Baby led weaning...

[DetentionGrrrl]

A friend mentioned it to me, but i can't find any info on it. Has anyone tried it? At what age have they tried it?

Oh, and what is it?!

It means not spoon feeding a baby at around 6 months but waiting until they express an interest in eating finger foods by themselves.

So could it be sooner or later than 6mths that they start to eat solids? Sorry if i'm being dense- 1st baby and never heard of BLW before. What's the benefit as opposed to feeding them mush at 6mths?

Message withdrawn

I did this with my 2nd baby. He used to sit in the high chair whilst we ate and he gradually showed more and more interest. For us it was around 5 months that he was really making it clear he wanted to try some.

So basically I gave him a rice cake, with the theory that if he could get it in his mouth and eat then he was ready! He managed fine and sucked the life out of it. Little bits would break off and he learnt to deal with them.

After that I'd pass him bits of suitable food from our plates, batons of steamed carrot and things like that. Then eventually toast, rice, pasta.

I'd do things like let him suck an apple if I was holding it. Or dip my finger in our food and let him suck it off. I was careful about what foods I introduced, for allergy reasons.

The advantage of it is they control the amount of food they eat, you don't have to puree and sit there feeding them.

Things work differently for each family but I found it ewasier for us as I didn't have to prepare different food, he ate whilst we did. So that was a time saver.

This may help give more of an idea
www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html

Thankyou Froglette. Sounds good to me- my perception of weaning has always been forcing mush on them when they hit 6mths, and i didn't really want to do that. I like the idea of him making choices when he's ready.