Baby-led weaning

At six months old it was time to start thinking about how we were going to start transitioning our baby from breast milk to food. My limited understanding of the process meant that I thought that I’d need to blend, mush and squash everything, until eventually he was able to manage proper food. Interested in gathering some more information on the weaning process, I signed up for a Happy Tums weaning course at The Nesting Place and was introduced the concept of baby-led weaning.

Baby-led weaning was a bit of a revolution for me, as it meant the opportunity to forget purees and weaning spoons, and simply let my baby feed himself. I felt that it offered several advantages over the blend it methods, in terms of enabling my baby to eat what we did, saving time and money. Also, more importantly though giving him the opportunity to truly learn about food. Through baby-led weaning, he not only gets to learn what food tastes like but also what it looks and feels like. He’s in control so he can gage how much he wants to eat and whether on not he is full, fostering a healthy relationship with food. In my mind, this is so important, as so often I see people in my Physio clinic, who have health problems that are influenced by their unhealthy relationships with food.

Another key benefit for me relates to the fact that promotes his fine motor skills. Picking up food helps his dexterity, promotes hand-eye and hand-to-mouth coordination, with the reward of yummy food when he gets his hand or spoon in the right place.

One of my major reservations, other than the level of mess, was that I could end up with a 6 year old, who was still eating with their hands. However, as Baby-led weaning lets us sit down to eat as a family, it enables him see how we eat, as well as learning that eating food is both enjoyable and social. On the course, they recommended putting a spoon on the table so that little ones have the opportunity to use it. In our house, a spoon is an object of great fascination; sometimes he even manages to get food on it and the right end in his mouth at the same time so I guess that I don’t need to worry about long-term caveman like eating habits.

The other concern for most parents is choking but actually I think that the risk of choking is probably reduced, as he is given pieces of food far too big to get stuck, thus he sucks or bites off what he can manage. Also, I’m not the one shovelling it in so when there is a bit that he has to work a bit harder with, he naturally takes his time to deal with it, rather than me creating a production line of spoonfuls, without truly knowing if the last one has fully been swallowed.

Thus, I’m now a real advocate of baby led weaning, as it has worked beautifully for us and meant that I just give him whatever healthy food we are also eating. I’ll write more about baby-led weaning next month and offer some practical tips, including when to start weaning and which foods to wait until they are a year old to try but right now it’s lunch time and prawns and avocado are on the menu.

For more of my mummy blogs and other health and lifestyle blogs please visit our website www.hummingbirdpilates.co.uk/blog