When people think about introducing a baby’s first solid foods, they usually picture an adult with a spoon and a few teaspoonfuls of puréed carrot or apple. Sometimes the baby will open her mouth eagerly to take the spoon – but she is just as likely to spit the food out, push the spoon away, cry or refuse to eat.
The first experiences of eating solid food can have an impact on the way a baby feels about mealtimes for many years, so it makes sense to make them enjoyable. But weaning for many babies – and their parents – isn’t much fun. Of course, not all babies mind being spoon-fed in the conventional way, but many appear to resign themselves to it rather than truly enjoy it. On the other hand, babies who are allowed to feed themselves and eat with the family seem to love mealtimes.
Baby-led weaning allows babies to follow their instincts to copy their parents and their brothers and sisters and to develop their feeding skills in a natural, fun way, learning as they go.
This is what happens in BLW:
- The baby sits with the rest of the family at mealtimes, and joins in when she is ready.
- She is encouraged to explore food as soon as she is interested, by picking it up with her hands – it doesn’t matter whether or not she manages to eat any at first.
- Food is offered in pieces that are the size and shape that the baby can handle easily (a chunky finger shape is best) , rather than as purées or mashed food.
- She feeds herself from the start, rather than being spoon-fed by someone else.
- It’s up to the baby how much she eats, and how quickly she widens the range of foods she enjoys.
- The baby continues to have milk feeds (breastmilk or formula) whenever she wants them and she decides when she is ready to begin reducing them.
If they are given the chance, almost all babies of six months plus will show their parents that they are ready for something other than milk simply by grabbing a piece of food and taking it to their mouths. They don’t need their parents to decide when weaning should start and they don’t need to be spoon-fed; babies can do it themselves.
Provided some basic principles are followed, baby-led weaning is safe, natural and easy – and, like most good ideas in parenting, it’s not new. Parents the world over have discovered it for themselves, simply by watching their babies. Babies are programmed to experiment and explore; it’s how they learn. They use their hands and their mouths to find out about all sorts of objects, including food.
Feeding themselves allows babies to practise important aspects of their development at every mealtime. Using their fingers to get food to their mouths means BLW babies practise hand-eye coordination; gripping foods of different sizes and textures several times a day improves their dexterity. As they have the chance to practise chewing and moving different shapes and textures of food around in their mouths, they become skilled at dealing with food more quickly than babies who are only spoon-fed.
And because babies are included in family mealtimes from the start, eating the same food and joining in, they gradually learn about how different foods are eaten, how to share and wait their turn. Sharing mealtimes has a positive impact on family relationships, social skills, language development and healthy eating.
Eating habits developed during childhood can last a lifetime. Our ideas about how much babies should eat tend to be based on the old belief that a chubby baby was a healthy baby. But it seems likely that babies who are allowed to choose what to eat from a range of nutritious foods, at their own pace, and to decide when they’ve had enough, continue to eat according to their appetite and are less likely to over-eat when they are older. This may be an important part of preventing obesity.
When there is no pressure on babies to eat, there is no opportunity for mealtimes to become a battleground, so pickiness and food refusal are less likely with BLW. And because the baby is eating normal family foods from the start, there isn’t the transition from baby foods to lumpier meals and then to family meals, which many babies find difficult.
As adults, we tend to take our food for granted and forget how much the individual flavours and textures within a meal contribute to our enjoyment of it. Traditional ‘first-stage’ baby foods often consist of several ingredients, all blended together into one smooth homogenous mixture. This not only means that the baby experiences just one texture but also that she doesn’t have the chance to discover what the various ingredients taste like on their own.
Many parents prefer to spoon-feed babies and young children simply because it is quicker than allowing them to feed themselves. But allowing babies to do things for themselves not only enables them to learn but gives them confidence in their own abilities and judgement. When a baby picks something up and gets it to her mouth she receives an almost instant reward in the form of an interesting taste or texture. This teaches her that she is capable of making good things happen, which in turn helps to build her confidence and self-esteem. As her experience of food grows, and she discovers what’s edible and what isn’t, and what to expect from each type of food, she learns to trust her own judgement.
Most parents find baby-led weaning is cheaper and less stressful than spoon feeding. Puréeing food is time-consuming and fiddly – and it just isn’t necessary. Provided the parents’ diet is healthy, they can easily adapt their meals for their baby. (Meals should be made from fresh, unprocessed ingredients as much as possible with no added salt.) Letting the baby share what’s being cooked for the rest of the family is cheaper than buying and preparing separate meals – and much less expensive than ready-made baby foods! And rather than spoon-feeding your baby separately or while your own dinner goes cold, with BLW you and your baby get to eat together.
Why BLW Makes SenseBabies and children crawl, walk and talk when they are ready. These developmental milestones won’t happen any sooner and – provided babies are given the opportunity – they won’t happen any later than the right time for that baby. When you put your newborn baby on the floor to have a kick you are giving her the opportunity to roll over. When she can, she will. You’re also providing her with the opportunity to get up and walk. That may take a bit longer. But keep on providing the opportunity and she will do it eventually. Why should feeding be any different?
Healthy babies are able to feed themselves from their mother’s breast as soon as they are born. By the time they are about six months old they are able to reach out and grab pieces of food and take them to their mouths. We’ve always known that they can do this and, for many years, parents have been encouraged to introduce finger foods from about six months. But there is now evidence to show that babies shouldn’t be having any solids before this age. Since babies can begin to feed themselves with finger foods from six months, there seems to be no need for puréed foods at all. However, even though we now know that babies have both the instinct and the ability to feed themselves at the right time, spoon-feeding is still the way most babies are fed during their first year – and sometimes for much longer.
Learning to eat solid foods is a natural stage of development. It’s curiosity – not hunger – that drives a baby to experiment with food and he knows what he needs to do. We don’t control when a baby starts to walk, so it’s not clear why we should control his move to solid foods.
No parent would actively prevent their baby from walking when he is showing signs of doing it – it would be seen as cruel and potentially harmful. But many parents, go against their baby’s instinct to eat, by preventing him from feeding himself or not allowing him to make any decisions at mealtimes. As a parent, the only control you need to have over your baby’s feeding is deciding which foods he is offered, and how often. Provided you offer him nutritious food, it should be your baby’s decision what he eats, how much and how fast.
Playing an active part in mealtimes and being in control of what to eat, how much to eat and how fast to eat it make eating more enjoyable; the opposite can make mealtimes miserable. Baby-led weaning babies look forward to eating; they enjoy learning about different foods and doing things for themselves. Early experiences of happy, stress-free mealtimes are a recipe for a healthy attitude to food for life.
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