Baby-led solids

Esme is now 6 months old so we decided to let her try some solids. We're doing things differently this time round and using baby-led solids rather feeding her pureed stuff like we did with Jacob. Baby-led solids is about letting the baby control what and how much they take in with the idea that they are able to moderate their intake, this is particularly relevant for breastfed babies. The principles of baby-led solids are basically that babies need to master certain skills before they have food shoved down their throats. This means they need to have lost the tongue thrust reflex, they must be able to sit without being propped, they need to show an interest in reaching and grabbing for food, they need to be able to use a pincer grip and so on. Babies are offered finger food and allowed to pick and choose what they eat. Even though people worry about choking with finger foods, babies have a very strong gag reflex and there is actually less risk of them choking on finger food than there is of choking on purees.

Anyway, so far Esme has been going great! She shows more interest in mashing up the food with her hands but she has actually taken a few little mouthfuls! I don't know that she was that impressed though, she much prefers her milk I think! So far she has had pumpkin, sweet potato, potato, zucchini, broccoli, watermelon and a grape. She doesn't mind potato too much (as you can see in the video) but is not a big fan of broccoli (like her mummy lol)



Here's a link to Gill Rapley's website on baby-led weaning.