What is Baby Led Weaning (BLW) ?
Baby Led Weaning means offering your baby (age appropriate) foods that are soft-cooked and cut or mashed into small easily manageable pieces. You may choose to offer your baby a large hunk of apple that she can easily hold and gnaw on or a bowl full of soft cooked mashed apples; the choice is yours. The foods are then given to your baby to eat without being pureed and without being spoon-fed. You do the cooking, the cutting or mashing and the offering of the foods and your baby does the rest. It is important to note that your baby should be in control of what he is eating and you should never actually feed him by putting the foods into his mouth!
As with breastfeeding on demand, Baby Led Weaning is a method of introducing solid foods that leaves it up to your baby to decide what, when and how much to eat. While not necessarily a “hands off” approach, Baby Led Weaning does advocate allowing your baby to make all food choices for him or herself.
What is a good age for BLW?
Babies should be at least 6 months of age if you wish to use the BLW method of introducing solid foods. They should be able to sit up unassisted, have lost the tongue thrust reflex and should be able to grasp and hold onto foods.
While Baby Led Weaning does encourage the infant to lead the way, parents must realize that they need to help guide and direct their babies through the weaning process. It might be easier to think of Baby Led Weaning as introducing foods that are not pureed and paying close attention to your baby’s cues rather than trying to establish set feeding schedules and set portion sizes. Watch your baby as she experiments with the food and if need be, show her how to guide the food to her mouth but do not feed her.
You will not be spoon-feeding your baby, rather your baby will be feeding (or smooshing and squishing and tossing) herself. When it is time for introducing solid foods and weaning a baby onto solid foods, you must feel comfortable in the methods and the foods that will make up the introduction to solid foods.
To start your baby's BLW journey, it is always important that they start off with the right spoon. Here at Mumspick we have just the right thing!
Take a look at:
- Kizingo
- Olababy Silicon feeding spoon
These are spoon specially designed to fit your little one's hand and mouth!