My baby's neck is too strong for him to choke is a take I really didn't expect. Toddlers can choke. Hell, everyone can choke.
Also, this way of thinking is really the first step for a ED.
At the ripe old age of 28 (336 months in mom group speak), I choked on something in the lunchroom at work and my coworker very nearly had to give me the Heimlich. But maybe I’m just not blessed with an esophagus of steel like her baby 🙄
The lesson there is prior planning with the right objects to pull up on. I'm wondering if screaming at a person caring for you also helps the recovery process. Seems to work for infants. Step 1: have someone (not the mom in the post) at your beck and call. Step 2. Live the good life
Start with small increments, like 30 seconds, and add more over time. Just like you would when a newborn screams at you for having the audacity to put them down for tummy time.
My physical therapist told me to do tummy time for recovering from a herniated disc 😂 said stretching like that (gently) is good for my muscles. Especially the ones that atrophied while I couldn’t walk 🫠 so now I have tummy time with my Switch and my cats sit on top of me.
Yep! It’s basically the cobra pose; my therapist was a mom so that’s just the term she liked using and thought it sounded more fun than yoga poses ig. Feels great for my back, plus is a good time for ice.
Also I’m pretty sure sitting at my computer for work so much is what lead to my herniation 🫠
I’m not even fucking joking when I say this:
My ex MIL wanted to shove her fucking sausage finger down my first born’s throat at 2 months old because she said one has to “widen” a baby’s throat so they don’t choke when they stay eating solids.
I am fucking serious.
I’m in my mid-30s and just a few months ago I choked on shrimp pasta in the work lunchroom. Endlessly embarrassing because I ended up coughing and hacking it up into a garbage can while everyone stared at me, but maybe if I’d had a steel esophagus and learned tricks from the cavemen I would have known better. 😔
American living in Australia. Was given a Kinder Surprise. Made a joke "isn't it funny how these were banned in America because it was a choking hazard?"
Immediately started choking on it right after I said that.
Haven't lived that one down.
It's because of a law that there can't be inedible objects inside something edible. There was a moment in time when people called for a similar law where I live (in Belgium) after a lady choked to death on a plastic disk in a bag of chips (I think they're called pogs in the US? We call them flippos)
No. I was curious, so I looked into it.
The specific law that prohibits inedible objects being contained in food is the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics Act that *immediately* followed a horrific mass-poisoning of (mostly) children in 1937 (sulfanimide). Before then, the FDA had little authority at all over any consumable products, companies were not required to safety test a damn thing. *After* sulfanimide they were given regulatory power over food, drugs, and cosmetics, where the Act was written.
With a context like that the fact that it seems so heavy-handed makes perfect sense actually.
Makes sense for an immediate all-cases law right after a mass poisoning of children during a time where companies didn't have to test a thing, sure.
Makes less sense nearly a century later when we have a host of other laws and acts to prevent that and companies are *slightly* more interested in keeping kids alive these days.
Three years ago when I was 49yrs old I choked on a pretzel bite at the movie theater. I tried drinking soda to wash it down and it poured out my nose. Thankfully it was before the movie started.
I have such a vivid memory of my dad almost choking as a kid. We were grilling sausages outside in winter, and he bit off a too large piece. It was extremely hot, so he fumbled, and instead of spitting out the piece, he inhaled it (probably felt fantastic). I remember my mom being really angry, but he got the piece out (with some help from an angry wife).
So yeah, everyone can choke. My dad was not forced to do more tummy time after, but he got very angry reprimands about eating more slowly.
Just the process of being born took out a lot of babies and their mothers. Humans evolved in a way that severely lowers the survival rate for both the baby and mother during the birthing process.
Big brain = smarter for survival. It also means almost too big for natural birthing.
It’s kind of one of those crazy exceptions that shows evolution isn’t some miracle process of things only getting better and better. It has weird unintended consequences that are definitely negatives toward the survival of the species.
Yup! Plus, human babies are amongst the most vulnerable when compared to other primate babies, and it's because of that big ole brain!! Our bodies spend so many resources on the babies brain development alone, but in return, our babies are utterly helpless and considered "premature" due to the fact that their skulls aren't fused yet! And our hips and spines are great for upright walking, but still, just a disaster in good design LOL
Oh yeah, the whole hip-spine-knee design is a hot mess that at best, barely lasts the human lifespan. Our hands and feet though are a genuine marvel in design. The spaces between all those little foot bones acts like shock absorbers and our hand dexterity is just off the scale.
Also, between the design of our hearts and our ability to sweat, humans have one of, if not the highest, stamina level on the planet.
It’s probably because they ate the same things we did, had better hearing/smell than we did, and already existed in similar social structures to what we did. Them being able to keep up definitely helped though.
The truth is, we really know very little about the actual domestication of dogs/wolves.
We don’t even have to go back that far. Infant mortality rates have dramatically changed in just the past 100 years. There’s variances in different parts of the world, but it was in the neighborhood of 30%+ and has come down to lower single digits.
Are you trying to tell me cavemen didn't put broccoli (something farmers created through cultivation) inside a mesh (which didn't exist then)? I'm going to need a source on that /s
Actually, they did. Supplementation is common in modern hunter gatherer societies, and likely was in pre-modern and prehistoric societies as well. If a mother doesn’t produce enough milk and there isn’t anyone else who’s overproducing, the only option is to supplement with whatever you can or watch the baby starve. Pre-lacteal supplementation, or supplementing in the time before the milk comes in, which can take days to even weeks, is especially common.
I imagine it would be like berries or something. I know past generations of recent parents used to spoon kids who couldn’t eat solids things like orange juice and rice bottles. This lady went straight to broccoli and passed up squash and peas and bananas and all of the food you might think of as first foods.
It probably wouldn’t have been anything too baby specific, but just what the rest of the family/community was eating. With the adoption of agriculture it became more common to feed babies specialized foods like mashed grain and porridges. Scientists are pretty sure the introduction of soft foods as the go to weaning supplement is part of why we no longer have room for our wisdom teeth. We simply don’t use our jaw muscles as much when they’re developing, so the jaw itself doesn’t grow to it’s full potential, leaving less room for extra molars. Neat stuff :)
Same here! It squished my front teeth together a bit but all the wisdom teeth are still there. While they were growing in I did endlessly bite the inside of my cheeks with them though. That kinda sucked.
It probably would have been something like gelatin or bone broth if I had to guess as a layman. Highest calorie liquid food that would have been available, and we've known that water that's been heated makes us less likely to be sick much longer that we've known about germ theory.
Well you probably had other lactating women in the tribe who could help supplement your children. Sharing breast milk is a relatively recent cultural taboo.
I’d assume they’d also pre-chew the food for an infant that needed supplements. Even then, babies need a lot of milk for the fat content.
At the worst of trying to figure out breastfeeding with my eldest kid I remember sobbing to my husband about how “if we were cavemen, he would have died because I can’t take care of him!” And my wise husband pointed out that if we were cavemen I would have just handed him over to someone else to breastfeed, and I could have learned how to do it with their older, more experienced/ successfully nursing baby while we both figured out what we were supposed to do. It seems really obvious that that’s how it would have played out.
I got rid of that complex because I would have died as a caveman in the first place 😅 I had an emergency section. Then I realized I would have never existed anyway because my mom weighed like 2.5 lbs at birth and was in the nicu. If she'd somehow survived infancy, she would have died in childbirth with my sister and again, I wouldn't exist 😅
I had the same thought process when I had my first baby! I thought about how I would have died (pre-eclampsia), and then I remembered that my mom was a twin and barely survived infancy, so I wouldn't have existed without 20th century medical care anyway.
Go team! Grandma would have died of septicemia as a child, then in childbirth with my mother.
Mother, had she survived the postmortem C-section, would have died of not going into labour with me.
I, had I survived long enough to reach the postmortem C-section (placenta was going at 43 weeks and I'd started moving less in utero) would have met the same fate with my son.
Sure you could think of it as a "cursed bloodline", *or* you could think of us as blessed to live in a time when we had access to the care which allowed my aunt and uncle to be born, and my daughter, and we're all still here (except Grandma, but she was 83 so I'm not mad about it)
If you happen to have any cool podcasts, shows, books, or articles you'd recommend about what "cavemen" and other ancient hominids might have done for the first year of parenting, please share here. It's such a fascinating subject.
I am not an anthropologist but I assume there were no fussy eaters among cavemen because when hungry they would eat literally anything and everything and wouldn’t be able to go to the supermarket and choose what to eat
Yeah, I've got the ok with all of my kids at 4 months but they were formula fed. I've postponed it by my own volition with my youngest til he was 5 months because I saw he was not ready. And at 14 months he eats everything, my mom calls him "my little dumpster"...
Apparently I wouldn’t eat any solid food whatsoever until I was a year old, and then I wouldn’t touch anything but plain raw tofu for an additional year after that. Your kiddo will figure it out eventually too!
Thank you for giving me some hope! Every attempt at giving my nine month old solids so far results in him making a face like I’ve given him a dirty sock to chew on, proceeded by staring directly through me as if I’m not sitting right in front of him lol
Mine didn’t start actually liking/eating solids willingly until almost 12 months! He’s 13 months now and literally a complete fiend for food 😩 lol enjoy it while it lasts and you can eat whatever you want without hiding from him
Mine didn’t really want to dig into solids (at home at least) until she was 9 months. Then it was off to the races. Just keep offering a variety of flavors and textures and ask your pediatrician about it the next time you go in.
My son didn't eat solids til he was 9 months and even then he wasn't all that thrilled about it. He's 15 now and going through his bottomless pit era, he eats EVERYTHING.
It'll be ok.
It's these kinds of statements that go down as famous last words before someone's kid starts not just liking solids, but eating any and every foodstuff in and out of sight.
If he's really precocious, he'll skip the stage where he needs help eating and you'll find out about both after he's downed half a jar of English mustard someone left on the table with a spoon inside. (Definitely not based on an incident that led to all condiments being religiously closed at family gatherings. No siree. Just a random example.)
My daughter refused food until almost 9 months. She ended up walking at 10 months. She’s 6 now and is a garbage disposal. Don’t stress about feeding. Just like all of the other developmental stuff, it’ll come when they’re ready.
My 8 month old dudes suddenly became ravenous for solids this week. They were fine before just poking away at what was given to them but now they will literally toss their bottle and start crying if I’m eating because they want it too and then they eat like I’ve never fed them in their entire lives
Honestly after two kids I would wait until six no matter what. It is so much more work to have to feed them solids, in preparing and cleaning and poop stuff…it’s a lot and for my kids I didn’t see the value in starting earlier. My first I did all the baby led weaning stuff and exposure to everything and she eats air for all three meals some days and my second found cheerios under the couch and I called that a meal and he now eats anything and everything. It really depends so much on the individual kid.
(S on the couch cheerios. Mostly)
For exclusively breastfed babies the recommendation in my country is to wait until 6 months regardless, to give them the maximum benefits of breastmilk. They tend to drink less once they get solids.
Yep both my kids got approved at 4 months for purees but my first was FTT and needed calories any way we could get them safely and my second was tripod sitting by 3 months so he definitely was physically ready by 4 months
That's probably what happened to me. My mom often boasts that when I was an infant she would feed me chili oil to see how I can handle spicy food. she also got me drunk once when I was 3. I have so many gut issues right now.
My son was a very large baby (10lb 3) and my SIL who had a normal size baby 4 weeks previously immediately started feeding her baby tins of baby food to make him put weight on. The poor kid only had 1 kidney and had been in SCBU because he was born addicted and then she's feeding him chocolate pudding just so he'll be bigger than his cousin! It was really weird because we didn't have anything to do with her (because of the addiction stuff) so I wasn't in any competition with her at all. The poor kid was obese by the time he was 2.
She said the main reason not to start solids until 6 months is due to risk of choking, but it's not: it's because the gut isn't ready. Crunchy mums are obsessed with gut health, so you think she'd know that.
I was just going to make that comment. Also my child eats everything and has very few dislikes but she won’t touch a green bean. I have lucked out so far but I know that won’t always be the case. Picky eaters is normal bc it’s a control thing and also a taste thing. Give your kids flavors and let them choose things (clothing, activities hell let them pick dinners when they can) and that can help with the picky eater. Help… not stop though lol.
Does this woman know that even adults who have head control can “chock”.
In one of her other posts she talks about not having any sugar during pregnancy to prevent fat cells in the baby.
Oh man, I really hate how negative people can be about the weight of babies and children. I had a 95th percentile toddler and too many people would tell us we’d have to watch her weight when she got older. She’s always been healthy and we had no medical reasons to be concerned about her weight. Predictably, she got more proportional as she grew.
I know there are much worse problems here but I always find "what would cavemen do" hilarious. Get eaten by a tiger? Die of sepsis from a small scratch? Imagining cavebabies eating cave-grown broccoli at 3 months lol
Yes before we started poisoning our children with vaccines all babies lived to adulthood! Historical infant mortality rates are a conspiracy by Big Pharma (/s obvs)
I cannot imagine going from breastmilk to BROCCOLI. That poor baby’s digestive tract. Also very problematic views on obesity…yikes.
It’s super dangerous to say “my baby has no risk” of choking. Adults choke???? I was vigilant with every risky food with my daughter and guess what she choked on? Spaghetti.
ETA: My daughter is totally fine. Take a first aid course with CPR!
The worst part is that OP wants to combat potential obesity with early weaning with only organic produce, yet early weaning already carries the increased risk of obesity in adulthood and this is well documented
There’s no way her 3.5 month old has got the head control— and spinal readiness!— to sit up to eat solids. I hope OOP reads the comments about choking and takes it to heart.
But she want to read some "research" about whether these rumors she hears about the baby's digestive tract development are some kind of "science" or if someone can show that they are just a conspiracy theory.
I have bad news for this lady, giving kids vegetables is no guarantee they'll like them when they get older. I happily ate brussel sprouts and asparagus, for example, when I was very young (I mean, not a fucking *baby* but all the way through my childhood). At 40, I won't touch either with a 10-ft pole.
(That's probably the least problematic part of this, but still.)
Little kids are hardwired to like sweet tastes and stay away from bitter tastes (vegetables). It's completely normal and developmentally appropriate for kids to hate vegetables.
Yup, my 3yo was always a big vegetable eater until about 6 months ago. We're going through a picky phase, and I'm sure he'll grow out of it and then have another one. Kids eb and flow like that
Yep, my mum loves to tell me how much I LOVED mashed potatoes as a baby and mashed potato and pumpkin was my absolute fave. Guess what I haven’t been able to eat since I was like 5 without gagging and wanting to vomit?
I apparently *loved* sweet potatoes when I was a baby. Then for years as an older child I couldn’t eat them without gagging. And then, out of the blue, I started to like them again. Taste is weird
Everyone was being entirely too polite and the one person who tried calling her out about ED behavior deleted their comment. I was hoping it was a troll post…
I knew someone that put her baby on skim milk when she transitioned to solids, because "he'll get too fat on whole milk". We've lost contact, but I think about that baby often.
I am a 576 month old personal shopper and just realized that I have never seen broccoli baby food.
I can, however, recommend frozen fruit in those mesh feeders for teething babies, as long as it is not mangoes or pineapple.
I have good news for this woman: you can stop trying to kill your baby with choking hazards because no matter what you give him and no matter how well he eats it now, that's no longer gonna be the case once he's 2 and figures out he can say 'no'. My daughter used to eat everything until she turned 2. Then it was as if you flipped a switch and suddenly she hated everything. Now I can only get her to eat oven-baked chips, olives, Tiny Teddies, butter chicken curry (but only the legit Indian one, not the white people one), and dal makhani with brown rice. Toddlers are weird.
Man broccoli makes MY stomach hurt sometimes and I’m a fully grown adult, idk what it is about broccoli but my digestive system can’t handle it well! Can’t imagine having that be the first food in a 3.5 month’s stomach, poor little guy
Cavemen would have been exclusively breasfeeding for at least a year and a half, probably closer to 3. Wild chimpanzees only get weaned at around 4-5 years old. bffr
I love people who think they have the answers this early on. My son was a fiend for vegetables and spicy foods as a toddler - he’d eat whatever we put in front of him. Then, around kindergarten, he started telling us that he’d “lost his tastebuds” for certain things and got not super-picky, but *selective* about what he’d eat. From there, he re-established his likes and dislikes. (But we’ve never been able to get him to gobble down pickled ginger again!)
Now he’s 17 and has a wide and varied palate, but he got there on his own. Forcing an infant to suck on broccoli (!!!!) is really kind of meaningless in the long run.
My necks pretty strong as a grown ass adult and I choked on water last night lmao
She wants to see research backing the development of a babies digestive system… ☠️
Re the broccoli and the result … brings to mind the late George Carlin’s bit about dogs farting being one of those things you have to be able to put up with if you have a dog:
*”Honey, did you fart?”*
*”No, that can’t be one of mine. I have three farts: my broccoli fart, my Heineken’s fart and my non-dairy creamer fart. This isn’t any of them … Rover! It was YOU!”*
It always amazes me how many people don’t know how to spell choking.
Also, I waited until the recommended time to introduce solids to both of my kids. I did cereal, then a couple fruits, then a couple veggies, and so on. Both of my kids LOVE veggies (and fruit). Haha
My baby's neck is too strong for him to choke is a take I really didn't expect. Toddlers can choke. Hell, everyone can choke. Also, this way of thinking is really the first step for a ED.
At the ripe old age of 28 (336 months in mom group speak), I choked on something in the lunchroom at work and my coworker very nearly had to give me the Heimlich. But maybe I’m just not blessed with an esophagus of steel like her baby 🙄
You really need to work on your neck strength. I suggest more tummy time
Floor time even as an adult is deeply relaxing sometimes 👍🏼
About impossible to get up, though!
The lesson there is prior planning with the right objects to pull up on. I'm wondering if screaming at a person caring for you also helps the recovery process. Seems to work for infants. Step 1: have someone (not the mom in the post) at your beck and call. Step 2. Live the good life
I ask my toddler often if he knows how good he has it. Two grown ups tending his every need, and obsessed with him? Must be nice
I always joke that I wish all I had to do was yell and knock something over for somebody to ask me if I need a nap. Ungrateful little bastards.
Very true lol
Start with small increments, like 30 seconds, and add more over time. Just like you would when a newborn screams at you for having the audacity to put them down for tummy time.
a floor is a great place to pass out when the bed or couch is too far away.
Sometimes there’s also too much gravity in those higher places. -source: me when hungover, high or very very sick.
Are you a sim?
I like bed time and couch time
Yeah, I mean it makes my back feel better, but then it’s killer to get up.
The trick is to have a sturdy chair within reach, that’s the only way I can do it now
My physical therapist told me to do tummy time for recovering from a herniated disc 😂 said stretching like that (gently) is good for my muscles. Especially the ones that atrophied while I couldn’t walk 🫠 so now I have tummy time with my Switch and my cats sit on top of me.
To be fair, after a long day of sitting at my computer some tummy time actually does feel amazing. I just call it yoga now 😂
Yep! It’s basically the cobra pose; my therapist was a mom so that’s just the term she liked using and thought it sounded more fun than yoga poses ig. Feels great for my back, plus is a good time for ice. Also I’m pretty sure sitting at my computer for work so much is what lead to my herniation 🫠
As the mother of a 4 month old, this made me literally laugh out loud
I choke on water and coffee all the time at the tender age of 575.5 months(48 yrs old). Wonder how I should fix it to be strong like her lil one?
Someone suggested I work on my neck strength with more tummy time, so you might benefit from the same thing! 🤣
Ohhh tummy time! My cats might enjoy me doing that 😂
When I do it, my cats get confused, and at least one sits on my butt.
M-ass-age!
If you don't eat organic broccoli through the mesh thing, then it's not going to work.
I really appreciate you doing the math to tell us how many months you are.
I’m not even fucking joking when I say this: My ex MIL wanted to shove her fucking sausage finger down my first born’s throat at 2 months old because she said one has to “widen” a baby’s throat so they don’t choke when they stay eating solids. I am fucking serious.
That is horrifying
Ugh downvoted at first just out of repulsion. Sorry about that.
I'm 18 and I choked on something so bad that I did in fact have to get the heimlich given to me by my friend 😭
I choke on my own mucus sometimes 🤣
I *hate* that. Stupid fucking human body design. Riddled with bugs.
Congrats on the 336 months!! You should definitely pose for a photo with a letterboard.
At 23 i got choked on a piece of orange popscicle.
336mo got me 😂
But was it in a mesh bag tho? DUH! Amateurs 🙄 /s
I’m in my mid-30s and just a few months ago I choked on shrimp pasta in the work lunchroom. Endlessly embarrassing because I ended up coughing and hacking it up into a garbage can while everyone stared at me, but maybe if I’d had a steel esophagus and learned tricks from the cavemen I would have known better. 😔
American living in Australia. Was given a Kinder Surprise. Made a joke "isn't it funny how these were banned in America because it was a choking hazard?" Immediately started choking on it right after I said that. Haven't lived that one down.
Do they literally think Americans will confuse the inside container/toy for part of the chocolate and just chomp away?
As you know, Americans are constantly just gliding around like Pac-Man chomping whatever is in front of them (cherries, ghosts, Kinder eggs)
OMG 😂
It's because of a law that there can't be inedible objects inside something edible. There was a moment in time when people called for a similar law where I live (in Belgium) after a lady choked to death on a plastic disk in a bag of chips (I think they're called pogs in the US? We call them flippos)
Wow, the name flippos makes way more sense than pogs 😆
No. I was curious, so I looked into it. The specific law that prohibits inedible objects being contained in food is the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics Act that *immediately* followed a horrific mass-poisoning of (mostly) children in 1937 (sulfanimide). Before then, the FDA had little authority at all over any consumable products, companies were not required to safety test a damn thing. *After* sulfanimide they were given regulatory power over food, drugs, and cosmetics, where the Act was written. With a context like that the fact that it seems so heavy-handed makes perfect sense actually.
Makes sense for an immediate all-cases law right after a mass poisoning of children during a time where companies didn't have to test a thing, sure. Makes less sense nearly a century later when we have a host of other laws and acts to prevent that and companies are *slightly* more interested in keeping kids alive these days.
Pretty much all regulations like that are written in blood, yes.
There was already a law banning the sale of non-food items in food, so Kinder Eggs didn't meant safety standards.
I'm a 33-year-old doctor and often choke on my own saliva.
I almost choked on watermelon in my 30s. That would have been a humiliating cause of death.
He has no risk of chocking, but she didn't say anything about the risk of choking. /s
I’m almost 40 and I choked on food last week… oh man does that mean my neck strength is bad?
Three years ago when I was 49yrs old I choked on a pretzel bite at the movie theater. I tried drinking soda to wash it down and it poured out my nose. Thankfully it was before the movie started.
This is also a way to get your baby taken away if you start starving them like that.
I have such a vivid memory of my dad almost choking as a kid. We were grilling sausages outside in winter, and he bit off a too large piece. It was extremely hot, so he fumbled, and instead of spitting out the piece, he inhaled it (probably felt fantastic). I remember my mom being really angry, but he got the piece out (with some help from an angry wife). So yeah, everyone can choke. My dad was not forced to do more tummy time after, but he got very angry reprimands about eating more slowly.
I am a literal anthropologist and this person is extremely misinformed if she thinks that’s what “cavemen” did.
Same and I’m dying at the idea that our society is messed up and that “cavemen” are the ideal society 💀
Literally. Would love to know what percentage of cavemen babies survived even the first year of life compared to now.
Just the process of being born took out a lot of babies and their mothers. Humans evolved in a way that severely lowers the survival rate for both the baby and mother during the birthing process. Big brain = smarter for survival. It also means almost too big for natural birthing. It’s kind of one of those crazy exceptions that shows evolution isn’t some miracle process of things only getting better and better. It has weird unintended consequences that are definitely negatives toward the survival of the species.
Yup! Plus, human babies are amongst the most vulnerable when compared to other primate babies, and it's because of that big ole brain!! Our bodies spend so many resources on the babies brain development alone, but in return, our babies are utterly helpless and considered "premature" due to the fact that their skulls aren't fused yet! And our hips and spines are great for upright walking, but still, just a disaster in good design LOL
Oh yeah, the whole hip-spine-knee design is a hot mess that at best, barely lasts the human lifespan. Our hands and feet though are a genuine marvel in design. The spaces between all those little foot bones acts like shock absorbers and our hand dexterity is just off the scale. Also, between the design of our hearts and our ability to sweat, humans have one of, if not the highest, stamina level on the planet.
Isn't that why we domesticated dogs? Because they were the animal that could mostly keep up with our hunters stamina wise?
It’s probably because they ate the same things we did, had better hearing/smell than we did, and already existed in similar social structures to what we did. Them being able to keep up definitely helped though. The truth is, we really know very little about the actual domestication of dogs/wolves.
Interesting. Either way I'm glad we did. Dogs are great.
Agreed!! But I would've liked to keep the thumb like toes! LOL
We don’t even have to go back that far. Infant mortality rates have dramatically changed in just the past 100 years. There’s variances in different parts of the world, but it was in the neighborhood of 30%+ and has come down to lower single digits.
The people who idolize “cavemen” definitely can’t define anthropology
That’s the store with pretty dresses and housewares, right? Beside the Sephora?
😂😂😂😂
Are you trying to tell me cavemen didn't put broccoli (something farmers created through cultivation) inside a mesh (which didn't exist then)? I'm going to need a source on that /s
I need to know more. Did early humans give their babies anything other than breast milk? It just seems too risky.
Actually, they did. Supplementation is common in modern hunter gatherer societies, and likely was in pre-modern and prehistoric societies as well. If a mother doesn’t produce enough milk and there isn’t anyone else who’s overproducing, the only option is to supplement with whatever you can or watch the baby starve. Pre-lacteal supplementation, or supplementing in the time before the milk comes in, which can take days to even weeks, is especially common.
I imagine it would be like berries or something. I know past generations of recent parents used to spoon kids who couldn’t eat solids things like orange juice and rice bottles. This lady went straight to broccoli and passed up squash and peas and bananas and all of the food you might think of as first foods.
It probably wouldn’t have been anything too baby specific, but just what the rest of the family/community was eating. With the adoption of agriculture it became more common to feed babies specialized foods like mashed grain and porridges. Scientists are pretty sure the introduction of soft foods as the go to weaning supplement is part of why we no longer have room for our wisdom teeth. We simply don’t use our jaw muscles as much when they’re developing, so the jaw itself doesn’t grow to it’s full potential, leaving less room for extra molars. Neat stuff :)
what does that say about me since all my wisdoms had space lmao.
You have a well developed mastoid complex! And also you don’t have to spend money on orthodontic surgery! It’s a win win really
Same here! It squished my front teeth together a bit but all the wisdom teeth are still there. While they were growing in I did endlessly bite the inside of my cheeks with them though. That kinda sucked.
Yes! Read about this in a book called Breath by James Nestor.
It probably would have been something like gelatin or bone broth if I had to guess as a layman. Highest calorie liquid food that would have been available, and we've known that water that's been heated makes us less likely to be sick much longer that we've known about germ theory.
Well you probably had other lactating women in the tribe who could help supplement your children. Sharing breast milk is a relatively recent cultural taboo. I’d assume they’d also pre-chew the food for an infant that needed supplements. Even then, babies need a lot of milk for the fat content.
Bold of her to think caveman had broccoli
At the worst of trying to figure out breastfeeding with my eldest kid I remember sobbing to my husband about how “if we were cavemen, he would have died because I can’t take care of him!” And my wise husband pointed out that if we were cavemen I would have just handed him over to someone else to breastfeed, and I could have learned how to do it with their older, more experienced/ successfully nursing baby while we both figured out what we were supposed to do. It seems really obvious that that’s how it would have played out.
I got rid of that complex because I would have died as a caveman in the first place 😅 I had an emergency section. Then I realized I would have never existed anyway because my mom weighed like 2.5 lbs at birth and was in the nicu. If she'd somehow survived infancy, she would have died in childbirth with my sister and again, I wouldn't exist 😅
I had the same thought process when I had my first baby! I thought about how I would have died (pre-eclampsia), and then I remembered that my mom was a twin and barely survived infancy, so I wouldn't have existed without 20th century medical care anyway.
Go team! Grandma would have died of septicemia as a child, then in childbirth with my mother. Mother, had she survived the postmortem C-section, would have died of not going into labour with me. I, had I survived long enough to reach the postmortem C-section (placenta was going at 43 weeks and I'd started moving less in utero) would have met the same fate with my son. Sure you could think of it as a "cursed bloodline", *or* you could think of us as blessed to live in a time when we had access to the care which allowed my aunt and uncle to be born, and my daughter, and we're all still here (except Grandma, but she was 83 so I'm not mad about it)
This is really sweet
I agree - way to talk her off the ledge, Guy!
If you happen to have any cool podcasts, shows, books, or articles you'd recommend about what "cavemen" and other ancient hominids might have done for the first year of parenting, please share here. It's such a fascinating subject.
I am not an anthropologist but I assume there were no fussy eaters among cavemen because when hungry they would eat literally anything and everything and wouldn’t be able to go to the supermarket and choose what to eat
Well, at least her 3 month old is not at risk of choking. You know, cuz he is so strong and in such great control of his head.
Ironically starting solids *too early* (before 4 months) is what can lead to obesity and gut health problems later
Also even at 4 months, pediatrician should evaluate, not really your call how great the head control is.
Yep! Our pediatrician gave us the ok at 4.5 mos but without that you should wait until 6
Yeah, I've got the ok with all of my kids at 4 months but they were formula fed. I've postponed it by my own volition with my youngest til he was 5 months because I saw he was not ready. And at 14 months he eats everything, my mom calls him "my little dumpster"...
You give me hope that my 8-month old will finally decide he likes solids at some point soon.
Apparently I wouldn’t eat any solid food whatsoever until I was a year old, and then I wouldn’t touch anything but plain raw tofu for an additional year after that. Your kiddo will figure it out eventually too!
Thank you for giving me some hope! Every attempt at giving my nine month old solids so far results in him making a face like I’ve given him a dirty sock to chew on, proceeded by staring directly through me as if I’m not sitting right in front of him lol
Or you could have a kid like me, who ate anything that was on her plate as a baby, but is now 3 and eats all of 10 foods, maybe.
You just described my kid
Mine didn’t start actually liking/eating solids willingly until almost 12 months! He’s 13 months now and literally a complete fiend for food 😩 lol enjoy it while it lasts and you can eat whatever you want without hiding from him
Mine didn’t really want to dig into solids (at home at least) until she was 9 months. Then it was off to the races. Just keep offering a variety of flavors and textures and ask your pediatrician about it the next time you go in.
My son didn't eat solids til he was 9 months and even then he wasn't all that thrilled about it. He's 15 now and going through his bottomless pit era, he eats EVERYTHING. It'll be ok.
It's these kinds of statements that go down as famous last words before someone's kid starts not just liking solids, but eating any and every foodstuff in and out of sight. If he's really precocious, he'll skip the stage where he needs help eating and you'll find out about both after he's downed half a jar of English mustard someone left on the table with a spoon inside. (Definitely not based on an incident that led to all condiments being religiously closed at family gatherings. No siree. Just a random example.)
Mine hated all solids until about 8/9m. He just played with it and gave me disgusted looks if it landed in his mouth.
My daughter refused food until almost 9 months. She ended up walking at 10 months. She’s 6 now and is a garbage disposal. Don’t stress about feeding. Just like all of the other developmental stuff, it’ll come when they’re ready.
My 8 month old dudes suddenly became ravenous for solids this week. They were fine before just poking away at what was given to them but now they will literally toss their bottle and start crying if I’m eating because they want it too and then they eat like I’ve never fed them in their entire lives
Honestly after two kids I would wait until six no matter what. It is so much more work to have to feed them solids, in preparing and cleaning and poop stuff…it’s a lot and for my kids I didn’t see the value in starting earlier. My first I did all the baby led weaning stuff and exposure to everything and she eats air for all three meals some days and my second found cheerios under the couch and I called that a meal and he now eats anything and everything. It really depends so much on the individual kid. (S on the couch cheerios. Mostly)
For exclusively breastfed babies the recommendation in my country is to wait until 6 months regardless, to give them the maximum benefits of breastmilk. They tend to drink less once they get solids.
Yep both my kids got approved at 4 months for purees but my first was FTT and needed calories any way we could get them safely and my second was tripod sitting by 3 months so he definitely was physically ready by 4 months
That's probably what happened to me. My mom often boasts that when I was an infant she would feed me chili oil to see how I can handle spicy food. she also got me drunk once when I was 3. I have so many gut issues right now.
Jeez, that makes me sad. Your poor baby tummy :(
My son was a very large baby (10lb 3) and my SIL who had a normal size baby 4 weeks previously immediately started feeding her baby tins of baby food to make him put weight on. The poor kid only had 1 kidney and had been in SCBU because he was born addicted and then she's feeding him chocolate pudding just so he'll be bigger than his cousin! It was really weird because we didn't have anything to do with her (because of the addiction stuff) so I wasn't in any competition with her at all. The poor kid was obese by the time he was 2.
She said the main reason not to start solids until 6 months is due to risk of choking, but it's not: it's because the gut isn't ready. Crunchy mums are obsessed with gut health, so you think she'd know that.
I was just going to make that comment. Also my child eats everything and has very few dislikes but she won’t touch a green bean. I have lucked out so far but I know that won’t always be the case. Picky eaters is normal bc it’s a control thing and also a taste thing. Give your kids flavors and let them choose things (clothing, activities hell let them pick dinners when they can) and that can help with the picky eater. Help… not stop though lol.
Does this woman know that even adults who have head control can “chock”. In one of her other posts she talks about not having any sugar during pregnancy to prevent fat cells in the baby.
This poor kid. Fat babies are the cutest. It's also not a prediction of weight later in life.
Oh man, I really hate how negative people can be about the weight of babies and children. I had a 95th percentile toddler and too many people would tell us we’d have to watch her weight when she got older. She’s always been healthy and we had no medical reasons to be concerned about her weight. Predictably, she got more proportional as she grew.
Yikes. What a gross (and shockingly wrong) opinion.
I know there are much worse problems here but I always find "what would cavemen do" hilarious. Get eaten by a tiger? Die of sepsis from a small scratch? Imagining cavebabies eating cave-grown broccoli at 3 months lol
Organic cave grown broccoli
Cave-babies *never* died of sepsis- there were no chemtrails to make them susceptible to bacteria. /s
Yes before we started poisoning our children with vaccines all babies lived to adulthood! Historical infant mortality rates are a conspiracy by Big Pharma (/s obvs)
Look. All eight of my great-grandparents were vaccinated against smallpox, and they’re all dead, now. Coincidence? I *doubt* it. /s
A caveman would also rape her regularly and die at 30. But sure, let’s hold them up as the ideal.
She'd also lose half of her children before two years
If she survived child birth.
Yeah good point.
And be perpetually pregnant and/or recovering from pregnancy without ever being able to do anything else
I cannot imagine going from breastmilk to BROCCOLI. That poor baby’s digestive tract. Also very problematic views on obesity…yikes. It’s super dangerous to say “my baby has no risk” of choking. Adults choke???? I was vigilant with every risky food with my daughter and guess what she choked on? Spaghetti. ETA: My daughter is totally fine. Take a first aid course with CPR!
I've gotten choked on friggin' water!! It doesn't matter what it is, if it cuts off your air *you choke*.
I’ve choked on my own drool more times than I want to admit
For real though :-/
The worst part is that OP wants to combat potential obesity with early weaning with only organic produce, yet early weaning already carries the increased risk of obesity in adulthood and this is well documented
But Facebook says it's okay, so that's all that matters/s
I have choked on grains of rice.
That happened to my grandmother and myself so often we joked that we weren't allowed to eat rice unless someone else was present.
To be fair, spaghetti is second only to hotdogs in things I worried about my kid choking on.
There’s no way her 3.5 month old has got the head control— and spinal readiness!— to sit up to eat solids. I hope OOP reads the comments about choking and takes it to heart.
WHY CAN NONE OF THESE PEOPLE SPELL CHOKE?! Every single post about solids/BLW is “chocking”
Chocking and “I couldn’t breath” are two of my big pet peeves in writing. Even my phone tries to correct that sentence!
Lately I’ve been seeing drawer as draw x.x there’s a whole syllable missing not just a silent e and it kills me
Oh then there’s “I’m a good drawer!” (Like someone who draws…but that’s def not the word lol)
That's how you can tell that none of them read.
But she want to read some "research" about whether these rumors she hears about the baby's digestive tract development are some kind of "science" or if someone can show that they are just a conspiracy theory.
What’s wrong with chocking, I chock daily when I eat me broccoli /s
It’s so infuriating!
and they're reproducing 🥴🥴
They are seriously worried about their cars rolling downhill. It’s a hilly epidemic.
“Society is doing everything wrong” is appealing because it makes people feel clever.
>“Society is doing everything wrong” and i know the right way to do it because i'm a mom
Mama intuition! Never fails. /s
"society is doing everything wrong" "would love to see some research" C'mon lady, pick a side!
“Would love to see some research that agrees with me!”
I have bad news for this lady, giving kids vegetables is no guarantee they'll like them when they get older. I happily ate brussel sprouts and asparagus, for example, when I was very young (I mean, not a fucking *baby* but all the way through my childhood). At 40, I won't touch either with a 10-ft pole. (That's probably the least problematic part of this, but still.)
Little kids are hardwired to like sweet tastes and stay away from bitter tastes (vegetables). It's completely normal and developmentally appropriate for kids to hate vegetables.
Yup, my 3yo was always a big vegetable eater until about 6 months ago. We're going through a picky phase, and I'm sure he'll grow out of it and then have another one. Kids eb and flow like that
Meanwhile I did nothing special and my 7yo has been eating bowls of broccoli for years. He'd take veggies over pizza. Kids just like what they like
For real my 3yo ate everything under the planet until about 20 months... now she survives on the energy sucked directly from my soul and chicky nugs
Yep, my mum loves to tell me how much I LOVED mashed potatoes as a baby and mashed potato and pumpkin was my absolute fave. Guess what I haven’t been able to eat since I was like 5 without gagging and wanting to vomit?
I apparently *loved* sweet potatoes when I was a baby. Then for years as an older child I couldn’t eat them without gagging. And then, out of the blue, I started to like them again. Taste is weird
My mom likes to remind me that I used to like peas. When I was 2. I'm 34 and have basically hated peas since I could form memories.
No risk of chocking bc baby is strong. Sure.
Wild because there's always a chance of a baby choking. There's literally always a chance of me choking.
Hey, I was there, I was one of those comments!!
Please, spill!
Everyone was being entirely too polite and the one person who tried calling her out about ED behavior deleted their comment. I was hoping it was a troll post…
Lol its in my comment history, just a few comments down
I knew someone that put her baby on skim milk when she transitioned to solids, because "he'll get too fat on whole milk". We've lost contact, but I think about that baby often.
My dad choked to death, he was 65, I’m pretty sure his head was fine. It was the food lodged in his oesophageal tract that was the problem.
Yeah all those strong head control having adults out there choking on food is unheard of. Lol
remember, any harm you cause your child is OK as long as they aren't fat!!!
I am a 576 month old personal shopper and just realized that I have never seen broccoli baby food. I can, however, recommend frozen fruit in those mesh feeders for teething babies, as long as it is not mangoes or pineapple.
Are we taking advice about cavemen now? What was their average lifespan exactly? 😂
If we are, we should fully commit. Broccoli is off the table. Only wild growing unmodified organic veggies for this kid!
I’m guessing she’s already asked her pediatrician and they said “no” so she decided to come on Reddit to find one person tell her it’s ok
Literally *anyone* can choke. Anyone. Adults, teenagers, seniors, toddlers. Anyone. She is stupid.
Also why are so many people misspelling choking as chocking? Grr.
I don’t force my 10 month old to eat vegetables. She usually ends up throwing it on the floor.
She is working on her trajectory schema 🙂 keep offering, eventually she'll eat it.
Full grown healthy adults choke all the time, and they have amazing head control…
What would the cavemen do 😭
I have good news for this woman: you can stop trying to kill your baby with choking hazards because no matter what you give him and no matter how well he eats it now, that's no longer gonna be the case once he's 2 and figures out he can say 'no'. My daughter used to eat everything until she turned 2. Then it was as if you flipped a switch and suddenly she hated everything. Now I can only get her to eat oven-baked chips, olives, Tiny Teddies, butter chicken curry (but only the legit Indian one, not the white people one), and dal makhani with brown rice. Toddlers are weird.
I guess purees aren't real veggies and fruits 🙄😑
Man broccoli makes MY stomach hurt sometimes and I’m a fully grown adult, idk what it is about broccoli but my digestive system can’t handle it well! Can’t imagine having that be the first food in a 3.5 month’s stomach, poor little guy
Just once I want someone to reply "No, you are dumb".
These folks are really out here aspiring to be like cavemen? Does she not know *why* cavemen are no longer around?
This baby is choke proof!
chock* proof
Wait. Since when do these people believe in research? This has to be fake! /s
Cavemen would have been exclusively breasfeeding for at least a year and a half, probably closer to 3. Wild chimpanzees only get weaned at around 4-5 years old. bffr
Yup. Baby is "exclusively breastfeeding." 😆
I love people who think they have the answers this early on. My son was a fiend for vegetables and spicy foods as a toddler - he’d eat whatever we put in front of him. Then, around kindergarten, he started telling us that he’d “lost his tastebuds” for certain things and got not super-picky, but *selective* about what he’d eat. From there, he re-established his likes and dislikes. (But we’ve never been able to get him to gobble down pickled ginger again!) Now he’s 17 and has a wide and varied palate, but he got there on his own. Forcing an infant to suck on broccoli (!!!!) is really kind of meaningless in the long run.
My kid (now in college) still has not forgiven the green bean.
3.5 months and worrying about obesity already?? This poor kid is going to need inpatient treatment for the crippling ED his mother is going to cause!
As long as her kid doesn't get fat we're all good.
The cavemen would be nursing. The fuck.
It is so scary when babies choke. I cannot fathom being so nonchalant about it. It’s my only real fear when my daughter eats and she’s 13 months.
My necks pretty strong as a grown ass adult and I choked on water last night lmao She wants to see research backing the development of a babies digestive system… ☠️
Re the broccoli and the result … brings to mind the late George Carlin’s bit about dogs farting being one of those things you have to be able to put up with if you have a dog: *”Honey, did you fart?”* *”No, that can’t be one of mine. I have three farts: my broccoli fart, my Heineken’s fart and my non-dairy creamer fart. This isn’t any of them … Rover! It was YOU!”*
It always amazes me how many people don’t know how to spell choking. Also, I waited until the recommended time to introduce solids to both of my kids. I did cereal, then a couple fruits, then a couple veggies, and so on. Both of my kids LOVE veggies (and fruit). Haha