BLW What, Why, + When
If you are unfamiliar with the term of baby-led weaning, in a nutshell, it means skipping purees and letting your baby feed themselves finger foods right from the start, usually around 6 months. I spent quite a bit of time researching various feeding methods, and ultimately landed on baby-led weaning for the twins as I found there are many benefits of BLW!
For starters, it helps fine-tune your baby’s motor development including hand-eye coordination and chewing skills. It also allows your baby to explore various tastes and textures of a variety of foods, as opposed to the single texture that purees provide. Exposing your baby to this wide variety of tastes and textures can promote healthy eating habits and help your baby not become a “picky eater.” Also, as the name suggests, BLW is “baby-led” and can help your baby to learn to stop eating when they feel full. Perhaps the biggest benefit of BLW, however, is the convenience. You don’t have to buy little jars of food or spend time preparing and blending your own baby food, because your baby just eats whatever your family eats!
Usually, it is safe to start BLW at the age of 6 months. However, consult with your pediatrician before starting solid foods of any kind. Your baby should be able to sit well in their high chair, have good head & neck control, and be developmentally able to self-feed.
Although it is called baby-led weaning, “foods before one are just for fun,” so breastmilk/formula will continue to be your baby’s primary source of nutrition until they are around 12 months old. Use the next 6 months (from age 6-12 months) of solids as a time of practice and exploration for your baby!
BLW First Foods
In our experience with the twins, we felt most comfortable starting with one ingredient foods at a time. This helps your baby to get used to one new flavor and texture at a time, and helps parents to pinpoint any reactions to high allergen foods. Some good first BLW foods we introduced to the twins include banana, avocado, baked apple slices (peeled), steamed carrots, baked sweet potato fingers, steamed broccoli florets, shredded chicken, small pieces of salmon, scrambled eggs, strawberries, & breastmilk oatmeal (pre-loaded on a baby spoon and handed to baby for them to feed themselves).
Everything should be prepared in a way to be soft enough for them to “gum” with their jaw, and cut into easy to grab finger size pieces. A good rule of thumb is you should be able to smash the food with gentle pressure between your fingers. At first your baby will likely will pick up foods with their whole palm, so that is why the finger size pieces is important to help baby be able to grab the food. It isn’t until around 9 months that babies begin to be able to pincer grasp with their fingers. Once they are able to be more coordinated with grabbing food between their fingers, you can cut food into smaller pieces.
Gagging VS. Choking
As scary as it sounds, gagging is very common as baby learns to eat, but it is important to understand that gagging and choking are NOT the same thing. Gagging is a normal safety reflex. Gagging helps get rid of food that is not chewed up enough to be easily swallowed, whereas choking is when food is already STUCK in the throat and causing difficulty to breath. Gagging is loud and accompanied by coughing and hacking, whereas if your baby is choking, they will be quiet and turn red/blue.
You can avoid the danger of choking by offering your baby soft foods that are properly prepared and cut to an appropriate size to be easily chewed.
Tips, Tricks, and Favorite Products
Consider a mixed approach. For the first several weeks of BLW with the twins we would offer the food in finger sized pieces as well as puree the same food with some breastmilk and preload a spoon for them to put to their mouths. This way the twins were able to experience the food prepared in two separate ways and able to get a little more of it by spoon feeding themselves a puree. Because, you will find that for the first month or so with BLW your baby will mostly be doing a lot of licking, tasting, and exploring, but not a lot of actual eating.
Expect mess. The goal of baby-led weaning is to let your little one explore, learn, play, lick, taste, and eat food at his own pace. In turn, this usually also includes making a colossal mess in the process. Most of the food you give your baby will find its way to the floor. If you don’t have a dog already, consider getting one now.
Eat together. My favorite part about BLW is the ability to just give your baby finger size pieces of whatever you and your family are having for dinner. If AJ and I are having salmon and broccoli for dinner, we sit the twins in their highchairs and they have salmon and broccoli for dinner too! Not only is it so convenient to have your baby eat when you eat, but babies also LOVE the social aspect of sitting down to dinner with mom & dad, so consider making your baby’s mealtimes during YOUR mealtimes! This way, you also only need to clean up the kitchen once.
Product guide:
· Bib - Right now we use some smaller neck bibs, but I have heard great things about theses BLW friendly sleeved bibs made my Bumpkin. Ordering these now!
· Food processor - Use code KATIE25 for 25% off!
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