I had such idealistic visions of making all my baby food from scratch, using only the best organic ingredients for my first born little girl. It started out exactly as I imagined. We were given the go ahead at 4 months to start her on solids (bt-dubs this post contains affiliate links), so I whipped out my Baby Bullet , steamed the organic parsnips I picked up at the farmer’s market earlier, and reveled in the fact that this was all so easy.
And it was. And she ate them. Until more chunky textures came into play a few months later. And then it all went downhill. Now, 4 years later, she is the annoyingly stereotypical picky eater and it drives me bonkers!
So when baby number two was on his way, I started the research early on to try a different approach, and hopefully get a kid who loves food as much as I do. Then my mom stumbled across this book, Baby Led Weaning… Just the name scared me at first because I was planning on breastfeeding for at least a year, and I associated the word “weaning” with transitioning off the breast. It is actually a British term that has nothing do to with stopping breastfeeding.
After much research and trepidation I decided to give it a try. It was a little difficult explaining the concept to people, especially the people that would normally be feeding him baby food around 4 months, but they politely agreed to obey my wishes, and we were off.
Basically, the concept is the same as how babies learned to eat before there was the vast array of pureed options out there. Once they are sitting up on their own and able to grasp at objects (usually around 6 months or after), start giving them strips of regular food, watch them closely, and let them go to town.
They will gag, which is scary (we never needed it but I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the baby heimlich), but all the books say that this is normal.
I wanted to give up after a while because I didn’t feel like he was actually ingesting any food… mostly just gnawing and spitting out. I held strong, though, and never introduced purees. Then around 8 months olds he started to “get it”, and I swear he has not stopped eating since.
Now don’t get me wrong, I still cherished the process of making baby food from scratch, and love that my little girl loved it. She just loved it a little too much and didn’t ever want to transition to any other food. I even have some great recipes (link to come) if you do chose to go that path.
But if you want to go with Baby Led Weaning, the only recipes you need are the ones you’re already using for yourself, it’s just that easy!
And if this is all too much, just read these five things to remember about BLW.
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