A few months ago I decided that when it was time for Maddie to start eating solid food, we would use the "baby led weaning" approach. For those of you not familiar with it, the general idea is that instead of feeding a baby mush, you start them off with solid food from the very beginning and they feed themselves. Still cut the food and soften it enough so that it is baby- and gum-friendly, but let them child pick what they want to eat when presented three or four options and just sit back and watch what happens.The theory is that since they can't yet chew, they can't choke because they haven't mastered the mechanics of moving food to the back of their mouth. Since they can't choke, it can't hurt them to feed themselves real food. Baby led weaning follows a more natural pattern of development even though it may not seem as natural to some people to not spoon feed pureed mystery meals to their baby.
Baby led weaning isn't supposed to begin until at least six months of age, so I guess I jumped the gun a little bit (Maddie will be six months on July 3rd), but she can sit up unassisted and started to stare (hard) whenever I was eating something so I figured what the heck, let's give it a try.
For breakfast, I made myself scrambled eggs and a banana. So I pulled her high chair up next to my seat at the table and gave her a chunk of banana (which she didn't do much with other than play with for a few minutes before pushing it off to the side) and sprinkled a few cheerios on her tray for her to practice her pincer-grasp. Neither of these foods actually made it to her mouth, but that's OK. Baby led weaning isn't meant to happen overnight. But what was kind of cool was when I gave her a bite of my scrambled eggs. She readily grabbed my hand and fork and put it in her mouth before promptly spitting it back out. But she tried! Considering a week ago she looked down right offended when I offered her a bite of a banana or torn off sheet of tortilla, this is huge progress.
Then at lunch, magic happened. I was eating a sandwich without too much that was baby appropriate, so I quick steamed a carrot in the microwave and cooled it down and cut it into big chunks before putting in on her tray. To my surprise she picked up a big piece and started gnawing away at it for the durration of lunchtime! (I tried to give her a spoon of yogurt after that, but that was apparently pushing my luck as it almost wound up flung in my face. Oh well.)
As I cooked the bolognese sauce for dinner, I gave her some more carrot to chew on since I was already chopping some up and she happily gummed it while she watched me work at the stove. I don't think she actually ingested any food today other than breast milk, but it was so wonderful to watch her begin to explore a whole new culinary world. I may stick with the carrots for a bit so not to push my luck too much, but I have plans to buy some sweet potatoes at the store tomorrow and I have a feeling that they'll go over pretty well once we get them in her mouth.
In any case, I can practically taste the sweet, sweet freedom of finally having my boobs to myself again in the not-so-distant future. And that's what it's really all about it, isn't it?
Have any of you tried baby led weaning? How did you like it? Or better yet, how did your baby like it? Pin It Now!
