Learn about how to seamlessly integrate your baby into mealtimes, and help prevent future picky eating with baby-led weaning.
Disclaimer: This is not medical advice! Please consult with your pediatrician before beginning baby-led weaning.
When my first baby turned 4 months old, well-meaning friends and relatives asked me if I had started giving him solids yet. A growing boy needs to eat, I thought, so I bought the baby jars, dutifully sat him in a brand-new high-chair, and fed him. I tried to convince him to like mealtime: playing airplane, teasing just one-more-bite, and reading books. After all, he was probably so hungry! And he’s a growing boy! And babies have to learn to eat!
Fast forward to my youngest. At 5 months old (maybe 6? He’s my youngest, it’s harder to remember), I sat him in a well-loved high-chair, surrounded by the cacophony of a growing family’s dinner time. As I made bowls of meatballs and spaghetti for his big siblings, I made him a bowl too. I put on his bib, and sat back to enjoy dinner with the family.
Sounds ridiculous? Maybe the part where I sat back is: I probably spent dinner passing the bowls, cleaning the spills, and mediating the fights. But baby eating the same food as the family? Totally possible, with baby-led weaning.
Baby-led weaning means skipping the spoon-feeding pureed jars stage, and going straight into eating table-ready foods (read Leah’s experience with baby-led weaning here). And the benefits are amazing! It exposes your baby to more foods (think helping avoid picky eating), helps develop independence, and increases fine-motor skills. Plus, it frees up your hands to eat dinner too.
Here’s what you have to know:
- From 6-12 months old, a baby’s primary source of nutrition is still milk. As long as they’re drinking, they don’t need lots of solid foods to develop. Think of it as practice time! This is where you’re training them to be independent, exploratory eaters.
- Babies are incredibly social. When they see Mommy, Daddy (or older siblings!) eating, they want to join in. You know how baby’s eyes track your bites as they grow? They want in! They inherently are more motivated to taste different foods when the people they love are doing it too.
- Learning to eat can be tricky! There’s lots of mouthing, drooling, dropping, and oh-so-much confusion. You can help by guiding their food or their spoon to their mouth, using their own hand. Remember, independence is ideal, whenever possible.
- Expect some coughing, and even gagging. Hashem created babies with an incredible gag-reflex: when they try to swallow a piece that’s too big they may have to gag it up. Before you start baby-led weaning, speak to your pediatrician about when it’s necessary to intervene and how to intervene if needed. There are lots of videos out there too on how to intervene if you think your baby is chas v’shalom choking. HOWEVER, as a general rule, your baby knows what to do. Stay calm (show your baby how calm you are!) and they will gag or cough the food back up. If your baby sees you panic, they’ll panic! If they see you calm, they’ll be just fine.
What does mealtime look like? Well, baby eats what the family eats, in his/her high-chair (with exceptions as needed). Babies can eat most foods! As a rule of thumb, anything crunchy and hard to chew or sticky is out (carrots, raw apples, nuts). Also, avoid anything round, like grapes or hot dogs, unless sliced lengthwise. Other than that, your baby can enjoy most foods that you’re serving your family.
I’ll take the chicken/meatballs/salmon, and the rice/soup/broccoli and put it on the baby’s tray. Any foods that are ‘grabbable’ like chicken cutlets I’ll cut into spears so the baby can grasp it more easily and bring it to his mouth. Softer foods like cholent go into a bowl with a baby spoon. And that’s it.
Baby sits in his chair, and has fun exploring with touch and taste. Will baby be covered in food? Absolutely! But I believe integrating them into our family’s meals and setting them up for future eating success trumps all messes.
While you don’t need any special equipment for baby-led weaning, here are some favorites to make it just a little easier.
I am doing this for a while, my baby fed kids chocked sometimes, my kids that I did baby led weaning never did as they learned to chew properly right away, they did gag sometimes, but it was fine, I was always sitting and watching them. when they eat themselves it is more messy but it is so worth it. My kids learnt to love healthy food. My kids did not get baby cereal or jars, normal healthy foods right away no snacks or grazing, I do not give food out of boredom, like you see toddlers with snacks to be quiet.
Baby led weaning is much easier than baby jars!! You just have to be careful with the salt/sodium content in the food you’re feeding your baby. I highly recommend checking out this site, it has a first foods data base that is a fantastic resource to know the safe way to feed your baby many types of foods. https://solidstarts.com/
Baby-led weaning is great, but does NOT prevent a kid from becoming a picky eater down the line. My baby went from eating everything, to developing very picky habits as a 2.5-yo that are still with us as a 9-yo.
This sounds great! I hate the baby food mush stage….
Too late for me to implement, but I love watching my grandbabies eating the same dinner as their siblings. They are introduced to flavors and textures that can never be found in baby jars.
Thanks for this article Reena.
I suspect that you were fed oodles of processed baby jar food by your Mom.
BH for the healthy choices you give your children!
perfect timing!! thank you!! baby number 4 is ready to eat solids in my opinion and some ppl told me off.. she’s only 5 months don’t give real solid foods yet. but she follows everyone by dinner and looks like she really wants some too. I couldn’t decide if it was a responsible thing to do. thanks for informing me that not only is it an accepted thing, it even has an official term 🙂
thank you BCP!!
my baby wanted to eat totally adult foods (like steak) also at 5 months old!
Love the baby led weaning protocol instead of the jars! It was the best thing ever. I used the solid starts program to guide me with how to serve the foods than that- it was r
Wow! I didnt know this was a thing. I hated all the time spent trying to coax baby food into a little mouth, and the expense of those tiny jars. With my last couple, I waited till I thought they could handle finger food, and skipped that stage entirely. It’s so true that they want what everyone else is eating. And the kids think it’s hysterical that baby is joining the meal! I just took out a small portion first if there would be too much salt/sugar/spicy, although I try to minimize the first 2 in my cooking anyways. I wish I could say those 2 ended up eating better, but they really didnt, once they were past the toddler stage 🙁
I’ve done this for ten years and converted dozens of moms to this method. I agree with one of the above posters. It doesn’t prevent pickyness. However, it does prevent choking bc the babies are learning to chew before they learn to swallow, especially while the gag reflex is close to the front of their mouth and prevents large chunks from getting too far back. Also prevents allergies because you are introducing all kinds of foods earlier.
Really doesn’t prevent allergies. I did this method with my last 2. My toddler still has a Boatload of allergies. He went into anaphylactic shock after I gave him yogurt at 7 months. Also turned blue after I gave him smashed chick peas at 8 months.
After that, had him thoroughly tested for food allergies before introducing anything else.
I agree, it’s a great method and it also makes things much easier! You’re not busy spoon feeding, instead you’re eating while the baby is eating (and watching closely as well). I have to say though, I don’t think it prevents allergies. My first two were spoon fed and have no allergies, my third I did BLW and found out he’s allergic to eggs.
The guidance how to avoid allergies , involves giving children who are allergy prone the big 8 allergy foods before they are 6 months. This is based on the LEAP study (https://www.leapstudy.co.uk/index.html) which sought to understand why the rates of peanut allergy is so much lower in Israel than in London and this was because a majority of Israeli kids are given bamba before 6 months. HOWEVER although it may help, there are still plenty cases of children developing allergies before 6 months.
Not sure about the research for preventing allergies – I’ve done this with all of my kids and they have multiple (all different!!) allergies to foods they were exposed to. There are many advantages to feeding this way, we actually did it along with speech/OT for two of them. But my personal experience has not shown that it helps with allergies at all.
I do the same with any finger-held food. But things like soup, will a 6-month-old really be able to eat that? or will everything go on and around him but not in the mouth?
I do this! My babies love to eat what the family is eating.
I did think it was a bit extreme when my 4 month old devoured an entire slice of pizza bit by tiny bit but now she’s 7 and it’s one of her favorite stories about herself!
The only think I don’t like about it is the name. Why weaning? Babies can have their cake and eat it too! No need for them to wean just because you want a nice slice of avocado toast! Can we change it to “baby led eating”?
yeah i was also wondering about the title “weaning”? my baby still nurses fully, in addition to the little bit of real food she has when the family eats. at 5 months old, I’m not up to weaning just yet
What we think of as ‘weaning’ is actually the end of a long process. The true definition of weaning is the whole period between the first bite of solid (“complementary”) food and the last breast/formula feed. The two sources of nourishment run side by side for at least six months (and up to 18 or more) before the process is complete. That’s why those early solid foods are called ‘complementary’ – they are complementing the baby’s milk feeds, not replacing them. So, starting weaning, doesn’t mean stopping those milk feeds. (Interestingly, in the UK, ‘weaning’ refers to the introduction of solid foods, not the end of breast/formula feeding – equally inaccurate, but in the other direction!)
Is there anything they shld not be eating when they are 5 months or they can eat all soft foods, this is the first time I am doing this.
No milk, no honey. Start with softer foods and gradually introduce firmer textures. Cut the pieces into easy-to-grasp sticks for the beginning, smaller pieces to practice pincher grip for slightly older babies.
Another amazing benefit of this method of food introduction is that baby continues intuitive eating! They eat until their tummy’s comfortable just like when they nurse! There’s no eating until the jar is finished!
I do not use baby Jars – why would I FEED my baby something that I can barely stand the smell of?
I give him what we eat at dinner – nice to know that it has a fancy name!
The first time my baby ate by himself was when he grabbed kugel off my plate at 6m old and stuffed it into his mouth. We thought it was very funny until he threw up later at night. (Happened twice)
When letting your baby eat by himself, make sure he doesn’t eat too much, too fast.