ones doing it.

[camper]

A few people had heard of it where we lived in the UK (I never discussed it with my HV though). Here in Queensland I've met two people who've heard of it! I'm sure there are more out there somewhere, but I just haven't met them. And as MJ was 18 months by the time we moved here it wasn't exactly surprising when people saw him eating real food. I'm told (sorry Queenslanders) that Queensland is often a bit backward in these kinds of things, so while there seem to be quite a few people from Victoria and New South Wales on the forum, I believe we are the only forum-ers currently in the north east of Oz.

[Nixxie]

Most people have heard of it now especially if they've been to weaning groups. A few do it, most do purees but I have come across people who say they're doing blw and then I see them popping bits of food in their babies mouths so they obviously don't fully understand it. In the past two years, its definitely gone from unheard of to something those wacky hippy parents do. So new mums nowadays go to weaning group, listen to the current health weaning advice which is blw around this area, and somehow end up doing purees anyway so obviously health professionals are not the main influence on them. I think a lot of people round here do early weaning as well which really annoys me, weaning before 17 weeks is against current health advice, why do it? My husband has Crohns disease thanks to that practice (probably) in the 80s.

[fourweewonders]

There one b'feeding group here where about 90% of the mum have gone on to do blw.

The surestart center does weaning classes and they do cover blw, and most mum seem to come out of them with the impression you can 'do a bit of both' i.e spoonfeed in some purees(to make sure they're getting enough) and then give fingerfoods, erm isnt this tradional weaning even waaaay back in the 80s my mum was encouraged to offer finger foods alongside purrees although those finger foods were bikipegs and rusks.

Blw isnt about the consistancy of the food, more its about a whole different attitude to weaning, allowing the baby to control intake, to explore food in it original form, because it all looks pretty much the same pureed. You can give purrees on loaded spoons if your blw, most mum dont do this too much as its as time consumeing as spoonfeeding.

2 years ago none of my h.v's had really heard of blw, now they're offering advice on it without acctully knowing what they're talking about. *bangs head againt wall emoticon*

[PolarBearGirl]

I'm the only one that i know that stuck with it - or only did BLW. Quite a few people tried it or did a mixture with their second after seeing A eat sandwiches etc, I think everyone has been much more relaxed with no 2 but I don't know if that's just how it goes or if knowing about BLW (even a bit) just freed everyone up.

My HV included BLW in her weaning talk and requested that I go when she knew I'd done it to talk to the other Mums about it. She was really keen about it but I think not having seen it done she wasn't totally confident about how it works, I thought it was really good as no-one knew anything about it at all 3 years ago!

[JollySergeantJackrum]

Our HV 'promotes' blw, but wasn't confident enough about it in our weaning class. She is very for it one on one though, but I think she needs to read the blw book. When I mentioned I had the book she said 'there are lots of books on blw'. I don't think she's right.

Weirdly, gagging/choking was not something that worried me. I've read enough to know that the bairn will gag.

None of the other mums here are doing it. One tried, but her son wasn't interested in picking things up. At 9 months he's still not very interested in his hands, so purees was probably the way to go for them.

[ceeLIN]

When i was going to a mum and baby group there weren't any other babies DD's age, but a couple of the older ones were doing BLW and my bf counsellor mentioned too.
When i went to a weaning talk at the sure start it wasn't mentioned so i asked if they could tell me anything about it and was told 'it's like breast feeding on demand - letting your baby guide you about how much and how often'.
I decided that i knew better than that and did my research

[BadgersMommy]

Totally unheard of in rural Idaho, where we did our early weaning. I learned about it from the La Leche League forums. A few people I run into here (Washington DC) have heard of it, but I haven't met anyone who's done it "full-time".

[skip]

The only other people I know who are doing/have done it are my step-sis (who found out about it independently from me, just looking for an alternative) and a friend who is doing it because she saw M weaned that way. Occasionally hear mums talk about it in cafes etc but usually they end up saying, "....but it'll be too messy...." or some other excuse. (And I'm too chicken to step in and be a spokesperson as I don't want to seem like a big judgey mcjudgeypants)

Never heard of a HV in our area talk about it, although mine nodded as if she knew what I was talking about when I mentioned it at one of M's check ups. She certainly didn't question it, though she was the same HV who suggested we start him on baby rice at 4 months. I think it IS becoming more common knowledge to HVs though. Our city is pretty 'alternative' and hippy, and BF is really encouraged in the local hospital though I don't think our BF rates are hugely above the rest of the country.

[shye]

My hvs promote it, and did 3 years ago as well.

[jvnt]

When we started no one had heard of it (I'm talking about the English speaking expat community, the Ukrainians think we are bonkers anyway...) t was a great advertisement though and many mums have asked me abou it, now there are quite a few little ones doing it.

This for us. Maybe expats are generally quite open to new and strange ideas.