Baby Led Weaning

I clearly remember my sister telling me one day to turn around a look at her daughter in the high chair. She was eating spagetti, cramming it in by the fist full. It was all over the table, her hands, her face, and even the floor. What a joy! She wasn't being naughty, she wasn't throwing it. She was enjoying herself throughly, while controlling how much went in her mouth herself.


This, it turns out, is Baby Led Weaning (BLW). Heres a low down on what it is and how to do it.


CONTROL - Whether breast fed or bottle fed, babies are used to controlling their intake of milk - how fast they suck, how much they suck and sometimes, how often they feed. It makes sense to me that they are able to control the intake of solids as well.


Babies are inquisitive little creatures too, and are eating solids out of cusiosity, rather than hunger. When first introducing solids, the bulk of nutrition and energy comes from milk.


Once their little hands get moving, babies are out to touch and taste almost anything they can get their hands on - car keys, dirt, their own feet. They love to explore and feel their world, including the food they eat.


CHOKING - I guess your first reaction is to assume to baby will choke if the food isn't pureed. With BLW, babies control what enters their mouth - Sakura would feel it around the front of her mouth before mushing it with her tongue and swallowing. Plus she was feeding it in herself with her hands, only putting as much in as she could handle.


It feels like she has LESS chance of choking because she never puts anything new in her mouth without feeling it around inside her mouth first. We're yet to see if I'm wrong, but being a baby, theres been some pretty weird stuff go in there!


Spoon feeding on the other hand encourages babies to suck the food straight into the back of their mouths. No feeling, tasting or discovering done on the way there!


GUMS CHEW FOOD - babies are capable of sucking or biting of a section of soft strawberry, avacado or steamed veg with their gums, and mushing it around with their gums and tongue before swallowing.


FIST SIZED FOODS - cut the food into long chip sized pieces, so they baby can hold onto a section and bite of the other. This allows them to control the amount of food, as opposed to bite sized pieces were they are forced to cram the whole lot in.


Baby unable to hold the food? It would make sense that they just aren't ready for solids yet?


VARIETY - offering a variety of textures, colours, flavours, sizes, and shapes gives the baby an amazing introduction to real foods, A couple of different vegetables pureed to a pulp offers none of this!


FOODS
Avacado
Strawberries
Pear
Banana
Kiwi Fruit
Stone fruit - mango, peach.
Steamed apple
Steamed pumpkin, cauliflower, choko (chayote), zucchini


WHEN YOU GET CONFIDENT - these foods are a little firmer
Steamed brocolli,  carrot sweet potato and potato
Cherry tomato
Grapes, watermelon, mandarine


Have fun and take lots of photos! Its such a joy to see a baby really discover the appearance, taste and texture of food.


Heres a great link to help : http://www.babyledweaning.com/

BABY LED WEANING
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/56984967?access_key=key-25rq8gkjd79ij5pb8cep
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/56984907?access_key=key-e8umtr1f2oho11zhmd5


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