We've been asked to attend a '3-4 month Health Review and Weaning Session' on Thursday morning. It's a group session lasting 1.5hrs (yawn!) I was just wondering what your experiences have been if you've discussed BLW with your HV? I'm not sure what to expect at this session but I'm thinking I'll probably smile and nod with whatever they say!

We had Maya's 3 month review at home but it is at this point they discuss weaning as babies aren't officially seen again til 1 year unless you take them to clinic in the meantime.
I must admit and I seem to be in the minority, that my HV is wonderful. Not pushy, no outdated /ridiculous advice. she asked me what weaning route we'd be taking (we will do purée and finger food) but she was happy to discuss BLW too.

Mine was a home visit and she encouraged finger foods. She said puréed are good to an extent but said it's good to give them bits to pick up and hold themselves and to get used to different textures.

I didn't go to the weaning chats either time as i was confident in what I was doing.  With Zoe I told the health visitor I was going to do baby led weaning and her response was "fantastic, someone I don't have to convince" and she left me to it.  This time around they have shown no interest.  

Thanks ladies, that's reassuring :-) I've only seen the HV for our initial review and hearing check. Hopefully they'll be pro BLW.

My hv this time has been fantastic. Very pro blw and bf. Got so much help with J when our latch was terrible. We don't get a 3mth check or weaning talk. The variation in care is quite shocking.

We went to a weaning talk a couple of weeks ago. The hv said that they recommend a combination of blw and spoon feeding which told me everything I needed to know about their attitude - they didn't seem to actually know what blw was! At the part where they said about introducing softly mashed food S blew a huge, loud, wet raspberry. I was so proud! Worth going just to gauge their take on things but I'm not expecting an awful lot of support or knowledge from them.

Unfortunately our HVs don't have a clue! They seem to think it's all very new age and hairy fairy. They can't support it apparently as its not proven for inclusion in their guidelines. They are largely leaving me to it as I've been so forthright with them and well researched, but it's rubbish I can't go to them for support, if I have a concern they mainly harp back to 'well, if you were weaning like normal........'

Mixed here as well. At a postnatal group weaning talk with #2, I disagreed with them when they said that waking in the night and taking an interest in your food were signs of readiness to wean, and this time one HV was supportive of finger foods from the start whilst the other is still recommending starting on baby rice, pureed potato or other bland foods before moving on and was a bit taken aback when I said that N eats what we eat. I haven't specifically mentioned BLW as we're doing some spoon feeding alongside finger foods but I suspect it wouldn't be what they recommend.

Hmm so mixed! I will report back on Thursday :-) thanks for the replies xx

M refused to be spoon fed. I took her to get weighed at about 8/9 months and the hv asked if I'd introduced lumps yet. I said oh she won't take purees, and she replied "what on earth are you feeding her then?"

Luckily she's retired now. Will soon find out what her replacement is like!

Well that was a bit pointless! Watched a DVD which was more towards BLW and then she just asked if we had any questions, one lady has already started weaning with puree fruits but everyone else just nodded along with waiting until 6 months.

Oh, got told (by another mum) that O is 'tiny', this happened yesterday at baby massage!

Doesn't sound very worthwhile. We had 6 weeks of postnatal classes when I was tiny. I already knew I wanted to do BLW. Our HV didn't even talk about it until I mentioned it & just kind of brushed it off as something you could do then proceeded to continue down the puree route. Tried some baby rice & knew that I was making the right choice not to feed her that!!!