Baby Led Weaning Cookbook - aka Natalie Peall

[EH1995]

Why after just announcing your child gets sick in the car and on swings would you then post a video of him on a swing looking incredibly unhappy

 

[Onceupatime]

What the fuck is she playing at!!
she seems to have no direction for O&A….first it was (quite cute) baby clothes then some ladies clothing imported from China to get a quick buck or two…..decides to sell off kids wear for cheap looking but expensive adult wear…..now making kids headwear AND safety wristlets which she’ll probably charge a fortune for!
Natalie - stoped being greedy and desperate on your stories, pick a lane and stick with it! For a brand you are UNPREDICTABLE, UNPROFESSIONAL and quite frankly depressing to watch On your whining stories

 

[Loulou78]

I don't like the comments about Annabelle's weight, plus I think its more the terrible fitting clothes that she's put in. BUT the way she has taught her daughter to eat is horrendous....she needs to sit at a table with the kids and lead by example. Kids learn so many skills and behaviours by watching us - good and bad!
PS it's a real bug-bear for me that Annabelle's hair is always hanging in her face, even when she's eating I wish she tied it back or put a head band on her

 

[LittleMy]

Used to follow her and use her apps when doing BLW with my children. I do think she overshares too much of her feelings on her BLW accounts; surely that is content more suited towards a personal account rather than your business one? She also comes across really immature and I recall she was constantly going on about how difficult her young daughter was. I didn’t think that was fair on the child, to be talking about her like that to thousands of strangers.

Also am I right in reading that she was able to put her child in school while both she and her husband work from home? That has boiled my piss. I’m a carer, working out of the home 12 hours a night. I can’t work from home and I can’t put my children (who have additional needs) into school and nursery just now because only parents who are both key workers are allowed. My husband works from home now but he’s not classed as a key worker. I’m supposed to forgo sleep in the day to help with homeschooling and looking after the little one to help my husband out, knowing I have another 12 hour shift ahead of me that night.

She can cite mental health all she likes but most people have mental health issues these days, myself included. Some people don’t realise how lucky they have it!

 

[whatAstar]

Lol. The I'm a good person bit got me. No you aren't. We'll at least what she presents isn't

I don’t think she’s a bad person necessarily, just frustrating and a lot of her content is completely off topic and doesn’t engage followers. Admittedly the whole ‘I’m going to send my kids to their grandparents - who I have made vague allegations ref abuse about but still think they’re good babysitters - on their birthday’ thing didn’t paint her in the best light!

 

[Scootinginheels]

She is so negative it’s utterly miserable watching her. She manages to turn everything, literally every single thing, into a moan. She must be such a mood hoover to be around, I feel genuinely sorry for her kids & her husband because she must be such a depressing person to be around. In my opinion she would benefit from some tough love and someone having the balls to call her out on her shit.

 

[bubugada]

So Steve did both boys’ bedtime but I thought she does it all and he does nothing?

 

[whatAstar]

Is she actually for real and thinks “she does everything”?!
I’m actually flabbergasted by how unbelievably self obsessed this woman is! She didn’t even manage to have her babies herself on their own birthday fgs!
She has more “me” time than any parent I know.
I don’t know about her childhood issues but all I see now is a woman taking total advantage of her parents to raise her children for her.
If she spent less time talking about herself, out by herself walking, by herself watching Netflix and listening to podcasts, recording a podcast that people have already told you they don’t even want to hear and pouting at the camera maybe she would find a better balance.
Poor Steve seems to work hard yet she still expects more and more of him.
Not really sure why she actually had children…..for most of us the mum role is a privilege (after 6 losses I feel very grateful I get to be mum). No you don’t have to never have time to yourself but I’m a mum 24/7 whether I’m with my children or not.
I work full time, I don’t have free childcare on tap and my house is not a shit hole like hers. I haven’t been out (apart from the odd Tesco shop) without my kids in years and you know what I love every second!
Those poor kids having this all said publicly where they might see it when they are older! This will be so damaging for them.
I wonder how the hell the husband puts up with her and her total unrealistic expectations of him and life in general.
Time to grow up Natalie and realise it’s not all about you.
Steve it’s time to grow a pair and get yourself away from her and save those poor children and their precious childhood.

I watched her latest stories and in some ways I can empathise with the sentiments as I sometimes feel the same way (especially today having been up since 3:30am with a teething toddler who is even now refusing to go to bed - husband slept through it all this morning, and is now enjoying his dinner) - so I do get it, however I haven’t been out for a leisurely walk today, or sat and chilled out catching up on my programs - I’ve worked 9-3, done both ends of the school run, fed the kids, taken the eldest to swimming and back, washed them both and will hopefully soon sit down for my own dinner (if toddler ever gives in which is sounding unlikely right now!). I mean, I wish I had the time to sit and stare at my phone to document my life (not that anyone would be interested lol), how is her podcast and duplicate blog bringing her money in? Is it even related to BLW which is the reason people follow her? If I want to feel empowered or positive then I’ll find a different influencer who doesn’t call themself ‘baby led weaning cookbook’ and then fill their stories with shite about their personal life!

Also - love how she looked quite glam at the show yesterday and had Belle in what looked like play clothes for the local park. I wouldn’t think she owned a kids fashion boutique

 

[Goflorrie]

There are so many sites selling the same jumpers with some slogan about how exhausted mums are or other.
Same with the dungarees. I thought they were o & a but then i went on instagram and an influencer was wearing the exact same dungarees but from another company.

My gripe is I follow the baby led weaning cookbook not Oliver and Alexander. I've never even clicked on the page yet I know an awful lot about it! I used lots of the recipes when I weaned my first and was excited to use it all again to wean my second. Also, Natalie had twins a little bit older than my baby so I thought I could watch her stories and get tips about weaning, recipes etc. In reality every story is personal or an advert for O & A. The only weaning stories are usually a share if someone else has tagged the page. Result is I've hardly used the app for weaning and looked more at annabel karmel and others instead. They give you far more nutrition information too and guidance about portion sizes.

I wish she would keep the content to the relevant page and if she wants to do personal stories create her own Natalie page.

 

[The girl who]

Im so glad i have found this page shes been doing my head in for ages! So cringe and desperate

 

[Caitielou98]

I can’t understand those dungarees. I’m sorry but they look awful. They don’t appear to fit her correctly and why are they so short?! Dungarees can be quite nice on adults, but they just look so frumpy. Also I don’t understand the mummy section of O&A. She’s yet to put out a design that I would actually wear. If she was actually serious about putting out clothing to help mums feel more confident and empowered it wouldn’t be about the stupid slogans it would be about the styles, like for me peplum tops are the absolute must have for looking put together but hiding the mum tum. Not a super long T-shirt that says supermom on it.

 

[LittleMy]

Jfc. She's saying she's afraid she's going to get death threats from the trolls now. I'm going to stop watching her stories as she's literally the worst and so manipulative. No one has ever said anything about her personal information that she hasn't put on stories. I would never attempt to find her address or anything of the sort.

I saw that. Yeah, I’m having nothing more to do with her, this thread or her stories. Nobody here has said anything remotely dangerous or threatening, she’s twisting things to make a big deal out of it because she’s been caught out ripping off her customers on O&A.

 

[Paulaj]

She frustrates me so much. Her latest post about being permanently exhausted and having no time to wash her hair or even put an outfit together... bog off! I’m sorry but if she had an actual office job she’d have to just find a way of making time to wash and dress appropriately like every other working mother on the planet. She’s so unrelatable but seems to think that the way she feels is how every other mum must feel too?! I’ve got a 20 month old, I shower and wash my hair daily. Granted I don’t spend two hours of a morning having a leisurely shower and styling my hair applying makeup etc but I have half an hour where bub watches tv or runs round upstairs (we have a stair gate) and I shower and sort myself out for the day... it’s not some impossible task like she’s making it out to be.

Yup, I agree. I have a 15 month old and a 4 year old (who’s only just gone back to preschool due to Easter break) and I manage to shower daily. Little one comes upstairs with me while I shower with the door open, big one watches tv on his own downstairs. It’s really not that difficult. Especially when you have a house husband who is always there to help.

Totally agree, it’s funny how this post (with a ridiculously out of date photo) came a few hours after she’d told us about how she’d applied fake tan and a few days after she’d trotted off to London kid free to get Botox and microblading done - it’s hard to empathise or feel sorry for someone who is so tone deaf to what other mothers are going through too - surely she must have some mum friends to put things into perspective? Saying she’s envious of mums who are semi put together - I would LOVE the opportunity to go and get my brows done but it’s just not going to happen around both parents working full time, kids on school holidays, no childcare because of Covid. She is so very far removed from the real work it’s almost funny at this point.

More than anything, I just want her to change the ‘we’re so busy’ narrative to ‘thankyou for your orders, because of your support we’ve been able to donate £x to these charities this month’. It’s really not hard.

Agreed. Due to Covid I have had absolutely 0 help with childcare (yes I have a partner who works from home but that’s not childcare, that’s called being a father ). I haven’t been to the hairdresser since December 2019. My partner had to cut off my hair as it got so bad I literally hated looking in the mirror (he did a great job btw). I have finally booked in a hairdresser mid May as I can only do Saturdays so that my partner can look after the kids while I sort myself out.
I think I have a rough idea where she lives, so going to London to get Botox and whatever else she got done, would have taken the better part of the day! It’s just ridiculous. Yes, she works, which is amazing. It must be hard to run your own business but don’t go pretending you have no time for yourself and no childcare when you literally have two sets of grandparents within an hour or you. My parents live abroad and partners dad in the midlands. Get some bloody perspective and stop whinging.

 

[hg2806]

Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks it’s off that her 6/7 year old is still using toddler plates/cutlery?

Also, I’ve noticed her saying about her childhood a lot and how it was bad, I don’t know the ins and outs obviously. But if her parents were so bad, surely she’d limit the amount of time her own kids spent with them?!

 

[Spilt-Milk]

The BLWCB account of several years ago and what we see now are two totally different things. There has always been a moany undertone and I personally have never liked the level of disparaging comments about poor Annabelle. We all slag our kids off from time to time but it’s always felt wrong to me to do it to SO many people. I can’t get my head around the mentality of sharing SO much of your life online, let alone sharing so much about your children, especially as she doesn’t seem to like being a Mum That much.

The minor annoyance has escalated for me personally watching the whole mental health saga play out. It is such an important issue and I don’t feel like Natalie has used her following in a way which empowers women or encourages positive, healthy conversation around the topic. I wonder how many people would have seen her moan about therapy and how it didn’t work and felt like there was no point getting help? She was incredibly brave to speak up about her experiences but it feels like she’s almost turning it into her own USP at this point in time. The 10% of profits going to charity is a perfect example of this, fair enough if you’re not turning a profit yet but if you’ve not broken even after a year and you’re still investing so much into new stock then there are some glaring issues about the validity of the business and I cannot help but wonder how they keep going with no stable income and still have money for costly cosmetic procedures. Something doesn’t add up there for me and yet we’re still being sold the ideal that 10% of our ridiculously high purchase price will be used to help mental health charities.

The negativity about being a parent to multiples is another prime example of not thinking about her audience too, I’d be shit scared if I was pregnant with twins and seeing life being portrayed in this way. It doesn’t help anyone at all to constantly moan about how hard it is especially when you’ve got such a robust support network in place. Anyone who has had a baby holds a silent respect for a multiple mamma as we all know it’s hard work. We don’t need it rammed down our throats and to be constantly invited to Natalie’s pity party. There are so many twin and triplets accounts out there who are honest about the hardships but share so much joy - Nadia Thorburn and her hubby being a prime example.

 

[bexxy12345]

Why the need to mention the ex council house?

She is an unbelievable snob isn’t she!

 

[Loulou78]

Surely as she is someone always banging on about living somewhere rural she should know that you NEVER feed other people's animals

 

[Loulou78]

Wants to sell fudge on Etsy now Cooking in kitchen that has mice, and a cat that walks all over the surfaces Yummy!

 

[LurkPack]

Someone’s got the scatter gun out again. subscription boxes that she’s been secretly working on for months but doesn’t have a single promotional photo for - it’s like she wakes up in the morning and decides on a new direction and just runs with it. The thing that winds me up more than anything is the fact that she thinks we’re stupid enough to not realise that these are excess stock and samples that she’s trying to sell to us at a rip off price and with a stupidly long lead time. If I’m spending £30 on an item of clothing then I want to pick it myself and make sure it fits/looks nice. It’s actually worrying that this entire family is dependent on these businesses.

 

[Ridandroo]

I get second hand embarrassment watching her reels.