WEANING: Parent-Led VS Baby-Led

Firstly, a few tips on weaning in general. The government guidelines recommend you don’t start weaning your baby until 6 months of age. Before this time, your baby should only be fed breast milk or infant formula. This allows your baby’s digestive system to mature enough to cope with solid foods. Some signs your baby may be ready for food:

• They are able to sit upright in a sitting position and can hold their head steady.
• They are able to coordinate their eyes hands and mouth.
• They are able to swallow food (i.e. they don’t just spit everything back out!)

Now here’s the tricky bit, what foods do you give your baby, and how and when do you feed them? This is where we see a division in opinions between the more traditional weaning using purees (which we will call parent-led weaning) and the alternate method of Baby-led weaning.

Parent-led weaning would involve feeding your baby purees of fruit and vegetables to begin with, such as; carrot, parsnip, potato, sweet potato, apple and pear. These things should be cooked (steamed ideally to preserve nutrients!) and then pureed in a food processor. Additionally, you can feed your baby soft no-cook foods such as banana, avocado, peach and melon mashed with a fork or potato masher. It is also common to feed your baby porridge or baby rice mixed with their usual milk. As your baby develops more tastes you can give them soft cooked meats (like chicken) and fish mashed or pureed along with pasta, rice and noodles (little pieces). Also, full fat dairy products should be given, such as yoghurt, fromage frais and custard. So this answers what foods are involved in parent-led weaning, but a key factor is how this food is offered to your baby. As the food is pureed there is only really one way of offering it to your baby and that is from a spoon! You should wait until your baby opens their mouth for the spoon, and may like to give them their own spoon to hold. Eventually, when your baby has full coordination over their hands and eyes, they will be able to spoon feed themselves (hooray- although you haven’t seen the mess yet!).

This all sounds pretty straight forward right? Well yes it is, until you consider the other method of weaning being championed in books and on the web; Baby-Led weaning. Put simply, baby-led weaning involves letting your child feed themselves from the very beginning (so not a weaning spoon or food processor in sight). They idea is you just hand your baby food in suitable sized chunks and they take it off you and eat it…easy peasy! To start with, think of cutting foods up into sticks (i.e. chip sized pieces) as this is the perfect size and shape for a 6 month old to grasp. Try things like steamed carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, toast or soft fruit like banana or mango. Don’t worry about bowls, just hand the food straight to your baby and put a few bits at a time on their high chair tray. Demonstrate what they are supposed to do by munching a few sticks yourself! Never put the food into your baby’s mouth, letting them do it themselves gives them full control over the eating process and limits the risk of them gagging on the food. Baby-led weaning encourages your baby to chew their food and helps to develop those skills required in eating solid foods. Brilliant!

So which is the best method? They both have their pros and cons so I say why not create a hybrid; taking the best from both. Why not give your baby some soft buttery toast sticks to chew on at breakfast time while you prepare their baby porridge? Or some carrot sticks with their chicken and sweet potato puree for lunch? (You get the idea right?). This way, your baby is encouraged to handle food and feed themselves, as well as to accept food off a spoon. Their chewing skills will be developed by the finger foods and their swallowing perfected by the purees. Plus they will get to taste a range of different foods and textures and are more likely to enjoy the whole process (great news, except now you have mushy peas and half chewed carrot sticks to clean off the floor- sorry!).

Kids Recipe of the Week- Toad in the Hole with Potato Boats

• For the toad in the whole put the sausages in a ceramic baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and cook at 180 degrees for 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile make the batter by sieving 100g flour into a bowl, crack in an egg and mix in 300ml milk a little at a time to make a smooth batter.
• Get the sausages out of the oven, pour over the batter and place back into the oven for another 20--25 minutes. Do not open the oven door in this time!
• For the potato boats bake potatoes in the oven for an hour, then cut in half and scoop out the soft potato inside. Keep the skins in tact.
• In a bowl mix the soft potato with butter and your choice of ingredients (why not try ham or chives?) Scoop the potato mixture back into the skins, top with grated cheese and place under a preheated grill for 10 minutes.

Baby Recipe of the Week- Tuna, Bulgar wheat and peas- from 9 months.

• Simmer a handful of frozen peas in boiling water for 2-3 minutes until soft.
• Drain and mash with a potato masher.
• Cook the dried Bulgar wheat to the packet instructions (usually simmer in boiling water for around 10 minutes) and drain in a sieve.
• Drain and can of tuna and use a fork to mix together the Bulgar wheat, tuna and mashed peas.
• TIP: Use the potato masher to mash it all together until it is the right consistency for your baby (it shouldn’t be completely smooth but have small textured bits for your baby to chew).