Introducing solids the BLW way!

Ive had a few friends lately ask me about how we introduced solids, because friends with babies have seen the massive amounts of pictures I post of Camila eating a wide variety of foods! I figured a blog post would be the perfect way to introduce my mommy-friends to the idea of baby-led weaning  :)

"Baby-Led Weaning" is just a fancy term for feeding your baby whole, natural foods from the start. No purees, no fortified cereals, baby is self-feeding from the start.

The website I started with is www.babyledweaning.com. You can stop reading here if thats all you needed! Ill go ahead and give the reasons we love BLW and some key features of BLW below if you are interested in our perspective.  :)

Obviously this is just one way to do it, and while I personally think its the best way, every parent choses what they think is the best for their kids and their family. So if you think this will work for you, AWESOME! Message me and we will chat, I can chat for hours about FOOD and BABIES. If not, thats great too! Its always good to be educated on the varying choices we have as parents so we can make the best choices we can.

What led us to Baby-Led Weaning?
 "Baby food" didn't make sense to me. They are humans, they eat food…right? What did people do before blenders were invented? What do people do in countries where access to cereals and baby food is limited, and where spices and seasonings are not only part of cooking, they are part of culture? And those cereals that you mix with water - it seemed to be another processed food. How was that better than natural foods?

This is the main question that led me to start doing online research, where I happened upon this method of introducing solids.

Reasons we love BLW:

We worry LESS about choking.
This is probably my favorite perk of BLW, and I know it seems contradictory. While I can totally

Gnawing on a piece of
chicken parm.

understand parents' fear of choking in the beginning, BLW truly teaches kids how to chew BEFORE they even learn how to swallow (purees and cereals teach swallowing first and chewing comes much later). In the very beginning, Camila would just bite and mush food in her mouth without ever really swallowing. She didn't start swallowing food until maybe 2-4 weeks after we started. Now she's 11 months and we can give her whole grapes, blueberries, any larger chunk of food and no matter the size she will immediately move it to the side of her mouth with her tongue and chew it. Even cheerios - she chews every cheerio before swallowing. I have started paying more attention to other babies who are fed purees first and I have noticed that when they move to finger foods, they often try to swallow them whole first, which leads the parents to cut it up super small. And super small food that is easy to swallow doesn't encourage proper chewing either. There's obviously nothing wrong with this if this is the route you chose to go, but I love not really worrying about the size of her food. And yes, babies can chew without teeth! Obviously we aren't giving raw carrots or tough meat - foods like this really require  molars to chew! But those gums are hard and strong and can chew almost everything - even chicken.

Its easy.
She eats what we eat, when we eat. No separate meal times or meal preparations. No time spent spoon feeding her while we simultaneously try to eat.

Chicken Tikka Masala,
homemade at a friends house.

She's an active participant at mealtimes. 
Whether we are eating as a family at home, out to dinner at a restaurant, or over someones house for
dinner, Camila sits in her chair and feeds herself her food while everyone else does the same. She's(usually) not squirming to get down while we shove spoonfuls of food in her mouth. She eats until she's full and then she moves on.

She is being exposed to a wide variety of flavors and textures.
Camila will try anything. If she doesn't like it, she just won't eat it (or, as of late, throw it on the floor…). So far the only thing she consistently doesn't like is eggs. We love adding lots of seasonings and flavors to our meals and watching her experience it with us is so fun.


Developed pincher grip
Her pincher grip developed fully by 8 months. She can pick up a kernel of corn with two fingers, pinky up, like a boss.

OWNING that slippery banana.

Blueberries are by far one of her favorite fruits.

Key points of BLW:
Go to that website I mentioned before to read more in depth, but here are some starter points.

Wait until 6 months to offer solids

Homemade Polish Pirogues, yum!

This is becoming the standard anyway, but many doctors still say FOUR TO six months, which is really quite silly. It doesn't make sense to me to shove a spoonful of food into a babies mouth when they don't even know what food is yet, let alone have a desire for it. We found a doctor who was up to date on recent research and fully backed the 6 month rule as well as going straight to table food. She agreed that cereals were just another processed food with not much health benefit to baby. Wait until baby is aware and reaching for your food, and able to put things in his/her mouth - this means he/she is ready. For Camila, this was around 5.5 months. The average age of readiness is 6 months. 

Start with soft, easily digestible foods

Mainly, fruits and vegetables. Examples: sweet potatoes, steamed/boiled broccoli, steamed/boiled carrots, bananas, etc.

Oranges are one of her favorite
fruits.

Food should be in large chunks

This is hard for parents to accept at first, but since baby still hasn't developed pincher grip, you want a chunk of food that is big enough for him/her to pick up with a fist and still have some sticking out that they can bite. Babies can't get to food inside a closed fist until about 8 months (average) and pincher

grip develops around the same time. Again, baby will bite and might chew but rarely will swallow right away. Now that Camila is older we cut stuff up smaller for her, mainly for control - she will shove an entire orange wedge in her mouth if we let her. With cutting it up, she still shoves multiple pieces in at a time, but at least we can control it better!

Know the difference between choking and gagging.

Most of the time, what people perceive as choking is actually gagging. I can't tell you how many times my mom (sorry mama) has practically flipped her chair over in fear because Camila was "choking". She's never, ever choked - it was always gagging, and she's always handled it. We have literally never had to interfere with her eating. If any sound at all is coming out, then its gagging, and perfectly normal. The gag relax on a baby is in the center of the tongue (compared to the back of the tongue in an adult). Therefor the gagging reflex is triggered much sooner in a baby in order to PREVENT choking, naturally. Babies tend to gag a lot in the beginning, and while its scary and unnerving, just remember that its natural, normal, and part of how baby is learning to handle food. I can't remember the last time Camila gagged on her food - it DOES stop once baby can handle food better.

If there is NO sound coming out, baby is silent, and not breathing, then it is choking and you will need to interfere. This can happen with purees too so in reality all parents should be aware of basic CPR. 

Offer anything and everything you eat

Once baby get the hang of it, you can start offering a wider variety of foods (I think it took us about a month to branch out). Despite what you may hear about nut butters and other common allergens, babies can eat (almost) anything you eat.

Bananas with peanut butter
are a fave.

The only things you should NOT offer a baby are:

~ Honey (through age one - though I have my own opinions on this, Ill keep quiet - for now :)   )

~ WHOLE nuts.
~ Too much salt/sugar

The end. 

If your family has a history of allergies, like a nut allergy or egg allergy, then offer these foods individually so you can watch for a reaction and know what the cause is if he/she does have a reaction. Otherwise, foods commonly avoided, like nut butters, eggs and shellfish, are fine. Camila ended up having a small reaction to cantaloupe, and as it turns out Donovan had the same reaction to it when he was a kid. 

That's it for now! Just some basics, from our perspective and research.  :) No matter which avenue you chose, introducing solids to your baby is such a fun adventure. Ill never forget the first food I ever got to feed my niece, Alison - pureed pears! And for Camila, don't judge, it was ice-cream… just a tiny bite! Its a special experience for you all so it should definitely be enjoyed.  :)

Happy feeding!

She loves her chili.

Adobo tilapia, black beans, mango,
avocado, tortilla- ingredients of fish tacos
all separated out so she can eat it!

Enjoying Pho - she ate our noodles and beef, and we ordered
steamed broccoli on the side.