Baby Led Weaning Versus Purees
Is baby led weaning right for your tiny eater?
Few topics in baby parenting are as buzzworthy these days as how to start solids (ie food that’s not milk). Bringing up Baby Led Weaning can either get new parents all worked up about why their way is best or paralyze them with fears of not making the “right” choice of how to introduce solids. I think what a lot of the baby led weaning advocates gloss over is that while it is a great approach for some kids, it might not go well for others. You have to be willing to have a game plan, but be able to pivot as you see what works best for your little one.
What is baby led weaning?
Baby led weaning is an approach to starting solids that became popular first in the UK and Australia before picking up traction in the US. Traditionally in the US babies are started on enriched baby cereals and purees as their first foods and caregivers are tasked with spoon feeding. Baby led weaning skips over the puree baby food stage and goes straight to baby appropriate soft solids. Feeding starts when the baby shows readiness signs including sitting up and demonstrating an interest in food. The baby then self-feeds allowing them to control what and how much they consume. Makes a lot of sense, right? Babies have been learning to eat food since the beginning of time and in the beginning of time there were no blenders to puree carrots into mush.
How I decided where to start:
When I first started reading about baby led weaning, it sounded so cool and hip and like the most logical approach in the world. Advocates have a way of making puree baby foods seem old-fashion or backwards. I was immediately intrigued about the approach and did a deep internet dive to figure out more. I was onboard with jumping right in when I stumbled upon a video of a mom demonstrating baby led weaning with her daughter. Her cute little girl was self-feeding throughout the video and gagged several times. I had also witnessed a cousin around this time gag over and over on a piece of apple until he eventually threw up the half of the apple that he had managed to make it through. These experiences left an impression on my impressionable young mom mind. Now gagging and choking are two different things but I was still turned off by the gagging. It just did not seem like an enjoyable way to experience first foods for baby or me. Some parents can embrace the gag knowing that it is baby working to learn to swallow while protecting their airway but for me it was too much.
Another concern I had with using baby led weaning exclusively was missing out on the flavor window. The flavor window is a period where babies are exceptionally accepting of new foods and flavors. (See my full post on the flavor window here.) This window tends to be strongest during age 4 months to 7 months. Many babies are cleared to start purees after 4 months of age but are recommended to wait for baby led weaning until they have turned 6 months old. Waiting to introduce food until baby is over 6 months old may result in them missing out on a period where they are exceptionally open to adding a variety of new foods to their diet.
The strategy I settled on with Ramsey was something in between traditional puree and baby led weaning. I started with feeding him soft foods that were tender and fork mashed. First foods included fork mashed sweet potato, avocado, cooked broccoli, black bean and banana. The food was still chunky but overall soft and easy to get through. I liked that I could take a veggie side that we were having for dinner and simply mash it up at the table and feed it to him. He did great with this texture and quickly moved on to soft solids. He mostly self-fed the soft solids unless it was something very messy. Some of our first soft solids included flaked salmon, scrambled eggs, sliced peaches and strawberries and beans.
Baby #2, Approach #2
When Theo was ready to start eating solids a year later, I was all ready to repeat my approach that had worked so well with Ramsey; however, Theo poorly tolerated ANY texture in his food. The first few times I tried to feed him fork mashed foods, he took one bite and then proceeded to remove every morsel of food from his mouth for the next 3 minutes. Nothing seemed to make it past his tongue and he did not seem to be enjoying any part of the process. After several false starts with the mashed stuff, I tried a commercial puree which he slurped down happily and peacefully. Much to my dismay, for the next few months we were stuck on pureed baby food. Even when I tried to blenderize foods if I didn’t blend it long enough and there was a tiny bit of texture left, he would spit it out and refuse additional bites. Finally at 10 months, after he had been on puree for about 5 months, something clicked and he was ready. One night at dinner he threw a fuss and we realized it was because he wanted what was on our plates (it was spicy marinara with kale and shrimp served with spaghetti) so we gave him a bite and he loved it. From then on he was off to the races. He was able to handle pretty much any soft solid food we pushed his way, though the self-feeding took a bit of time to catch on.
The real lesson for me was that whatever our intentions with feeding had been, Theo was letting us know what he could handle and no amount of coaxing was gonna make him ready before he was ready on his own. The other lesson was that introducing solid foods should be fun for both baby and parents. If your approach is feeling really stressful or unpleasant, consider reconsidering the approach.
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