Give me your baby led weaning stories!

March 13, 2013 4:40 PM

Please share your experiences with baby led weaning.

Did you do baby led weaning? I'm interested in hearing how it went for you. Specifically:

How did your baby do? (Lots of gagging? Any scary moments?)
Were you able to continue at daycare?
Did anyone give you a hard time about using this method? How did you respond?
Does anyone have any good links on how people fed their babies before Gerber came along?

I have a six month old, and we just started a few days ago. We started on avocados (the slipperiness angered her) and had better luck with broccoli today. I don't generally share how we plan to feed her, but I do get a lot of questions about what she eats, and sometimes it comes up. Mostly people get hung up on the fact that I didn't start with rice cereal.

I already own the baby led weaning book, so am mostly interested in hearing about your experiences and people's reactions to the approach. Thanks!

posted by smalls to Food & Drink (18 answers total)

Our daycare fed out kid anything we asked, so that wasn't an issue, although we started a bit later than you. Our biggest issue was with grandparents who were convinced she would choke; we mushed up a lot more food when they were around. If people asked us about the cereal, we always responded with "have you tried the stuff? It's kind of nasty. She's interested in what we eat so we let her try. So far so good thanks!"
posted by dpx.mfx at 4:53 PM on March 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

combination of extreme interest in what we were eating at the table, teeth coming in to help bite/chew food, and, well, led by kid's interest or lack thereof.

Don't have to start w/ cereal, there are variety of soft food options like plain yogurt etc.
posted by k5.user at 4:56 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: I just had to read up on this because I had not heard the term, and we did this with our son. I did not know this was a thing!

He started reaching for our food at around 4 months, so we got him some jarred baby food but that lasted all of two weeks before he got mad that we weren't giving him what we were having. After that we just put him in his highchair at meal times, and anything that we had on our plates that was kind of soft but able to be picked up with hands went onto his tray.

We eat a lot of crockpot meals, so all of that stuff worked great (carrots, potatoes, beef, beans, etc. etc. etc.). Fruit, eggs, and toast in the mornings. Steamed veggies. Mashed potatoes. Pasta shapes. Really, just whatever we were having. He was given a spoon for yogurt, but we mostly ended up spoon-feeding him until... maybe around his first birthday? Before that he would just bang on the tray with it, and make a mess.

This was, I guess, considered normal among our circle of friends and acquaintances, because no one ever raised an eyebrow. I can't speak to the daycare thing, because he was at home. We've had more choking scares with him recently (at 27 months), mostly with apples and raw carrots, than we ever did when he was a baby. In fact I don't remember any choking scares as a baby. He mostly gummed things.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 5:09 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: My son is 16 and still alive and healthy. I didn't go by the baby-led weaning book, because it didn't exist back when he was an infant.

Starting at about 6 months, I started letting him play around with soft foods that were either unspiced versions of what we were having (well-cooked potatoes or yams, for example) or just naturally soft, like ripe bananas. Though the kid didn't even get his first tooth til he was 10 months old, it wasn't very long at all before he was downing all manner of things. At 8 months old, he grabbed a chunk of marinaded sirloin tip from my plate, sucked all the juice out of it, gummed it for a while, and returned the remains before going for a second piece. He didn't have any trouble at all with choking or gagging.

I did from time to time make some "baby food" for when we were out and about. He took a medication for a heart defect that made it necessary to either supplement with potassium or get extra in his diet, so I had to keep an eye on that. I'll confess -- it was fun to use a food mill and to carry around tiny spoons. But if not for that specific nutritional need, I wouldn't have bothered.

Other people didn't seem to pay too much mind. Back then, and in the area where I lived, it was bizarre enough that I was breastfeeding him. To rare comments about nutrition and the like, I'd just respond with the nutritional value of rice cereal and jars of baby food vs. a single breastfeeding and mention that in the earliest phases of solid food, eating is more about getting used to tastes and textures, anyhow.

I was lucky enough to end up with a kid who'd eat pretty much anything at all by the time he was a toddler. I actually do not attribute that to the way in which I introduced solid food, but it doesn't look like it hurt.
posted by houseofdanie at 5:21 PM on March 13, 2013

I forgot one other thing that we did back then, and I don't know if this is really weird or not, but we did the mama-bird thing (pre-chewing foods for him). That enabled him to eat more foods than he could have otherwise, and worked really well.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 5:30 PM on March 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

We used the mesh feeder. I know it's not super approved for BLW in all circles, but it was a fun way to get new tastes in! It was also awesome with frozen fruit and teething.
posted by checkitnice at 5:32 PM on March 13, 2013

Eh, I tried it. But my girls were small for their size regardless and I found they didn't really eat much that way and that really bothered me. They'd just gnaw on the food chunks and not really consume any of it and what they did get down came out undigested. So I did do a bit of that, mostly peas, steamed broccoli, pasta and things like that.
But for overall nutrition, I also fed 'baby food'. I did wait until 6 months to start solids though, which was usually what we were eating, mashed up a bit with a fork. Or the ice-cube tray deal-y with homemade fruit and veggie mush. I found that was a good age to start and my kids never had any gut/constipation issues.
Most people were horrified, yep, about not using rice cereal or jarred baby food. Their problem. The same people were also horrified when I breastfed until 15-18 months too.
posted by tenaciousmoon at 5:44 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: We did this around 6 months, when our daughter started reaching for our plates. At first I would steam veggies for her separately from the meal, but then got lazy and just started giving her the squishy bits of our meals. I breastfed, so I did try to nurse before I offered food (I wanted her to have 2 years on the boob if at all possible). I never gave her 'infant cereal', just plain old unsweetened oatmeal, lots of different veggies, avocados, etc. We did do introductory periods for each food (add it in, wait 3 days, then move on), which enabled us to identify a sensitivity to beta-carotene before things got out of hand.

I always figured that the BLW was not to actually get any food into her, but more to introduce her to the experience and texture of eating solid foods. I counted on nursing to give her the full nutritional value, and she really didn't eat a lot until about 11 months - then she switched to mostly eating solids and less nursing. I remember fondly a day when she was about 13 months old that she ate a cup of steamed kale like it was the last green thing on earth. I miss those days now that we have entered the fruititarian stage.

Our only choking episode happened with banana - I learned very quickly that you really need to chop it pretty small, because it's so slippery that their gums have a hard time breaking it down. I always made sure I or my husband watched her while she ate - choking is often silent. And it was pretty funny to watch her face when she tasted new things.

I told my mom about our BLW exploits, and she just looked at me like an idiot - she hadn't ever considered feeding us in any other way. My mother-in-law was really nervous about it, but quickly caught on to how much fun it was for her granddaughter. Most of my friends did BLW too - those who didn't told me they didn't want to have to wipe up a bunch of food off the floor after every meal. Those of you with toddlers will understand why this tickles me so.
posted by dirtmonster at 6:54 PM on March 13, 2013

I breastfed my daughter in the evenings and she had bottles/cereal/jar food at daycare. By the time she was 8 months she was just too busy when she got home to bother with nursing. She had a combo of what we had and baby food for dinner. Kinda broke my heart by the rejection, but it was a piece of cake. She's 24 now so something must have worked,lol.
posted by PJMoore at 6:58 PM on March 13, 2013

I recently read French Kids Eat Everything and wish I would have known how (at least in the book) the French introduce their children to solid food by starting with vegetable soups! that become thicker as the child becomes used to it. There isn't a lot of detail on this in the book which is more of a memoir really of the family's experience living in France for the year with emphasis on the food aspects of the culture.
posted by RoadScholar at 7:00 PM on March 13, 2013

My youngest son would not eat baby food. He also would not eat mush of other sorts, like apple sauce or mashed potatoes. I cooked a lot of bean and rice dishes and let him make a mess of them in his high chair. But he ate fine.

He was not in daycare. I do not recall anyone saying anything about it. The only time he gagged was when he tried to eat like 5000 french fries all at once, choked them back out and swore off french fries for life. So I guess if I had it to do over, I would not have given him unfettered access to the fries I bought him. I would have doled them out a few at a time. I think he was about ten months old when he did this greedy baby thing. But it wasn't a first. He was in the ER at two weeks of age or less for puking up formula. Official diagnosis: Greedy baby syndrome. He just ate more than his tummy held and some came back up. He did something similar at age two.
posted by Michele in California at 7:08 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: I'm doing this right now with my 7.5 month old, we started at 6 months. Our first food was also avocado which just mushed and slipped everywhere and was not a huge success. The second go round we crushed up some Chex rice cereal and coated it in that and she was able to pick it up and attempt to eat it. Now she gets whatever vegetables we're eating at dinner and whatever fruit we have at breakfast along with some Chex, or a steamed veg if we aren't doing fruit with breakfast.

It probably took her a month before solids became a more substantial part of her diet. She still nurses and now she's going longer between nursing but eating for longer at a sitting, so I think it evens out pretty well. The first month was a lot more about learning how to feed herself than actually eating, it was fun to all sit down together at dinner and watch as she tried to replicate what we were doing. She just got her first tooth today but it's been very impressive watching her learn to chew, at first was very awkward but in a matter of a week or two she was doing very well, now she's a champ!

My in-laws were convinced she was going to choke and die but now that they see how well she eats its much less of an issue. The only thing she's ever gagged on was water, so go figure. My standard response was, "You had 4 chances to raise a baby, now let me raise this one." *smile*. If you ever want to chat about BLW with someone feel free to memail me!
posted by julie_of_the_jungle at 7:18 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: We did this. Like most folks, we started out around six months, offering him what we were eating. Our kid was not interested in solid food until just after his first birthday -- he'd eat some of it, but it didn't make up the bulk of his nutrition until he was about thirteen months old. (He's two and still nurses; he hasn't been in daycare so I can't speak to that.)

He gagged a few times, and also he did some pocketing, both of which I think were more related to oral development than anything. His speech and eating are fine now, where "fine" is "normal for a two-year-old."

We did spoon-feed him yogurt for a while, because he looooooves yogurt and he would get frustrated trying to eat it. We would use the hand-grinder to puree greens, and spoon-feed those, for the same reason -- kid can still go through kale like nobody's business.

Nobody gave us any crap for it. My mom was a little weirded out that we weren't doing cereal at 6 months, but we were traveling that whole month, so I chalked it up to a) we're traveling, which seems like a bad time to introduce new things, and b) the pediatrician says we don't need to. (Which was true *enough.*) Also my mother gave him ice cream at six months, and I think she decided to keep her mouth shut after I expressed my opinions about that.
posted by linettasky at 8:16 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: Google 'rice cereal is bad for babies' (or similar) -- lots of stuff out there about that; I wouldn't feed anybody that wallpaper paste. Blecch, and, not remotely nutritious.

I was a BLW hardliner who did not give her kid any mush or any help at all with eating. It worked great.

Around 7mo I periodically put out a bowl of something gloppy that would stick to the spoon -- thick high-fat yoghourt with wheat germ, oatmeal, refried beans, tiny super-cheesy pasta, etc -- and it was ignored, and ignored, and then at 9mo I had a baby who could self-feed with a spoon! (And drink from an open cup; I was hardcore and also anti-sippy)

No gagging. While I was steadfast in not offering any assistance I did take care to offer things that were easy to pick up and generally low-frustration. Cheese curds are a good shape, as are whole wheat rotini. Don't over-steam your broccoli, etc. Look outside the box and offer roasted peppers, onions, asparagus, things people don't normally think of as stuff babies would like. I made 'baby pizzas' en masse and froze them -- whole-wheat mini pitas topped with pesto (less mess, less likely to end up burning hot than tomato sauce), lots of chopped veg, enough cheese to glue it together. I got creative with dips (want to offer yoghourt? try offering with a toast dipping stick).

If you search for 'a history of infant feeding' you will get a slew of decent things to read. The best book I found was "Breasts, Bottles and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding" by Valerie Fildes, but it is a c. 500 page fairly academic tome, a bit hard to track down, so only recommended if you are really quite curious indeed. If you are quite curious indeed, it's a fascinating read.

Absolutely nobody objected (no, not strictly true; I overheard a student doctor telling our usual GP that I was a vegetarian {!} and not using rice cereal {!}; GP's response to both: "good!"). If I had another child I would do exactly as I did with the first. Try to ignore most of the usual recommendations; I know it is very trendy to give babies avocado, but unless your family normally eats a lot of plain avocado, what's the use? Give something that tastes good, like guacamole on a tortilla chip. (Totally not kidding.) The goal should be to get the kid enjoying healthy foods that the family eats on a regular basis, not, I don't know, room-temperature plain sweet potato. Here we developed an early taste for pesto and curries, much to my delight.
posted by kmennie at 9:11 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: We're doing this now with our baby, and it's so much fun. For the first month or two he mostly played with the food and practiced manipulating it. Then it suddenly clicked and now he just destroys food. Give the kid an apple and he holds it in his little hands and attacks it, soon half the apple is gone.

I didn't expect this in the beginning, but watching him figure out how to eat is fascinating. He's had to develop all kinds of techniques. It is so entertaining to watch.

If you do avocado, give the kid a wedge with the skin on so there's something to hold on to. Our son loves avocado.

He did gag a lot in the beginning. He still gags when trying to drink water. It seems scary at first, but it's clearly different from choking and it did seem to be part of the learning process.

I think it helps to think of the kid as a scientist doing experiments. It's not the kid being a brat and throwing food on the floor, it's an experiment on the reproducibility of gravity. This made it easier for me to be ok with the mess...because when you're a scientist you need to see what happens when you smear the yogurt not just on the table but also on your clothes, and your arm, and your hair.

We did get some comments. Mother-in-law said, "You do realize he's going to need to eat food eventually, right?" We basically ignored the comments.

Daycare was a problem. At first they said they were happy to feed him the way we wanted. But then they got upset that he was playing with the food and throwing it on the floor instead of eating it, and they started mashing up the food and spoon feeding him without telling us what they were doing. I was pretty annoyed at this. When asked to stop the spoon feeding, they became "very concerned" about his "nutritional status" since "all the other kids are eating 3 meals a day and he's just not eating". Finally we scheduled a conference to go over what baby led weaning is. We gave them a copy of the book, got the one page handout and printed some copies, and got a note from his doctor saying he is growing fine and there are no medical problems with his nutrition. We emphasized that we don't care how much he eats, we just want him to have autonomy in deciding what to do with food. After that they were ok with feeding as we wanted. In retrospect I wish we had started with the formal meeting to make clear what we wanted. Now that he's an eating monster they haven't had any more "concerns".

Memail me if you'd like more info.
posted by medusa at 10:34 PM on March 13, 2013

Also, take a look at this NY Times article which discusses evidence that giving babies small amounts of gluten while they are breastfeeding may protect against celiac disease - this is the most scientific thing I've seen to support the baby led weaning idea that small amounts of food at first may help avoid food intolerances.
posted by medusa at 10:44 PM on March 13, 2013

Best answer: We did this with our now-fifteen-month-old. She did gag occasionally but that was mostly because to this day she will fill both fists with food then try to put as much of it in her mouth as she can. We gave her lots of squash and cooked apple and broccoli (still one of her favorites) and as her dexterity got better we added in black beans and peas and other smaller items. Daycare needed several reminders that no, we didn't want them feeding the stuff to her, and no, we didn't want her having a bottle of formula instead, and that YES, she was in fact getting adequate nutrition.

She is the proud owner of five teeth now and will attempt to eat pretty much whatever we put in front of her, including meats. She does still occasionally gag but this is much more worrying to people around us, and she's never needed our assistance to clear anything from her throat. I'm six months pregnant and will be happily doing this with our next kid too.

I was the one who spearheaded BLW in our house, and it was a moment of great joy when I overheard my husband tell his mom, "You know, SeedStitch was really onto something with how we feed the baby."
posted by SeedStitch at 7:33 AM on March 14, 2013

I didn't set out to do BLW with my second child, but she rejected anything from a spoon and wasn't all that interested in any solids until around nine months. Then she was off and eating pretty much whatever the rest of us were. It's been awesome not having to mess around with purées and for us all to just sit down together and eat without someone having to take time out to feed baby this time around.
posted by rebeccabeagle at 2:52 PM on March 15, 2013