There comes a time in the life of a baby when milk no longer cuts it- it’s time for real food! So you pull out your food processor and start making purees… or go to the store and spend more than you’d like on jars and squeeze pouches. You ride the ups and downs of baby grabbing spoon, blowing raspberries and covering you in pea puree, and watching your meal get cold while you painstakingly spoon feed your little one. Might there not be a better way?
With my first two babies I {mostly} made all of their food- fruit, veggie, and grain purees inspired by Ruth Yaron’s book, Super Baby Food. It was fun and exciting. A novelty, I delighted in every wholesome spoon fed minute. But by the time my third came around I was over it. With two other children running around, I wanted everything to be as hassle free as possible!
About a month before my third baby was born I read this blog post about “baby led weaning” and decided I definitely wanted to give it a try. The basic concept is that you start your baby straight on table foods when they are old enough to show interest. From the get go, they feed themselves, skip purees entirely, and eat basically whatever the rest of the family is eating {to read up on how to proceed safely with this method, check out the baby led weaning website}.
This appealed to me on several levels. First off, it saves time. Instead of making extra food on the side specifically for the baby, freezing it in ice cube trays, and thinking ahead to pull cubes out to thaw, I can just cook one meal for everyone. I can also eat with my family while food is hot, and watch the baby eat- as opposed to juggling my food and hers at the same time.
Money is saved because I’m not paying for containers {glass jars and squeeze pouches constitute a good percentage of baby food’s cost!}. Meal times with small children are already hectic and busy, so streamlining is a wonderful thing.
At around 7 months, my daughter started grabbing for food and staring with watering mouth while we ate. I started straight in on table foods. At each meal I gave her a piece of food about the width of my finger- peeled cucumber sticks, broccoli florets, hunks of bread, cooked baby carrots, watermelon slices, and blueberries were some of our favorites. This worked great!
It’s helpful to know the difference between gagging and choking. When I first gave her a piece of food, she would inevitably start to gag at the new texture. Using her natural reflexes, she gagged and slowly pushed the food out of her mouth. Never once did she actually choke- the food stayed safely out of her windpipe, and I watched her practice and grow in dexterity as she learned new foods.
After over a month of successful table food eating, she came down with a nasty virus and reverted back to nursing only. I wasn’t phased because I know this can be common. Once she was well again, we jumped back into our table food routine. I think this time around it was too much at once; she went back to her three meals right away, and got to be very constipated. I also noticed that she could safely swallow fairly large chunks of food that were hard to digest.
Sadly I decided we might need to go to purees only and see if they weren’t easier on her digestive track. Sure enough, a few days later she was good as gold, and we’ve stuck to purees since. Recently I’ve started to go back to more table foods {she’s almost ten months}, and she seems to be handling them well once again.
Although skipping purees entirely didn’t quite work for us this time, I think I’ll still opt for baby led weaning first with any future babies we might have. It might not be optimal if your baby is really hungry really early on, or if they start getting constipated {like mine did!}. But for many people it’s an excellent and extremely convenient solution!
I love that it makes me examine the rest of my family’s diet. I cringe over giving chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, french fries, and other processed foods to an infant, but often don’t blink an eye at my bigger kids {or even myself} having the same thing. I’m all about enjoying “bad” food in moderation, but if I find that there often aren’t wholesome options for my baby at our regular meals, it’s a good sign that I need to be cooking in a healthier direction.
On that same note, one struggle I’ve had is feeding my baby way too many carbs! Bread, pretzel sticks, and crackers are always around and always easy, but they aren’t the most nutritious choice. Cucumbers, soft fruits such as pears and peaches and bananas, and even frozen peas are healthier options that require little to no extra prep time.
How do you feed your baby? Does baby led weaning sound tempting to you?
Rachel
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