BABY-LED WEANING

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BLW BASICS

“… a method of food progression, BLW facilitates the development of age appropriate oral motor control while maintaining eating as a positive, interactive experience.”

-Wikipedia

EQUIPMENT

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Offer soft, ripe fruits cut into long, chunky pieces in the shapes (easy for baby to grab). For harder foods like meat and vegetables, cook them until soft before cutting them into long, chunky pieces.

It may help to coat slippery foods in ground baby cereal to give them grip.

Ideas of foods to start baby-led weaning are the usual suspects: Avocado, banana, sweet potato, soft-cooked apples.

Make meats tender and easy to eat by cooking them in a slow cooker or using ground meats and making meatballs, meatloaf or homemade skinless sausages.

At 6 months, eating foods containing iron is crucial for development. Meats are an excellent source, but tofu, beans and eggs are also high in iron.

Don’t add salt or sugar to baby’s foods. You are free to add herbs and spices to bring out the flavour!

We don’t need anything, but let’s go shopping anyway:

High Chair: Minimal design=less time spent wiping. I originally bought the classic IKEA Antilop high chair for its low price but all the nooks and holes caught so much food. Also, the white plastic gets easily stained (tomato sauce).

Bib: I’m a big fan of these. The designs are the cutest- Make My Day is the company that makes the one with the pearls. Tomato sauce hasn’t yet stained the bright sunny yellow one (Peter pan collar with buttons)- 3 years and going strong. Very satisfied with the quality. Very soft to the touch.

Silicone Baby Plate: I like that this has a large surface area that grips to the table. They have heft to them which also helps discourage baby from lifting up the entire thing (Key word: discourage, he has dropped the whole thing onto the floor). Food easily slides out of the rounded edges for cleanup.

Splat Mat: I’ve looked for a long time to find something that would serve this purpose. This actually stays put on the floor. I just give it a quick wipe immediately after meals and it’s ready again.

Action Camera: Babies will do the most adorable things, but they do them and then they stop in the blink of an eye. I found it hard to capture these fleeting moments, but I’m very happy with the GoPro for its simple operation. The rugged body definitely comes in handy when little hands grab it when I’m not looking.