Baby Led Weaning (and a cute baby video)

I mentioned baby led weaning in an earlier post but didn't really explain what it was. Some of you may know but for those that don't and might be alarmed by my reports, I thought I would explain.

I read a lot of foodie blogs and with my interest in nourishing traditions style/whole foods eating I had seen a lot of making your own baby food. While pregnant, I had great visions of making all my homemade baby foods, freezing them in ice cube trays and serving my baby nothing but the best.

But then two things happened. One, my life changed. The last 6 months have been a bit more unsettled than I was expecting and that doesn't appear to be changing. I'm away from home about 1/3 of the time and the other time is spent going back and forth between two homes trying to get ready to move. I wouldn't change that right now but it doesn't make it easy to be super-domestic. Luckily, I also started hearing more and more about baby-led weaning and the more I heard, the more I loved!

It goes hand in hand with waiting for solids because by the time your baby is ready to eat, they are actually able to eat. The basic idea is two-fold.

1) Skip the purees. You give your baby food in a similar manner to what you would eat yourself. Even without teeth, babies can do a pretty good job of managing many foods. She may gag a bit, but its important to know that choking and gagging aren't the same. Gagging is a normal and health use of a reflex as she learns to move food back into her mouth. If it isn't working right, she gags it back up so she doesn't choke.

2) You let the baby feed herself. No opening your mouth up wide or making airplane movements to convince her to open hers. You give her food, she eats - or she doesn't. And she may take a while before she moves past the smushing it to the eating it stage. That's fine.We are actually turning out to be a little loose with this "rule." Lucy likes to hold and play with the food and she likes to eat (some) of it but she doesn't like to do both at the same time. She likes me to hold the food in front of her, then when she wants a bit she will lean forward with her mouth open and take it. Since she is still in charge of eating it when she so desires, I don't mind.

There are a several reasons while I think this method is great. Lucy will be sitting and eating dinner with us. It continues on the same self-regulated feeding that breastfeeding allows. Research shows babies will be less picky when they grow up since they get used to a wider variety of foods and textures. And one great short term benefit is that babies don't always have the same constipation problems that purees can bring on (the theory is that they don't get very much at first and gradually build up, they give their inexperienced little system a little bit more time to adjust). That alone should make it worth it! And you can read about those and others elsewhere if you wish but more than that, I like this method because I can do this!

I can do this at home, at my parent's, my in-laws next month or wherever our travels take us. I just feed her what we are going to be eating, with a little adjusting. Her first meal is a perfect example. I made sweet potatoes for our thanksgiving meal but covered ours in butter, orange zest and brown sugar. For Lucy, I just reserved some before all that, cut it into thick fry shaped pieces that would be easy for her to hold and let her at it. I started with just one food but if she was another month or two into eating, I could easily have given her shredded turkey and a couple green beans too.

To learn more about it:

Babyledweaning.com talks about Gil Rapley's research and the theory behind BLW.

Baby-led-solids.blogspot.com chronicles little buttercup's journey into the world of solids and is great for serving ideas.

But by far the most fun way to see it in action is youtube. Search Baby led weaning and there are lots of videos. And since BLW is more popular in England, although it is gaining popularity here in the U.S., not only do you get to watch babies eat, you get to listen to their parent's comment about it in British accents. Even if you don't have kids or any desire to do BLW, it's a great way to waste time. Archie's first food is a fun one. But of course, I think our kid is the cutest of them all, so here is Lucy enjoying her first banana. (And don't stop early, the last 10 seconds is my favorite :-)



She had already tasted sweet potatoes at this point but wasn't convinced she liked them. She would lean in to taste them, make a weird I-don't-think-I-like-this face, then lean in again. Silly baby. And apples were a no go. She picked them up and threw them but wasn't interested in eating them. But she is a fan of the 'nana.