Feeding Tuesday: Baby-Led Weaning Book
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When my first son, Jack, started solids, I got this book and cookbook on baby-led weaning — I really liked the idea that he could control how much or how little he ate without passively having someone shovel food into his mouth. It’s a great idea in theory, but I sometimes wonder if it contributed to Jack’s love of throwing food on the floor. As we’re starting solids for my second now, this is on my mind — I still really like the idea, but would prefer to skip the food going everywhere… sigh. Ladies, any thoughts that you’d care to share on solids? The book is $8.44 at Amazon. Happy Tuesday! Baby Led WeaningSales of note for 9.10.24
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- The concept of “backup care” is so stupid…
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- How can I change my thinking to better recognize some of my husband’s contributions as important, like organizing the shed?
- What are your tips to having a good weekend with kids, especially with little kids? Do you have a set routine or plan?
Mwahahahahaha making organic dinners! Maybe someday, but certainly not now. Now dinner is after everyone goes to bed and usually consists of yogurt and granola. (I like Chipotle for lunch ;-) )
My issue is that BLW seems to assume that I’m eating meals as healthy as I’d want my baby to eat. I started with purees with my first, because I’d rather give him organic pureed veggies than a bite of the Chipotle my husband grabbed on the way home. At least with purees I could steam and puree batches during the weekend, then freeze for the next couple weeks.
Is this just me? Is everyone else making healthy organic dinners every night?
My kids were never huge eaters but starting around 6 months or so I would start sharing my own food if they were interested. More was useful but neither of them really seemed to get what “all done” meant. I kind of think throwing food happens (at least a little) no matter what. They liked puffs. Can’t really say they liked anything else. Once they were weaned and started really eating we kept on offering variety and they seem to be doing well with that.
I read this book and it was helpful, but mostly because I had no clue what my baby could or could not eat and needed a cheat sheet. But after that initial read, I have barely opened the book. We started with baby cereal and swiftly moved on to things like applesauce, mashed yam, etc. We spent very little time on the puree phase and went to the mashed phase pretty quickly – but then again my LO has been a great eater from day 1. She is now 11 months and will basically eat most things, although she hasn’t quite figured out pasta (I think it’s the texture) and I am not quite ready to give her things like raw carrot sticks, although the hard core BLW folks probably would. When she has finished eating, she “wipes” her tray clean, thereby flinging all leftover food onto the floor, but it sends a very clear “I’m done!” message. Her favourite foods are meat, meat, meat, pineapple and cheese.
Admittedly, although I’ve heard of BLW, I have been way too lazy to read parenting philosophy books about any of this so I don’t know the specifics. I think we did something similar, though. We followed the pediatrician’s advice on when to start thickening milk with oatmeal/rice cereal, when to start introducing purees and in what order, and when to start with finger foods. But we transitioned to all finger food as quickly as possible because I like to spend dinnertime eating my own food, not spoon-feeding a baby, thankyouverymuch. I think this has everything to do with temperment rather than parenting, but our son (now 1.5) likes most food – even vegetables. He loved being fed with a spoon and sucking on the mesh bags, but refused pouches until just a couple months ago. Ever since he graduated from straight up Gerber carrot puree or whatever, he eats whatever we’re eating for dinner, but he also gets fruit for dessert every night. On the rare occasion he doesn’t like dinner, he just holds out for fruit (but he has to eat one bite of each thing we’re eating first).
I won’t say we’ve avoided food on the floor, but it’s always been easy to tell when he’s finished eating – his first step was to try to hand me a piece of food. If I didn’t take it, that’s when it would start going on the floor or getting smeared all over the high chair tray. It’s just a matter of moving quickly enough to intercept the second step.
We’ve done mostly BLW with my just about 1 year old. We do feed him super messy things like yogurt, apple sauce, etc. , but we just put everything else right on his tray. We put a disposable tablecloth under his highchair to catch anything that drops, but he’s usually pretty good about not throwing food around unless he’s finished eating. When he starts, we just take the tray away from him.
Our 8 month old eats cheerios, soft fruits, string cheese, broccoli florets, etc. with no problem. My husband is constantly worried about choking, however. Every night he and I debate how big the pieces of food should be. What’s a good rule of thumb on this? Sometimes baby stuffs her mouth with lots of cheese or whatever and then coughs, almost as if she was gagging. This is terribly worrying to my husband. Is it normal? Just wanted to get some feedback from others on this. Thanks!
This is timely – I just started solids with my 4 month old. The doctor told me the recommendations have changed so the window is now 4-6 months whenever baby is ready. I started with baby food and she seems to be doing fine with it. I let her grab the spoon and “feed” herself so that when she loses interest I know she’s done. I like the idea of BLW but I need to do some research on it. We didn’t do it at all with my first, and she took a long time to be a good, self-sufficient eater. We were still struggling with everything but baby food when she was 1. Now she’s great but the transition to food and sippy cups was definitely a struggle with her. I hope to avoid that this time around! Thanks for the book recommendation.
I must be getting old, but we’ve done jars/pouches–spoon-feeding those (until they grab the pouch)–with all our kids, adding in small bits of food when it seemed like they could handle it, and gradually get them to larger pieces and more self-feeding. Worked well for my first two, and seems great for my third. She seems more into self-feeding than my other two, so we’re moving into that more quickly. I’ve avoided any books on the matter, and just rolled with what will fly with the kiddos. And I’ll be the first to say that the jar/pouch phase is my favorite because it’s so. easy. to just grab a jar and slap it in the lunchbox. The next phase–dicing everything into teeny tiny pieces–is perhaps my least favorite.
As for mess control for non-dog owners, I have two words: splat mat.
We didn’t read the book but generally took this approach with both of ours. The second baby was more demanding on feeding herself from an early age. We always cooked food for them and either mashed it up or pureed it. My grandmother couldn’t believe I was feeding them real bananas instead of baby food bananas. My MIL insisted on buying the first one organic baby food carrots out of a jar which my son flatly refused to eat. So she just let us do it our way with the second one.
As for throwing food – second the dog comment. Our 15 months has started throwing her food now when she doesn’t want something and we are working on teaching her to place it back on her tray. When she throws it, her high chair gets turned around for about 30 seconds. This hurts her feelings so bad that it only happens a few times a week. This will kill grandparents if you do it in their presence but she is smart enough to figure it out.
As for fingerfoods- here is our ideas. Toasted peanut butter sandwiches (yes we didn’t want until 1 year old to give peanut butter), mini pita sandwiches with different stuffings, diced cheese and meats, pasta salads, stuff tortilla shells cut into thirds, steamed vegetables – peas, lima beans, green beans, and sweet potatoes, etc.
I just don’t find any overall theory/method/-ism about parenting to be terribly useful. Maybe it’s fantastic for Baby One, but that doesn’t mean it will work as well for Baby Two. My guys get baby cereal and fruit puree for breakfast (which, yes, I spoon-feed them). Then they get finger foods for lunch. Cheerios or home-made teething biscuits, then shredded cheese or diced meat or beans, then soft fruit in pieces or in a mesh feeder. I think more of the food winds up on the floor (and therefore in the dog — solution to food on the floor, get a dog) than in the babies, but I see it as being more about the muscle practice and hand-eye coordination than eating anyway. And they usually wrap up lunch with a nice, big bottle. Dinner is me spoon-feeding them home-made purees. Baby A is super into purees and being spoon fed. He leans forward and opens his little mouth for each spoonful, then kicks his feet while he swallows. Baby B not so much. He’ll grab the spoon out of my hand and feed himself with it. Or he’ll take two bites from me then shut his mouth tight and turn away his head and fuss until I give him a bottle. He loves, loves, loves bottles. But food, meh. Still, it seems that some people seem to think that purees = bland mush. Which I find weird. Yes, my babies eat purees. But I season them just as I season the food my husband and I eat. A little nutmeg in the apples. Some cumin and cilantro in the black beans. Lemon juice and pepper (and a tiny bit of salt) in their broccoli. Also, even when I’m spoon-feeding them, it doesn’t mean they’re not controlling what they’re eating. Believe me! They are quite clear when they want more and when they are all done. So this is a long way of saying that, sure, finger foods are great. Variety is great. Eating whatever mom and dad is eating is great. But I don’t know if we need to say “baby is ONLY eating this way” and slap a name on what “this way” is and pretend that it’s the best way or certainly the best way for all babies. (Not that I’m saying that’s what Kat or this book is doing. It’s just what a see in a lot of parenting stuff. This wholesale adoption of some “method” and then arguing why it’s the only way to parent. If the kid’s getting fed and is happy and healthy, I’m not sure how much it matters how the food is getting into the baby.)
This is timely. We’re 3 weeks in and doing BLW. Right now it’s only at home, usually once a day (dinner during the week). She tends to go to bed between 6:30 and 7:00 so it’s a short window. Would love other peoples thoughts on working full time and making this transition, particularly if also still nursing as we’re trying for our goal of making it to a year.
I am doing BLW with my 8 month old but am struggling with what to send him for lunch to daycare. Any thoughts ?
I don’t really remember the transition to solids. I think we used the baby oatmeal to thicken some purees. He ate a combination of the pouches and tiny pieces of whatever we were eating. We didn’t have any allergy issues, but we did take the precaution of introducing new foods at daytime meals to keep an eye on him. The jarred/tray meals with meats grossed us out so we avoided those. He’s a pretty good eater now at 4.
One thing that we did early (4-5 months) was to offer a straw sippy cup of water with his meals. It took him a while to get the hang of it and then there was no looking back. Made getting rid of the bottle around 12 months very easy.
We have two furry vacuum cleaners who were more than happy to clean the highchair and floor. He wasn’t much into throwing food.
We didn’t know about BLW with our first, but used it with our second. I like to refer to it as “the lazy parent’s guide to feeding your baby.” It gave my husband all kinds of heart attacks (my MIL too) but overall it worked great for us. Didn’t have big issues with food on the floor (any moreso than with our older non-BLW kiddo) but I lilke POSITA’s idea of signing “all done.”