WHEN becoming a parent you are suddenly introduced to a whole new world of things that most likely you couldn’t care less about before.
I had never even heard of the term baby-led weaning (BLW) and then just a few months shy of having my daughter, I found myself in various BLW Facebook groups.
When I started on solids, my mum said it was the norm to begin with puree at about four months and build up to finger food.
These days many parents avoid the “traditional” style of feeding and instead use the BLW approach, which sees infants allow them to feed themselves right from the start.
The more I researched BLW, the more my mind was made up that it was the way I wanted to go. Research had shown there were many benefits to the approach including establishing good hand-eye coordination, simplifying feeding times for parents, reducing fussiness around foods, and learning self-regulation.
Although there are many benefits, it wasn’t as simple as just giving my daughter Grace finger food.
Everything I read said she must tick off the following; be at least six months of age, must be sitting up on their own and have good head control, show an interest in food and no longer have the tongue thrust reflex.
At first I was concerned, would she be hungry and wanting something more than just milk before six months? Thankfully Grace was very satisfied and growing beautifully being exclusively breast fed up until food was introduced so that concern was quickly dismissed.
While the benefits of BLW outweighed the negatives, one big negative is the increased chance of choking.
And if worrying about what to do if she choked wasn’t stressful enough, I was introduced to the term gagging.
I have lost count of the amount of times I would sit on the edge of my seat, continuously staring at her while she ate to ensure I didn’t have to quickly chuck her onto my lap and dislodge what she had just devoured.
Thankfully she took to food like a duck to water and at eight months old she was in love with roast meat and was willing to try just about anything.
Now at 19 months I am very satisfied with my decision, she is incredibly confident eating with cutlery and eats anything and everything.
Which definitely has its peaks but can also be a burden when you really don’t want to share and can only eat chocolate when she isn’t looking.
I would love to hear from other parents and know which way they decided to go, did you do BLW or did you stick to a more traditional approach?
