Baby-Led Solids is THE BEST!

Everyone, stop spoon-feeding your babies.  There is no need. 

OK, let me start at the beginning.  I have suffered from two different types of eating disorders in my life time, neither severe requiring hospitalization, but disordered eating none-the-less.  One was extreme under-eating and one was (and still continues a bit) over-eating.  I was determined to find a way to have my kids have a healthy relationship with food.  I'm also so not a fan of picky eating in adults; it is a huge pet peeve of mine.  I kind of feel like telling picky adults to grow up, already!  But I don't. 

I long before becoming pregnant I heard from two different acquaintances that baby food is essentially bullshit and not needed.  And these were people I respected and who seemed to be doing well raising their own kids, so I believed them.  Then I learned the term baby-led weaning or baby-led solids for those of us not too keen on the word weaning. 

Then I had a baby.  And started reading baby books.  Sigh.  Baby books are so behind the times when it comes to infant feeding.  I can't read the feeding chapters because they piss me off too much. The bad information is prolific.  Two things seem to be off, one is bad info on nutritional needs, the other is an exorbitant fear of allergies.

First of all, babies don't have a nutritional need for anything but breast milk and sunlight for the first year of life, possibly even longer.  They don't NEED to swallow any other food if they don't want to.  This seems to go against the popular belief that you need to shovel food down your baby's throat to get them what they need.  Stop it. 

Secondly, what I know about allergies is that they are more likely to develop if you don't breastfeed, if you start solids before six months, and if a baby gets a large amount of a certain food.  So, wouldn't
you think spoon-feeding a large amount of a certain food into a baby who is too young would make him more likely to get an allergy from it? 

Don't get me wrong, allergies can happen even if you breastfeed and hold off on solids until 6 months and don't spoon feed.  But most allergies are not immediate anaphyatic shock, usually there is skin redness or bowel troubles or hives.  We really need to calm down about allergies for children whose parents have no food allergies.  Avoid the common triggers if you are worried, but I really haven't read anything that has compelled me to give my baby only one food every week (advice given in nearly EVERY baby book). 

It was hard to wait until 6 months, by 5 months he was VERY interested in food, but I really wanted to wait another month.  So the day he turned six months, I sat him in his high chair, made dinner and put some of the dinner in front of him.  It was broccoli in some kind of spicy Asian sauce with rice, I held off on the deep fried beef.  I try to only give him healthy stuff and deep-fried meat seemed to not fit that.  He put it to his mouth, he coughed on the rice a little, and he was super happy  And we had a super pleasant dinner.  Brent and I could talk while baby amused himself, it was messy, but babies in general are messy creatures. 

Baby-led solids is fun and stress-free.  We give him pieces of whatever we are eating.  We avoid whole nuts, but he's had peanut butter.  We avoid raw veggies that are hard or fibrous.  And we avoid sweets and fish high in mercury and anything else we deem as unhealthy, but it's not hard to avoid those things.  He will never taste rice cereal, he will never taste baby food, he will never have anything pureed specially for him.  I will never bring food to his mouth or a spoon to his mouth.

I've actually already given him a spoon to use and he's inaccurate and sometimes puts the handle in his mouth, but he gets the over-all concept that the spoon can get him tasty stuff.  I load the spoon up for him at this point, but he does the rest.  I hand him food sometimes, especially when not in the high chair.  But mostly I put food in front of him and he does the rest. 

He does not choke.  He gags sometimes.  Every once and while I've had to help him get something off the roof of his mouth.  Babies aren't able to move the food from the front of their mouths to the back of their mouths at first.  At least not consistently.  Some food does end up in his diaper, but most of it falls back out of his mouth.  He doesn't need to swallow it.  This period is a time of experimenting with textures and flavors and to learn how to chew and swallow, eventually.  I've read that babies get the swallowing down usually sometime between 9 and 12 months.  Our baby is only 7 months, so swallowing is rare.  Most ends up on the floor.  And this is OK.  Choking is much more likely if you force a spoon full of food into a baby's mouth, and honestly, I don't know how people get their babies to accept this, mine would swipe the spoon out of my hand I am sure. 

I really believe that I am setting him up for good eating habits.  I also plan on never coercing him into eating anything he doesn't want to.  I plan on never making special meals for him.  I plan on providing a variety of foods.  I also plan on holding off on sweets and unhealthy foods for as long as I can, ideally a few years.  But at the same time I don't want to demonize food.  It will probably mean not keeping many sweets around the house.  I also plan on never expecting a clean plate.  In the country with so many obese children and teens, how can anyone still expect this of their children?  It baffles my mind. 

When left to choose their own eating pace and amount from the beginning, people are very good at controlling how much they eat. 

I see even parents I respect totally messing this up and getting into power struggles about food with their kids.  I once saw a mom insisting that her son finish the fig cookie before he ate more dried fruit, and I could not for the life of me understand why it mattered at all, and amazingly, when she finally let it go, he ate the fig cookie.  Power struggles in general are dumb, ones around food can have very negative impacts on later eating habits. 

I will do family meals, meals should not just be about feeding, they should be a social time.  Mindless eating is no good.  I mindless eat still.  I also have a bad idea about when to stop eating, I don't trust anything my body tells me.  And sometimes I don't realize I'm hungry until I'm light-headed or nauseated.  My system is all messed up.  And I eat way too fast.  I inhale food.  And I don't know how to stop it.  I'm lucky that I've been able to mange it enough to keep my weight mostly healthy for the last few years.  I don't want this for my son. 

We cannot be in charge of our kid's eating, we must give that responsibility to them and then be supportive and put good food in front of them and respect them when they say they are hungry or they are full.  I'm going to have a very hands off approach.  We will probably have very few meal time rules.  I will trust my son to eat what he needs, just like I trust that he is nursing as much as he needs.  I don't have him on a schedule because I don't think it's helpful at all.  I give him my breast on-demand, and for now that is best because 99% of his nourishment is still from my breast.  I can have breast feeding limits later when he's 2 and 3 years old if I desire. 

We're about five weeks into our baby-led solids and we love it and baby loves it, it is THE WAY to go.  The book "Baby-Led Weaning."  Is a great resource.  There are also facebook groups and livejournal groups out there.  Look into it and have an awesome meal time with your kids!