I am so excited to be writing this post. To see the post about Feeding Gear we use, click here.
Baby Led Weaning ( BLW) has been one of the most fun, relatively stress-free experiences so far, if I can say so, being only over a month into it. But I feel like it’s only going to get better from now on.
{high chair is by Boon Inc}
First of all, for those who are unfamiliar with the term Baby Led Weaning, it has nothing to do with stopping breastfeeding the way the word “weaning” is in American English. I believe the name took roots in Britain where weaning simply means “introduction of solids”. However, introduction of solids does spell out an EVENTUAL weaning from the breast, hence the name.
{Just fyi, as of right now I am planning on breastfeeding for as long as Alexis wants it and I can manage, with two years being the goal on my part}
I first learned about BLW on one of the blogs I used to read when I was pregnant ( can’t remember which one, otherwise I’d give a huge shoutout to it for introducing the concept into my world). The idea seemed… well… unconventional, interesting and the arguments FOR it made sense to me immediately.
Instead of giving purees, you basically let your child explore, play with and eat real whole foods or finger foods so that small hands could easily pick it up. According to the book, 6 months old babies ( as long as they are truly ready for solids, which is a good guide to go by, even for pureeing parents) are perfectly capable of and very interested in feeding themselves. They want to copy you, they want to explore new tastes and textures and they can do it pretty sufficiently.
My first reaction was “Won’t she choke?” Other than that, it seemed like a really cool concept. I held off making a decision until closer to 5 months. At that point, I was still intrigued by the idea, but I figured in order to do it right, I had to get all the information. So I bought the BLW book on my nook and started reading while rocking Lexi to sleep. When I was done reading, I COULD NOT WAIT to get started. At 5.5 months, Alexis has completed the checklist of “readiness”, but I was waiting till 6 months anyways.
That was until one morning when she was a week or two short of 6 months, while sitting in my lap, she reached out, TORE a peach out of my hands and bit into it. She had been interested in our food for a while, and reaching out to try and grab it, but this whole “I’m gonna take your peach and bite into it, and then chew it” made me realize it might be time to start slowly sharing food with her. Every time we’d let her eat, she’d go for it with so much gusto, it was contageous!
At first it was all done while sitting in one of our laps, which was pretty difficult. One of us had to be holding her and catching food, while the other eats. It was not the family affair in the way I had hoped it would be. A lot of food ended up on the floor because we just couldn’t catch it with our one free hand.
Then the high chair arrived, which made our life 10 times easier and a whole lot of fun.
Before her teeth popped out, it was pretty stress free. All she’d do is gum on both hard and soft foods, getting the juice or the soft parts of fruits and vegetables out. She enjoyed it quite a lot too.
Then the teeth came out and the biting started. This is where I started doubting the whole “let her eat grown up food” bit under the pressure of my husband ( who didn’t read the book, therefore was freaked out by the idea of her choking). She would bite off bigger pieces that she couldn’t manage so well yet and then start coughing. This would send Andrew into panic mode, telling me to grab food out of her mouth and “never give to her again”. It’s not that I wasn’t a bit freaked either, but the book covers this specific topic of choking and gagging and coughing very well and I was prepared for it a little more.
To quickly explain, according to the book, coughing and gagging is a completely normal natural response to simply having food in their mouths at that age. In adults the trigger for “choking”, and hence coughing from it, is in the back of a person’s throat. For infants of 6 months, though, that trigger is in the middle of their tongue. So when they bite a piece that is a little too big, they start coughing as if they are choking before they even had a chance to move the piece back into the actual “danger zone”. During these beginning months, they learn to bite proper size pieces, not stuff their mouths, chew, swallow, move the food around in their mouth, which, apparently, are all very complex movements. By the time that the coughing trigger moves back where it belongs ( nine months if I am not mistaken), an infant who has been fed non-pureed foods has learned to handle foods safely enough to be able to chew them up, or spit them out if the bite is too big. This way, most babies who were BLW’ed don’t ever need their food cut up in small pieces for them (except for choking hazards like grapes, cherries etc), and they enjoy family meals from an early age, because you feed them what you are eating ( with some modifications in the very beginning).
So while I know the rationalizations for why it’s completely normal for babies to cough/gag, it’s still scary at times.
Luckily in the last week or so, she seems to have gotten the hang of manipulating food and she hasn’t coughed or gagged once. At the same time, we also try to avoid foods that could be hard to deal with. A few things that didn’t work out in the beginning were baked potato strips, because they were too hard on the edges and she kept biting pieces off. I’ve stayed away from bread or crackers for the same reason. Anything that seem like it could get stuck in her throat, I am very careful with regardless.
As far as other foods, we won’t be doing meat or dairy, since we don’t eat that ourselves. I am not keen on introducing her to soy yet. We aren’t holding off on anything out of fears of allergy ( no family history, pedi told to go full steam ahead), though. Out of animal products, I think we will do eggs and fish, though I am waiting a little bit since there are still plenty of fruits and vegetables to introduce. Obviously, no salt (except for in very small amounts in restaurant food- I check their sodium content online), no honey. We are holding off on tomatoes and onions because they seem to give her reflux through my milk when I eat them ( and then also gave me heartburn when I was pregnant). We’ve made soups: split pea, spicy chickpea and squash, letting her grab the spoon and attempt to put it in her mouth herself. It took a few days of utter mess but she finally got the hang of it and will put a pre-loaded spoon into her mouth the right side up and in.
I have to say that Alexis was REALLY good at handling food from the very beginning. From the day I realized she was ready, she’s been grabbing and picking up foods like a pro, very surprisingly so. And she is getting better at it, the more she does it. She mimics us and makes the chewing motion. Or squashes the softer foods in her hand and then puts them into her mouth.
The following are the stages that she’s gone through while doing BLW:
{these are not official stages, just the ones I’ve noticed her go through}
Week 1: Eager to grab food and put it in her mouth. Eats with pleasure and interest
Week 2: Lots of gagging as she learns not to bite off more than she can chew (literally)
Week 3-4: The appearance of object permanence. She would pick up her food, bring her hand outside of the highchair, and release the food. Then she would lean over to see where it went. Rinse and repeat. At that point very little ended up in her mouth, if any.
Week 5: Shake, shake, shake, shake it! Arms flying everywhere, plates and food follows. She picks up her food, starts shaking it and then drops. Or windshield-wipes everything off of the tray in an excited motion.
Week 6: Squishing stage. Everything we put on her tray goes through the “squish test“. She tries to squish the food as hard as she can, then eats what’s left in her palm. Strawberries crumble, cucumbers don’t, which causes her to try and squash them even more. {see below: 2nd row, 1st pic on the left )
{From top left: Damage after a strawberry fight, drinking out of a glass in a restaurant, eating split pea soup at CPK, having more strawberry fun, eating veggies at Bonefish Grill, Guacomole Hummus make up}
Week 7: Eating again using the “squish”, pincer grasp or conventional methods. No gagging, lots of chewing and spitting large pieces out. She’s really gotten the hang of it. Not well enough to let her eat anything, but good enough that most soft and hard finger sized foods are completely manageable.
We don’t give her juice or water on regular basis since she is breastfed, though she loves drinking out of a cup and adores water. I let her drink out of my cup whenever she sees me drinking but it’s usually once or twice a week, no more.
The following are the foods she’s tried and she loves everything, partially because she determines what to eat or not and how much, but the stared items are the her favorites:
Cucumber*, zuccinni*, squash*, sweet potatoes, strawberries*, peaches*, plums*, apples, kiwi*, bananas, pears, avocado*, potatoes, mushrooms, raddish*, eggplant,chickpeas (mashed), split pea soup*, brocolli soup*, brocolli, red* and green pepper, avocado hummus*, mango, pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, cherries ( cut in small pieces), grapes (cut in small pieces), carrots, and more.
We also tried this amazing recipe for Avocado Pear Popsicle from Pinterest. I loooooved the taste of it, but Lexi was completely freaked by the cold. She didn’t get the concept of holding it by the stick and kept trying to grab it with her hands. I think I’ll give it a few weeks and try it again. But it was still a lot of fun watching her reaction.
Things I love about BLW:
- No stressing over intake. She eats- great, she doesn’t – that’s fine, too.
- Letting the baby control the portion and size
- No pureeing, minimal work
- Eating together as a family
- Letting her explore and have fun
- Being able to eat almost anything at a restaurant
- Very laid back in approach and attitude to solids.
Things that I don’t like:
- Choking fear
- Lack of studies/research ( the biggest issue I had with the book is the use of the words “anecdotal evidence suggests…”. I would have liked to see studies, but I realize this is more of a lifestyle choice than a “BLW vs puree battle” that would necessitate studies and proof)
I was always intrigued by BLW, but it wasn’t until I saw that Alexis was ready that the decision to go the BLW route solidified. It really helped reading the book. I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone about to introduce solids, regardless of whether you want to feed purees or go the BLW route. It has a lot of great ideas on how babies should be fed, how to avoid food struggles & unhealthy relationship with food, etc. Like I said, the book lacked backing by studies, but it made so much sense that it was almost negligible ( aside from the annoying “anectodal evidence suggests…”). I think it’s more of a lifestyle choice, like I said previously. BLW might appeal to some people and others might totally freak at the idea. It IS messy, no doubt about it, and there’s food waste. I know the book tried to downplay that aspect, but the truth is that’s just how BLW is. And depending on how good your baby with manipulating food, it can make your uneasy sometimes. If those two things don’t bother you, then it’s an awesome way of introducing food to your baby. Really a lot of fun for both baby and mama. At this point, I can’t even imagine having to puree something ( I do puree soups, but that’s it).
