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Since Ari was born, plenty of women I know [many not well] have made off-color comments to me about pretty much everything: baby weight, childcare, diaper choices, clothing choices, and — most recently — my decision to exclusively breastfeed for as long as possible.
Who would have thought that the one topic people get majorly heated about is solid foods.
I know there’s usually a standard way people introduce solid foods to infants: rice cereal, pureed food, and then chopped, bland foods.
Deviating from the norm? Well, that makes people uncomfortable. We decided against cereal, which we saw as nutrition-lacking ‘filler.’
And I started doing some research on alternative methods of starting solid food.
That’s how I found Baby Led Weaning.
via google images.
Baby Led Weaning is he process of building a healthy and confident tiny eater by allowing babies to self-feed by grabbing appropriately sized foods when they are ready.
By letting the baby decide when he is ready to start exploring with foods, babies learn to chew instead of swallow first; added bonus — it removes the pressure of pureeing and trying to spoon feed a baby that has little to no interest in gross, bland, and mushy food.
We’re meeting with the pediatrician to talk about implementing BLW here in the near future. To say I’m nervous would be an understatement.
Thoughts race through my head like “What if my baby chokes!?” even though I know babies struggle even with mushy foods.
But, regardless of how my nerves are, I know that Ari won’t know the difference. When he’s willing to reach for solid foods, I’ll be ready.
…Or at least I’ll fake it.
Has anyone else attempted the Baby Led Weaning/Baby Led Feeding approach to starting solids with success?
Yay solids and BLW. And on that same note OMG solids! How are they old enough for this!
We’re on day 5 and so far she’s eaten next to nothing, but it’s been a fun experience. I’m following the mantra, “Food is for fun until they’re one!”
Have you read the BLW book? It helped prepare me for the gagging and to know the difference between that and choking. She actually threw up on her second night from the gagging, but I just have to remind myself that’s normal, she’s learning! Can’t wait to hear more about Ari’s experience 🙂
We never followed any particular textbook style or method. I pureed a few foods for Joe at first but gave up on it quickly it was time-consuming. So, Joe just ate what we ate. We never gave rice cereal, either. Whether or not what we did would be considered BLW I don’t really know. I never labelled it mainly because the people that I knew who did do BLW were kind of pushy and a bit superior about it, so that gave me a negative feeling about BLW in general. I’ve found that people will make negative comments pretty much no matter what decisions you make with your kids 🙂 But I guess something like BLW is mainly what we did.
I totally agree on the “people will make negative comments about pretty much every decision you make! We didn’t do cereal either – our pediatrician shared our belief that it’s filler. I’ve heard good things about BLW, though I haven’t done it. Or maybe I have & just don’t know much about it! Good luck!
I’ve never heard of this method before (not surprising since I don’t have children yet). Thank you for posting about something that is different from the ‘norm’. It makes total sense, especially nutrition wise. I think people have a hard time understanding that there’s multiple ways to parent, and finding what works best for you is all that matters! 🙂