Baby Led Weaning (solids)?

Erynne - posted on 12/12/2009

Here's the thing with Baby-Led Weaning... it's BABY-LED. If your baby isn't showing a huge interest in food, it's not time to start forcing food on them.

My son didn't get his first solid food until he was 6mos, and at that point I gave him 1/3 of a banana. He chewed on it, shuddered, and spit out the bit he managed to get off. He sucked on the banana and played with it, but didn't EAT any of it.

He's now 8mos old. He's still 99% breastfed. Occasionally, he will swallow a bit of something, but for the most part, he's tasting. And I am 100% okay with that. When he's READY to eat, he WILL eat. Until then, he's tasting things and experiencing different textures.

I like BLW because it's the ultimate in relax-and-let-nature-take-its-course. Your baby will not be exclusively breastfeeding when they graduate college, trust me. Eventually, curiosity will get the best of her and you will find that she's tasting and eating things.

Until then, visit this blog/forum to get ideas on how to proceed: www.babyledweaning.com

- E

Tricia - posted on 11/21/2009

I think that, as with many parenting issues, your best strategy is to just take a relaxed attitude. Is your baby starving to death? No? Ok, then whatever you're doing is fine, and there's no need for drastic change. At some point your baby will be able to eat whatever the family is eating with no problems, and exactly how they get to that point is not that big of a deal. My 10 month old eats the occasional odd bite of food most days. Every couple of weeks he'll decide he's hungry and he'll gum up half a sweet potato or 1/4 cup of peas or whatever veggie or starch is on the table every evening for a few days, and then he'll go back to a bite or two for a while. He's growing, he's happy. I'm not worrying about it.

Natasha - posted on 11/13/2009

Quoting Sabrina:

Baby Led Weaning (solids)?

My Daughter is 5.5 months old and we are getting ready to start solids. A friend of mine is using the BLW approach and swears by it but I have some concerns. I'm not sure going straight from breast milk to solid food is a great idea, there's no digestive preparation in that?

I have been doing baby led weaning with my 9 month girl and I can highly recommend it.  With BLW you have to look at things from a position of trusting your baby to feed themselves what is right for them.  It is a very good step on from breastfeeding as with breastfeeding the baby feeds themselves deciding how much milk to take and when.  In terms of digestive preparation I think BLW actually offers more as when a baby encounters a new food there is a process they go through touching the food, putting it to their lips, watching mummy eat it, putting some in their mouth, spitting it out, repeating etc, and you trust that their body and instincts will know if something is right (just as food that an adult is allergic to will often taste disgusting to them).  With pureed food babys can not get it all out of their mouth like a lump of food if they feel like it is not agreeing with them and you can never tell why they are spitting it out.

Another point with BLW is that you don't 'get ready to give solids' the baby decides when they are ready, and I think the best way of doing this is just sitting them on your lap at meal times as they approach 6 months and letting them experience what is on your plate, once they then show a real interest you can put then in their highchair for meals then with a load of different healthy foods and let them choose, moving on to feeding what you are eating once they become good at eating.  Also remember that 'food is for fun under 1'.

I really enjoy my food and I never wanted the stereotypical 'forcing my children to eat' and 'making food with hidden vegetables in' senarios and so far meal times are amazing I have so many happy memories of my girl with food and I am hoping this will continue.

Joanne - posted on 11/10/2009

I actually haven't read anything official on this topic, so I don't know if this fits with the philosophy of BLW. I've been much more relaxed about food with my second baby. I've just let her take the lead and tell me what she was ready for. First of all, she was not the least bit interested in food until she was about 7 months old and she's never really liked purees much, although I have given her some of the "stage 3" jarred food for convenience at times. I've always given her foods with lots of texture and chunks. Now (10 months old) she pretty much eats whatever we do. She likes EVERYTHING!

Amy - posted on 10/20/2009

I forgot to say, as well a number of other benefits to BLW, such as hand eye coordination development etc, it's loads more fun than spoon feeding!

Amy - posted on 10/18/2009

Hi. We have been doing BLW with our daughter 5.5 months every few days since she was about 4months. She mainly plays/investigates the food but definately swallows the odd bit. There has been the odd gagging incident but nothing to be concerned about.



I'll explain as best as I can on some poits that I have researched...



Gagging is perfectly normal it is how they learn what they can and cannot handle. The gag reflex trigger moves further back as babies get older, so there is an argument that it is safer to introduce finger foods to babies sooner rather than later.



Iron levels are not depleted by 6months, they are just starting to deplete. Interestingly, babies who are exclusively breastfed until 7months have a lower rate of anemia than other babies at about 2years (cannot remember the exact stat). This is because although iron levels in breastmilk are lower it is much more easily absorbed than from other sources.



Pureed food for babies was only 'invented' in 1930s due to some bad advice from victorian doctors to breastfeeding mothers... you can read about this is in the book Baby led weaning by Gill Rapley...this book is really recommended...I understand the author has worked with the WHO on baby feeding issues...



Perhaps try the following yahoo group for advice 'B-LW'...



Amy