PostingNever-good-enough Mum

You just can't get it right as a parent. Hours of my life spent grafting at the coal face of motherhood, hacking up wholesome organic vegetables and reducing them to pureed slime, of which my daughter might, on a good day, consent to eat a grudging spoonful, and now look what happens.

I finally master an RSS feed from the BBC and one of the first things I see today is the latest directive from Mothering HQ telling me I've wasted my time, my sweet potatoes and my freezer space by pureeing all this food.

In all honesty I always knew The Bean preferred fromage frais to anything I made. Now it seems that pureed food is not just unpalatable, but bad, bad, bad.

For it seems purees are in fact the work of evil food manufacturers who want parents in their commercial  thrall for years to come.

The Unicef Baby-Friendly Initiative almost equates pureeing food with  formula-milk makers peddling their evil powder to third-world countries.

Truly, motherhood and martyrdom go hand in hand. I know now how poor old St Sebastian must have felt. Not so much plugged full of unfriendly arrows, as, in my case, pierced to the heart by my own Moulinex whizzing wand, stoned by a flurry of small plastic food receptacles, shamed in the village stocks by the liberal daubing of pureed parsnip thrown at me by my own daughter.

Like all parenting gurus, Unicef wheels out a battery of dire consequences for any parents foolish enough to consider ignoring the received wisdom on pureeing.

You see, babies get addicted to pureed food.

And spoon-feeding babies pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary.

Why, it could delay the onset of their chewing skills. Babies unlucky enough to be fed pureed food by their reckless parents have little control over how much they eat.

Which in turn makes them vulnerable to getting blocked up. Oh, and they could also become fussy eaters in later life.

If Unicef had their way babies would survive on a milk-only diet for six months and then move straight onto solids. Bypassing evil gloop altogether.

I've yet to meet a mother who made it to the six-month mark before breaking out the Organix baby rice. If anyone reading this has a child who made it that far on milk alone, I congratulate you. Please could you let the rest of us know how you managed it.

So, here's my idea, how about we expand the Unicef remit. It could include not just a Baby-Friendly Initiative, but a Mother-Friendly one too.

Ideally, one that publishes research proving what we all know - that once babies are onto baby rice at four or five months, their mums can get a decent night's sleep, without waking twice a night to open up the mini-bar.

Actually, no, forget about baby rice. If I'd known Unicef's ideas on purees sooner there'd have been no mulched-up carrots or rice. No, I'd have served up a nice, tasty steak and chips to my daughter. Start as you mean to go on. Medium rare, I think.... Softer on the (non-existent) teeth that way.

Posted 19 June 2007 02:38

Daughter Food Mistakes Parenting gurus Perfectionism Breastfeeding

Comments

DJ Kirkby said:
Speaking as a midwife who is constantly issued with pro breast feeding materials...

It is my understanding that Unicef and other pro breast feeding organisations actualy want all mothers to breast feed for a year! Now I am all for breast feeding by number 3 son had to go onto solids when I went back to work because my milk dried up from the stress of being back in the clinical enviornment... so if these groups want us to continue breast feeding then they need to also figure out how to pay women a whole year's maternity leave! (Not that I am VERY bitter and twisted about having had to leave my boy and go back to work or anything...)

Posted 19 June 2007 10:19

beta mum said:
breast is best

When mine were babies (and the youngest is still only 6) the advice was 4-6 months, then start with the mashing. So I did it at 4 months, figuring any reduction in frequency of breast-feeding, however slight, had to be a good thing - for me. When I was a baby, food was offered much younger, and my mum was continually telling me to give them mashed up meat with a bit of gravy from the moment they could focus. I grew up able to chew, as did my children, as will (I imagine) all future generations of children.

Posted 19 June 2007 11:03

Mother at Large said:
Let's face it....

... you just can't win. If it's not the shifting sands of various breastfeeding edicts, then there's this latest nonsense about pureed food. All handed down to mums like the latest update on the Ten Commandments. What got to me was that no sooner had we got b/feeding going well than daughter was 6mths and my health visitor started putting pressure on me to stop.

Posted 19 June 2007 11:06

Mother at Large said:
DJ, Beta Mum

Hi DJ, sounds like your boy's lucky to have you as his mum. Hi Beta Mum, it's reassuring, isn't it, to think we most of us get there in the end!

Posted 19 June 2007 11:22

iota said:
Tablets of stone

What really gets me, having had 3 children with a 3 year gap between each, is how quickly the advice changes, and then how the new advice becomes, as you say, like the Ten Commandments, and the previous advice discounted or even ridiculed. As for me, I'm waiting for the scientific research that proves that vegetables (particularly green ones) are harmful for toddlers - and that they knew best all along. I think you'd hear the cheering, as we all added that one to our tablets.

Posted 19 June 2007 14:39

Erica said:
Funny

"their mums can get a decent night's sleep, without waking twice a night to open up the mini-bar" Laughing out loud, I wish I could write like that!!

Posted 19 June 2007 16:46

Mother at Large said:
Hi Iota, yes, cheering, or the sound of splattered gloop

Babies of the world unite! Rise up in revolution against green veg! Hi Erica, thanks, but what are you saying, you do write very well!

Posted 19 June 2007 17:47

Omega Mum said:
Guilt after birth

It's so obviously a conspiracy. Having run out of ways to scare pregnant women, they're unpacking their boxes of weaning worries, just for laughs. Ignore everything.

Posted 19 June 2007 21:24

Mother at Large said:
Conspiracy

You're right, Omega Mum, I know you're right. But I remain pathetically vulnerable to these scare surveys.

Posted 20 June 2007 11:15

Stay at home dad said:
Blissful Ignorance

Agreed OM. I find the best advice on childcare is to ignore everyone and everything that purports to be advice.

Posted 20 June 2007 11:34

Mother at Large said:
Unwanted advice

Yes, SAHD, best to "follow one's instincts". Unfortunately mine were scrambled beyond repair during pregnancy and childbirth.

Posted 20 June 2007 12:22

Drunk Mummy said:
Ignore it - you know it makes sense!

This is another piece of 'advice,' which, like all the others should be ignored (or better still - laughed at). I thought I was the only person who opened up the mini-bar twice a night. But I'm not breastfeeding.

Posted 20 June 2007 18:34

Mother at Large said:
Mini-bar

Drunk Mummy, all these surveys would drive any parent to the mini-bar.

Posted 20 June 2007 19:05

DJ Kirkby said:
Just read some of your other writings...

Wow! This piece that you had published in the Miscarriage Association really meant a lot ot me as a specialist midwife in antenatal and newborn screening. I plan to implement some changes in how I and others on my team work after reading this. Thank you for sharing your very personal observations, it has made a difference to how one very large maternity hospital in the South of England will deal with certain aspects of antenatal screening.

Posted 21 June 2007 21:51

agathoise said:
It's not rocket science, really... (part 1)

When babies are ready to start solids, you can't stop them: they will mug you for your food. Believe me, it's a lot cleaner, easier and more fun for everybody to give your baby steamed broccoli spears or chunks of ripe mango to gum on at 6-7 months than it is to faff about with jars/blenders/moulis etc. Not to mention making your life easier by reducing spog's chance of developing allergies (introduction of complementary foods at developmentally appropriate time)... What's the big rush to get "solid" food into babies anyway? None of the early foods are as calorific as human milk, which should remain the main part of the diet for the first 12 months with solids introduced for developmental reasons, fun and exploration of tastes and textures. If this advice meant doing something difficult I'd understand the hostility, but basically it involves doing LESS. Hello? Do you really want to be a slave to your food processor? Are you really so wedded to Annabelle Karmel's recipes? You LIKE the mess mush makes? You're in a hurry to swap benign breastfed baby poo for the mankier stinkier solid-food stuff? I just don't get it. (continued)

Posted 22 June 2007 13:47

agathoise said:
It's not rocket science, really... (part 2)

<continued from above> AND -- since when were employment and breastfeeding incompatible? Loads of mothers continue to breastfeed long after going back to work: even one nursing a day has huge benefits for baby and you can keep breastfeeding once or twice a day indefinitely (and no, your breasts won't leak in between nursing times: your supply will regulate itself to demand within a few days). If you fancy it, you can use a breastpump, but it isn't necessary. Just nurse baby when you're with her/him: what a nice way to re-connect after a separation! Babies are developmentally ready for solid food around the middle of the first year. The signs of readiness include - being able to sit up unassisted - tongue-thrusting reflex gone (c.5-6 month) - ability to pick up food and bring to mouth The tongue thrusting reflex is nature's way of protecting babies from taking in food before they're ready. Pureeing is our way of thwarting this protective instinct. Just because you may not have done some of these things, doesn't mean mothers who do are wrong. Far from being 'new' advice, this stuff has all been recommended by the WHO since the mid 1990s (see Innocenti Declaration): it's just taken the UK Dept. of Health a few years to catch up. As parents we make the best decisions we can with whatever information is currently available at that time. There's no point in beating youself up about past decisions because you now have new information any more than there's any point in being hostile to other mothers who are making the best decisions that they can for their children with the information available to them now.

Posted 22 June 2007 13:49

Mother at Large said:
For the record...!

Think you might have slightly misunderstood, Agathoise, what was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek posting, but welcome to the site! For the record, my daughter was exclusively breast-fed until five months and one week. Like many mothers, I knew she needed supplementary food at that point because she started waking several times a night. I continued breastfeeding her - while working for some of the time - until she was more than a year old.

Posted 22 June 2007 14:21

BaffledDad said:
It's not rocket science...

Surely MotherAtLarge's primary point is that the gurus' advice is inconsistent. Mothers (and fathers) follow today's advice in good faith, only to discover that they've suddenly joined the ranks of Bad Parents when the advice changes. I know very little about rocket science, but I'd like to imagine it's based on firmer principles...

Posted 22 June 2007 14:38

Stu Mark said:
You've Been Nominated!

This post has been nominated by our readers for Hot Stuff Of The Week! Congrats! Stu <a href = "http://www.gnmparents.com">GNMParents</a>

Posted 26 June 2007 17:26

beta mum said:
well done

come on MatL - get your campaign team on the cae. Will head there now.

Posted 26 June 2007 20:36

beta mum said:
Feeling hot, hot, hot

You won. Well done. The adulation of your peers and some extra hits.

Posted 29 June 2007 20:28

Mother at Large said:
Cheers, Beta Mum

BM, thank you! It made my Friday afternoon, let me tell you.

Posted 29 June 2007 22:38

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