Baby-Led Weaning

With this blog title, do you know how tempting it was to tell you I was pregnant for April Fool's Day?  Especially since someone totally got me with that today (I thought I was going to be an aunt of a little Mexican boy named Alberto -- gullible, I know).

I so wanted to pay it forward. But, yeah, we all know how rumors get started.

With that being said, I'm honored and thrilled to have Brittany write a guest post on my blog today.  She is a full-time working mom, the beautiful mother of an incredibly adorable little boy named Henry (how can he not be adorable with a name like that?!) and the writer of a blog called ALL TOGETHER NOW, Inspiration to help busy moms get it together.


She is charming, witty, insanely funny, smart, a gifted writer and above all else, REAL.  I follow several blogs and hers is one I never miss an entry for.

I believe the best knowledge especially with kiddos, comes from experience with your own.  And therefore have the highest respect for moms out there and all the hard work that goes into not only growing a kid, but a lifetime of nurturing and love.  So when mom's speak about their experience, especially FOOD, I'm all ears.  I value the insights and the real details of the day-to-day.

Brittany brings just that.

So thanks for following along and check out her post below on Baby-Led Weaning.
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Hey Everyone! I'm Brittany, and I write over at a little blog called All Together Now. I'm a new-ish mom to an 8-month old baby boy named Henry, here today to talk to you about - what else?! - food! Big thanks to Shelly for having me! I ♥ Pickled!

Henry had his first taste of food when he was 6 months old. I placed him in my lap at the dining table, and in front of him on the table, next to my plate of home-made Pad Thai, was his very own serving of plain rice noodles and tofu. He dug in with both hands and shoved everything toward, if not necessarily into, his mouth.

Once his own meal had dispersed down his clothes, in my lap, and onto the floor, he started in on my plate - which I quickly pulled out of his reach for safety purposes, due to the salty seasoning and peanut garnish.

I've had a few people look at me like I was nuts, upon sharing this story. No rice cereal? No baby food? What's your deal, crazy lady?

Well, it's called baby-led weaning. The idea is that babies don't need to be spoon-fed - they can feed themselves, and will do so in a relatively healthy and balanced way, when presented with a nutritious assortment of foods.

Vegetables and fruit can be steamed, boiled, and roasted, (or given raw, if soft enough) then cut into fry or baton shapes, for babies to pick up in their fists and enjoy. In later months, as babies' pincer grasps develop, they can pick up smaller pieces of food (such as beans, Cheerios, etc.) and feed themselves that as well. Babies can basically eat whatever Mommy and Daddy are eating - to an extent, as of course it's recommended that salty foods are avoided (no good for those brand-new kidneys,) as well as processed sugary foods, and other small foods such as nuts that can be considered choking hazards.

Speaking of choking hazards, they're discussed in-depth in the book Baby-led Weaning by Gill Rapley, which has been my go-to source. Choking is one of the most-asked after topics when discussing this method of feeding. Babies aren't ready to swallow whole foods - they could choke, couldn't they?

Well...no, not according to author Gill Rapley. She explains that, while it's important to always supervise baby's feedings in case anything goes awry, baby's tongue-thrust reflex - the one that causes him to spit out anything that makes its way into his mouth before he's ready to start swallowing - protects him from choking. Rapley concludes that, as long as baby has placed whatever he's eating into his own mouth, he won't be able to get it past the back of his tongue unless he's prepared to swallow it.

Gagging, on the other hand, is practically a guarantee. Almost all babies will gag as they begin eating new textures and learning how to swallow. Gagging isn't considered to be dangerous and shouldn't be interrupted by slapping baby on the back, or any other interventions. That didn't stop me from panicking while watching Henry experience his first few feedings - but he was always fine once it passed, and went right back to whatever he was eating every time.

Henry enjoys feeding himself some avocado

One way in which I find baby-led weaning to be limiting is that it recommends that parents not spoon-feed at all, citing it as a hassle and a constant "struggle." There were many foods which I suspected Henry would enjoy that he wasn't eating, because they couldn't be picked up by hand. So I tossed the book to the side one day, picked up a 3-pack of baby-sized spoons at the grocery store, and Henry ate (and ate, and ate, and ate) some hummus.

Henry loves hummus so much that he's afflicted with nearly permanent garlic breath. He loves hummus so much that, contrary to what the baby-led weaning book told me to expect (that my child would be offended by strange mush being put into his mouth for him,) he didn't mind spoon-feeding one bit.

So I tried spoon-feeding him a few other things that he was unable to eat by hand. Yogurt? He loves it. Applesauce? Loves. Enchilada casserole? Loves it, jalapeños and all.

So I took it even further. Since my husband and I don't always eat a low-sodium, balanced dinner that we can share with Henry (sometimes you just gotta order a pizza, am I right?), I picked up a box of rice cereal and a few jars of baby food when I was at the store next.

And what do you know...he loves that stuff too! He sits in his booster seat (I quickly learned that it wasn't terribly convenient to feed Henry in my lap) with his mouth wide open like a baby bird, eagerly awaiting every single bite. If we take too long between bites, the kid practically hyperventilates.

I would tell you that the baby-led weaning book is biased in regards to spoon-feeding, but you know what? I credit baby-led weaning for Henry's being so trusting when he is spoon-fed. I think that having fed himself from the start, he learned to trust what was going into his mouth, and knew that he didn't have to eat anything he didn't like. Anytime we offer anything to Henry on a spoon, we always let him look at it, smell it, even touch it if he wants to - before putting it in his mouth.

Recently when I dropped Henry off at his sitter's, she was giving the toddler she watches some dry Cheerios for a snack. Henry starting fussing - he doesn't like when other people eat and he isn't included! The sitter remarked that she wished she could give Henry a snack too, when I pointed out that actually, she could. She put a few Cheerios on the tray for Henry, and he stopped fussing and went to town, and our sitter, with her 14+ years of childcare experience, told me in shock that she had never seen a (then) 7-month-old able to handle feeding himself Cheerios.

I mean, duh - my kid is awesome.

But in all seriousness, I think that Gill Rapley is onto something. We can probably give babies a little more credit for their ability to feed themselves. And hey, if your baby enjoys being spoon-fed, like mine does, I say that's cool, too. After all, as long as he actively enjoys the feeding, it's technically still him leading it, right? Rapley might say no, but it's working quite well for this busy family!

Be sure to check out the book for more information if you're interested in baby-led weaning. You'll want to make sure you have read all the safety information, such as choking hazards and allergens, before starting.