Saturday, July 30, 2011

Baby-Led Weaning


When we introduced solids to E at 6 months we went with a totally different approach. With the older two we did the usual, start with baby cereal then introduce one pureed fruit or veggie every 3-4 days. Truth is, I hated it! It was so time consuming, not to mention we were not helping them learn to eat, just shoveling food into their mouths.

This time around I heard about Baby-Led Weaning. Again through my extensive research, uh reading of blogs, I realized this sounded like the way to go. I quickly ordered the book and got to it. Now purees for us!
We started her out at 6 months with hard foods that she couldn't really bite, but just gnaw on. She loved it! I was a little freaked out about her choking, but the book explains how that really is not a problem because a babies gag reflex is so far up on their tongues that it prevents them from getting large pieces of food in the back of their mouth.
After a while we started giving her steamed and softer foods to eat. It has been really amazing watching her learn to bite and chew at a much earlier age. By 9 months old she was eating just about everything we ate (minus common allergy triggers). An advantage to her eating the same food as us is that it is a good incentive to eat healthy! I am cooking healthier foods and healthier sides because I do not want my baby eating junk!

I often forget how advanced it is to just give my baby regular food and watch her eat it like she is two! It is also amazing to give a 10 month old a piece of steak and watch them chomp it up!

(Pics from early stages of BLW)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

That's amazing. She is going to be an awesome, non picky eater!

Kim said...

Wow! What a great idea. My nanny did something like this with Preston. He would be eating hunks of watermelon. She is so such cute! How is having three? I know I catch up with you occasionally on FB, but so good to see you blogging. BTW, Zander's comments are too funny. Preston is obsessed with talking about when people will die. Usually it's well past the 100th birthday mark.

Unknown said...

Too funny, we also took this same approach with Liam! (We must be getting brave now that we're parents of three!) It is so, so convenient to have him eating whatever we're eating for dinner. He LOVES his food and has yet to turn anything down! Adorable pictures!

Greene Family said...

That's awesome and yay that Eliza is such a great eater! Adorable pictures!!