Baby-Lead Weaning

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Cheers Dad!

Thanks to a good friend, I found out about baby lead weaning when I was pregnant. I popped round to hers for tea one afternoon; her eight-month-old daughter was sitting with us. Anna simply sat down and popped a piece of broccoli in front of Nina, who picked up the stem investigated the head with interest and started to gnaw – meanwhile we carried on our conversation, with a token piece of broccoli each!

My eyes were on stalks. Firstly, I couldn’t believe Nina’s hand eye co-ordination it seemed so advanced for an eight-month-old. Secondly, as a veteran of many a school-dinner battle I thought it was great that Nina was completely in charge – she could have a proper look at what she was eating and then decide if and how she wanted to eat it. It was the perfect next-step from on-demand breastfeeding.

Oh and of course, anything that makes a parent’s life easier is always welcome and baby-lead weaning is SO much easier. No mashing food, no nightly battles trying to force-feed your little one.

So as my daughter reached the five-month mark I read Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett’s book Baby Lead Weaning (highly recommended) and we were away.

Yum... spag bol!

So what exactly is baby-lead weaning?

Instead of mashing food and spoon-feeding your baby, you place soft batons of vegetables in front of them to start with, extending to other foods as she becomes more confident.

Help, won’t my baby choke on solid foods?

No, as long as you are mindful of the BLW rules…

1)   Your baby must be able to sit-up on her own before you offer food.

2)   Your baby must be around six-months-old, only breast-milk until then.

3)   Always sit with your baby when they are eating, never leave them alone with food nearby.

4)   No small hard foods that she could choke on e.g., nuts, fruits with stones such as olives, raw veggies chopped into small pieces.

5)   Once you introduce food, your baby still needs to breastfeed on demand. Milk remains the main source of nutrition, which takes the pressure of meal times. Food is there for baby to play with and discover – she can taste, feel, touch and smell. There is no pressure for her to eat it.

6)   Do not put the food into her mouth – this could lead to choking and undermines the point of BLW which lets your baby decide when they want to eat.

7)   Eat with your baby. They learn how to eat, use cutlery and what’s expected at the table by imitating you. Also try and eat the same thing as your baby – they’re much more likely to trust food if they see you eating it.  It’s also a good idea to start as you mean to go on, as they say: a family who eats together stays together.

Do I have to start at six months?

You need to wait until six months. I know it can sometimes feel hard at five months when you’re breastfeeding exclusively and you want to take some of the pressure off by having another source of nutrition to hand, but actually life is so much easier when you don’t have to worry about choosing and preparing the right food for your baby, and then clearing up after a messy meal three times a day.  If you are understandably feeling fed-up, maybe you could look at expressing and bottle-feeding with our Yoomi bottle?

There is no pressure to start food at six months on the dot. In fact, some schools of thought will say the longer you breastfeed exclusively the longer your baby’s digestive system has to develop.

There is a concern about iron-deficiency when babies are breastfed exclusively after six months, although again different studies say different things. To put your mind at rest it may be a good idea to talk to your health visitor about monitoring your baby’s iron levels if they show no interest in food after the half-year mark.

When your baby is ready for food he will let you know by grabbing at whatever you’re eating, some babies might do this when they’re quite young – my daughter was really keen at five and a half months. In the end I gave in and let her gnaw on large pieces of broccoli moving onto different foods when she was past six-months.

Be mindful that if a baby is teething at say four months old, it may look like they want to eat your food but in fact they just want to gnaw on anything and everything in sight!

Other friends had babies who were completely uninterested in food until eight maybe nine months. It wasn’t a problem because they were still fully breastfed, food happened when it happened. This relaxed attitude meant they are all good eaters now.

Hey, wait a minute aren’t there new guidelines saying solid foods should be introduced from four months onwards?

Read BLW expert Gill Rapley’s response here:

I’d think and research carefully before you listen to this new advice, it seems pretty flawed.

What happens if my baby needs to put weight on and I don’t believe my milk’s cutting the mustard?

Firstly make a proper assessment of the situation. Are your worries based on comments made by friends and family about your baby’s weight? Is your baby really underweight? Or do you simply believe that babies must eat solids after a certain age because for example they don’t get enough iron?  Bear in mind that breast milk is the perfect nutrition for a baby. Meat might have a higher iron content but babies’ stomachs find the iron found in lamb or beef hard to digest whilst every last bit of the nutrition in breast milk is sucked up into your baby’s system. Also bear in mind that most foods introduced to babies before six months are veggie based with little iron content.

Of course, your baby maybe genuinely underweight, check with your health visitor and do your own research as well. Get a second opinion if necessary. One good friend of mine who really needed to ensure her little one had more calories did a modified version of baby lead weaning, starting her daughter off at six months with spoon-fed mashed food, but always giving her the option of finger food to help her develop her hand-eye co-ordination.

Which foods should I introduce first?

• Steamed broccoli and cauliflower were always a hit for us – soft enough for a toothless baby to chew on, with enough stalk for little fists to grab onto (babies only develop a pincer grip later on).

• Roasted pumpkin, squash and potatoes cut into batons were fantastic as well, solid enough to grip but soft for toothless mouths to chew.

• Bananas with the skin half peeled, so baby can investigate the skin and practice peeling.

• Low-salt or homemade houmous with veggie batons.  Good for practising dipping skills!

• Rice-bread sticks with avocado dip (any soft veggies whizzed in a processor with some natural yoghurt make great dips).

• Rice with veggies – to start with Isobel simply used her hands to scoop food into her mouth. We always gave her a spoon, which she played around with, over time she began to copy us with our cutlery and by twelve months she was super-proficient with a spoon.

Can my baby eat dairy, wheat and nuts straight away?

In Gill Rapley’s book she talks about giving your baby the opportunity to try as many foods as possible. The last thing you want is your child to grow up paranoid about what they eat. BUT, these foods are harder to digest may cause allergies. I would do a bit of research first (as advice is constantly changing!) and take into account your own personal circumstance – do you or your family have any allergies?

I was wary of wheat at first so I gave Isobel a variety of breads: rice, spelt (an older easier to digest form of wheat) and sourdough (wheat which has been fermented again making it easier to digest). To this day I try to avoid mass produced breads.

Dairy-wise, I started her off on natural, organic yoghurt (from a local farm). Yoghurt is easy to digest, because it’s full of friendly bacteria. She also had a bit of locally-made, organic cheese, and iron-rich eggs yolk (whites a bit later on because my research suggested they can cause allergies) but no cows milk until she was 12-months old and then I gave it to her watered down as it is hard on the stomach. Luckily she loved it!

If your little-one doesn’t have an allergy, dairy is important because it’s rich in calcium. If she does, try and find foods rich in calcium such as sesames. The tahini (sesame paste) in houmous is a great dairy substitute.

Is it messy?

Yes, find a big piece of plastic to put under the highchair and invest in a long-sleeved bib.  A lot of food will end up on the floor at first, so catch it on the plastic and you can eat it yourself if you don’t like waste! Take the long view, things may seem chaotic now but a few months down the line your baby will have learnt to feed herself with minimal fuss and minimal mess.

No denying it, BLW can get messy!

Why baby lead weaning?

• If you’ve chosen to breastfeed on-demand it makes sense to leave the ball in your babies court when it comes to solid food, trusting their innate wisdom.
• It’s fantastic for their hand eye co-ordination.
• They try a vast range of food early on so they’re unlikely to be fussy. They know they can decide whether to eat or not.
• It’s great for the parents – less preparation, and more chance to relax at mealtimes.

Are you doing BLW with your little-one? What are your experiences? And we’d love to see your messy pics on our FB page