[blparent] Infant led feeding

Tue Jan 6 05:57:53 UTC 2015

I was intrigued by Kai's response, so I did a quick Google search.  There's 
volumes of information on the Web.  You'll be able to find out anything you 
want about baby-led weaning, and a whole lot more, in thirty seconds or 
less.  Just beware of Internet overload because, as with anything, the key 
is undoubtedly moderation.  From what I skimmed over, BLW has some very 
sound ideas, and ones I would pay closer attention to if I were to raise 
another baby, which isn't in the cards.  On the other hand, millions of 
babies have downed strained bananas and pureed squash and lived long enough 
to feed it to children and grandchildren of their own.

What I did, I guess, was some combination of the two methods, which I didn't 
know there were two of at the time.  I used purees, but I also gave my baby, 
starting at about seven or eight months old, pieces of food on her high 
chair tray.  At first I used those Meltaway Puffs that are sold with the 
baby food in the stores, but I was suspicious of them because of the sugar 
content.  So I bought one of the mesh nets with the ring on it that you 
could put fruit in and freeze.  Sometimes I froze it, and sometimes I just 
put cut fruit in it and left it in the refrigerator and then gave it to the 
baby at mealtime.  She couldn't get bites off the fruit, but she could taste 
it through the mesh.  When she was taking lumpier solids, I would give her 
cheese cubes and broken-up scrambled eggs, diced fruit, sliced green beans, 
Cheerios, and all sorts of different things on her tray to choose from.  She 
was a good eater as a baby.

Then someone gave her ice cream, and someone else introduced her to Doritos, 
and she went to preschool and learned how to say, "Yuck."  And all bets were 
off.

Good luck,
Jo Elizabeth

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may 
kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at 
evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
-----Original Message----- 
From: Kai Johnson via blparent
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2015 8:57 PM
To: Tara Briggs ; Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blparent] Infant led feeding

Hi Tara,
We did this, from a book called Baby-Led Weaning by Gill Rapley. It worked
really well for us - the idea is mainly that you give them food that is
safe for them and they can chew on it, play with it, and soon eat it. From
a practical point, it let us get away from specialty cooking for the baby,
which really helped for the second child. The main benefit for the child is
that at 6 months, they have an excellent gag reflex, so they actually don't
get down much food, but they are fully capable of chewing with just gums.
The point at which they gag on food is actually farther forward on the
tongue at 6 months, so they learn to deal with gagging and spitting the
food back out, all without risk of harm and much less fright for them. If
you introduce foods at 10+ months, the gag point has moved back farther in
the throat, so if they are learning to work with solid foods for the first
time, the gagging will be more pronounced, require more effort to clear,
and is closer to actual choking. This isn't to say children who don't eat
solid foods at 6 months will end up choking and getting hurt, but it is
letting them learn an essential skill at a time when their bodies are ready
to learn it.

More philosophically, it's supposed to give them a healthier relationship
with food because it is not a choice between regular food and nursing, but
if you don't have food-related issues like nursing strikes or incredible
pickiness, I don't know that you'd see any difference in their behavior.

Anyway, I really liked it, and highly recommend it. The actual takeaway
from the book is an understanding of how it is safe to give them foods. The
key being that they are about finger-sized, firm foods that won't break off
in their mouths, so they can hold with their fists and still have something
to chew on.

Good luck!
Kai

On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 4:49 PM, Tara Briggs via blparent <
blparent at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> dear collective wisdom:
> Have any of you heard of or practiced infant led feeding? In the UK it is
> called infant led weaning. Basically, it is letting your child feed
> themselves starting from about six months of age. You use small pieces of
> what ever you're eating. There is a book on this on iBooks. It is called,
> infant led weaning. There is also a cookbook. I got the book on infant led
> weaning and I am curious if anyone has tried it and what it has been like.
> Thanks for any help.
> Tara Briggs
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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