BABY LED WEANING SECOND TIME AROUND
If you have never heard of Baby Led Weaning – a method of self-feeding introduced right at 6 months of age – please take a look on this page, where I provide a general overview and answer a lot of common questions.
Here I am again, at the start of real food with my second baby Elise. This time around, I’m more excited and much less anxious and scared. When I started the method of self-feeding with Soren exactly two years ago, a lot of people looked at me like I was a crazy person. To give the baby a huge chunk of sweet potato right at 6 months? What about choking? Despite some disapproving looks of my family members, I persisted with it and I am so happy I did. My son Soren will try any food, drinks green, red and weird color smoothies, ate independently right from 6 months and mastered spoon skills by 13 months. It could be a coincidence but my experience and observation of other kids around tells me Baby Led Weaning or Self-Feeding has something to do with it.
If you follow me already, you don’t need convincing that healthy food means healthy body and more energy. We are on the same page here. So why did I decide to go with this non-traditional feeding method (called Baby Led Weaning or SELF-FEEDING) instead of making healthy purees and feeding with a spoon?
WHAT’S WRONG WITH PUREES?
Nothing. Nothing at all. Healthy homemade purees is a wonderful traditional way to introduce solid foods into your baby’s life. Like with Baby Led Weaning, you can provide lots of flavors and colors. You avoid most of the mess during feedings because you control the feeding process unlike in Baby Led Weaning where your baby is the boss. What you are missing out on is textures: you might have a harder time with introduction of chunks in the later months. You are not providing an opportunity to early fine-tune those motor skills since the baby is not playing with food with her fingers/hand right from the start. You are making an extra effort to blend the food into a puree. And mainly, you are in control and your baby is getting used to you feeding her, which is kind of a passive process, potentially resulting in less interest in self-feeding down the line.
You should pick a method or a combination of methods that you are most comfortable with and that will provide the most fun for you and your little one.
In the next few weeks I will try to share with you my experience. I can not guarantee that my daughter Elise will be as interested in self-feeding as Soren was but I will try to provide equally exciting food world for her and let her be in charge.
I’m not a medical professional or an expert on feeding babies, I’m just a mom who is very excited to share with you my experience and hopefully inspire you to try this method since I so much believe in it.
Comments