What is this blog about?
This blog is an attempt by me to record the introduction of solid food to our son, Heath, following the ‘Baby-led Weaning’ approach.
What is ‘Baby-led Weaning’?
Traditionally, babies are spoonfed bland mush and weaned in 4 stages.
Baby-led Weaning (BLW) does away with all of this. Babies are given fist sized pieces of table foods from about the middle of their first year. Parents make the food available to them, but they are in control of what goes into their mouth. Babies are not spoonfed or given purees.
Who came up with the idea of BLW?
Baby-led Weaning has been promoted by Gill Rapley. Gill was a health visitor for 20 years. She is also deputy director of Unicef’s Baby Friendly Initiative, a trained midwife and NCT breastfeeding counsellor.
Why are you choosing the BLW approach?
His father and I believe that it is vitally important that Heath develops a healthy relationship with food and that, based on the evidence and on our own observations, this is best way to achieve that.
How does it actually work?
Gill Rapley’s “Guidelines for implementing a baby-led approach to the introduction of solid foods” contain a list of DOs and DON’Ts. It’s all really simple though.
How do babies eat food without teeth?
Very well, actually.
There is a misconception that babies need to eat purees or rice cereal mixed with milk as first food because they have no teeth, but this is not the case. It is because babies used to be weaned at 3/4 months or even younger. At that age, they still have the tongue-thrust reflex (er, to stop them from eating) and they cannot intentionally move food to the back of their mouths so the only foods that can really be given to 3 or 4 month old babies is purees or rice cereal. It is now understood that babies should only be given solids at around 6 months old, which is when their digestive systems can handle it and when they have the physical skills to pick up food and eat it themselves.
How long will you continue to breastfeed?
The WHO recommend that all babies are breastfed for at least two years. Full-term breastfeeding has numerous health and psychological benefits for children, as well as increased IQ. According to Katherine Dettwyler, an anthropologist, “The minimum predicted age for a natural age of weaning in humans is 2.5 years”. This is a great article that addresses concerns about “extended” breastfeeding.
How old is Heath now?
