I was asked to write about this, so I gathered a few thoughts to do so.
Baby-Led Weaning is a technique for introducing solids to babies at 6 months. It is believed that at 6 months a baby is able to feed himself, so by giving him manageable foods (usually in a stick shape), baby should be able to grab it, bring it to his mouth and learn to eat by himself. For example, we started with well cooked broccoli, finger-shaped well cook pieces of sweet potatoes, carrots, turnip and even green beans, chicken and ground beef. He is now eating toasts (with different kinds of purees on it, like meats and fruits or hummus) and even spaghetti squash with homemade spaghetti sauce for supper tonight! It is also believed that baby needs to be eating socially, so with the family (same time) and same food (or somewhat the same). So all and all, there are no spoon feeding of the purees! Why the name you ask? It is believed that from birth, baby has the control over his feeding (if breastfed) as he eats how much he wants and how often he wants until the point where solids come into play. Therefore, this technique allows you to continue to let baby lead the way with feeding. He is then still in control of what he eats and how much (an important point with this technique is that the food is offered and then baby does the rest: no feeding from the parents or forcing baby to eat). Hence baby leads the weaning off of milk, since as he eats more solids, he should drink less milk. This is really resuming the technique in a nutshell, so if you're interested purchase the book : Baby-Led Weaning (on sale right now on Amazon.ca)
Now here's our experience with this technique: we love it! It's amazing to see how baby just knows what to do! The very first time our little one took that broccoli and brought it right to his mouth and chewed and....oh the stress and excitement and oh so many different feelings I felt! Hehe our precious little bundle of joy is somewhat independant! Yes, as and OT, that is one of my main goals, but as a mother, I'm filled with a little bit of selfishness: he doesn't NEED me for this! as the days went by, he would eat a bit (we would see the end product at diaper changes) but not much. Around 8months he really took interest into it and wow does he ever eat now. Yes, he still has days where he doesn't eat so much, but it's normal. I always have to tell myself that I too have off days. He still takes the same amount of milk (hasn't weaned off at all yet), but he decides so. We love this technique because he can eat with us, at the same time. Yes, there are days where he gags and chokes, but every baby does it. Oh and did I say no purees?!?! Hello time saving! To really understand the difference I referred to friends for comparison and one who's done purees with the first and BLW with the 2nd, would've done BLW with both if she would've known. She says the introduction of pieces and the progression of textures was hard with her puree-fed baby.
From an OT point of view, yes there is no progression as for the textures (pieces right from the start), but baby having the control, he will be more likely to accept it, therefore, it's great in my book! And then you have the fine motor part and wow, how else would you have a 6-7 month old dealing with such small objects to practice pincer grasps?! The whole eating experience is problem solving at it's best! Eye-Hand coordination is also practiced with every bite! Did I say I love this?!
In conclusion, if this peeked your interest and you're curious to try it yourself, read the book!
Thanks for reading!
V
Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Led-Weaning-Essential-Introducing-Confident/dp/161519021X
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