What is baby-led weaning and why would you want to try it?

I am a huge fan of baby-led weaning. I did it with both of my kids and I would do it again and again if I was having a tribe. So today I thought I would share a little bit about it and why I think it’s a great choice when it comes to weaning your baby.

What is baby led-weaning?

When your baby is 6 months old, you can start transitioning them onto real food, rather than having just milk all the time. The more common approach to this is called weaning and that involves making mushed up food to spoon feed your baby. You can pretty much throw anything you want into a blender and you’re good to go. It’s a great method if you want to keep mess to a minimum, as you’re in control of the food. It’s also a great way to get extra food into your babies belly… a bit concern for a lot of parents.

The alternative method to this is called baby-led weaning and, as the name suggests, this is when you let your baby lead the way. Rather than creating mushed up food to spoon feed your baby, you cook the food in the same way you would for yourself (for example, sticks of cooked carrot and broccoli florets) and you simply put it on the tray and let your baby explore. Initially they will just play with the food, perhaps putting it in their mouth and spitting it out again, but as time goes on they will start learning how to soften the food in their mouth and swallow it.

Now this is where most parents are put off. The thought of giving their baby whole foods to put in their mouth can be scary, “What if they choke?”, and it IS a bit scary to start with, but you have to trust your baby and trust their amazing body. A babies gag reflux is much further forward than an adults, so when it looks like your baby is choking, the food is actually hitting their gag reflex and they are pushing it back into their mouth. They quickly learn to soften and then chew the food.

Another aspect to baby-led weaning that can be a little daunting… the mess. Imagine giving spaghetti bolognaise to your 7 month old, no spoons, no feeding, just the dinner straight onto the tray. It gets MESSY. Their hands are in it, their face is in it, it’s all over the floor, splashed up the wall… but oh my goodness are they having fun! It’s so wonderful to watch. And they are learning so much along the way.

Ok, you’ve almost put my off entirely. Why would I want to do this?

I know there are a few things to get your head around (the feeling of imminent choking and the huge amounts of mess), but it really is worth it and here is why:

1. It’s so much fun!
   Watching your baby play with a tray of food, investigating all the tastes and the textures, it’s wonderful to watch.

2. It’s much easier.
   You don’t need to prepare special food for your baby. You can just give them what you’re having. My son’s first experience with solid food was a Christmas dinner and he LOVED it. You just need to think about shapes and sizes. Veg is better cut into sticks so they can hold. Toast it great cut into fingers. Mashed potato they can just grab in handfuls!

3. Your baby will learn faster.
   Left to their own devices, they quickly learn how to soften and chew food. They also learn where their gag reflex is and how to stop food hitting it… resulting in far less choking incidents as they get older. Spoon feeding delays this learning.

4. Their speech is better.
   This is a biggie for me. Because you aren’t spooning mushed up food straight into their mouth and down their throat, they are having to learn to move their mouth and tongue and to control their gag reflex… all skills that help them to start making sounds with their mouth. Both my children started talking early and their speech was amazing. I put this solely down to baby-led weaning.

5. They will like a wider range of food.
   Now this one comes with a caveat. A big seller to baby-led weaning is introducing your baby to a wider range of foods and tastes and because they are handling the food themselves, they become more familiar with different textures. My kids have never been put off food by the texture, but baby-led weaning did not stop them from being fussy. My daughter is now 5 and although she started off eating EVERYTHING, at around 18 months she started refusing food and she continued to be a bit of a pain in the butt until she was about 4. Now, however, she eats almost everything. So, it could be that it was just a blip and actually, without baby-led weaning she’d still be a fussy eater now, but who knows?

I hope you’ve found this useful. If it’s made you think a little bit more about baby-led weaning as an option, I’d really recommend having a read of this book. I found it really informative.

I loved these 2 cookbooks too - The Baby-led Weaning Cookbook and Young Gums.