Baby-Led Weaning vs. Puréed Baby Food: Differences, How to Start & More - What to Expect

High chair? Check! Bib? Check! Baby's readiness? Double check! The time has come to introduce solids. Now the question is: what form will those solids take?

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Transcript:

High chair? Check! Bib? Check! Baby's readiness? Double check! There's no doubt that the time has come to take the next step up baby's food chain to solids. Now the question is: what form will those solids take?
Well, the world of food isn't quite your baby's oyster just yet, at least not literally. There are multiple menu options when it comes to those first feedings of solids. Not only in varieties of food, but how you'll serve it up.
Want your baby to start solids the way you likely did? On a spoon? Feel free to pass the spoon to the next generation and to spoon up traditional purees either homemade or store bought, though it's fine to start on the sweeter end of the spectrum with strained fruit, pirate peaches, apples, pears, bananas for example, you might wanna consider letting your sweetie sample some savoury vegetables first, like pureed carrots, sweet potato or butternut squash, or pureed ripe avocado.
No longer a must-start-with, or even a must at all: old school baby rice cereal. If you're set on serving baby cereal at all up for whole grain varieties, whole grain oats, barley or brown rice mixed with breast milk or formula.
Prefer to skip the spoon, omit the mash, if not the mess and let baby's fingers do the feeding. Join the baby led weaning movement. Instead of spooning up strained foods, serve your little nibbler whatever's on your menu, assuming it's baby friendly. Baby's reaching for your toast? Hand it over. She's eyeing your scrambled egg? Let her dig in. She's eager to munch your macaroni? Put a few elbows on her high chair table.
Offer baby the avocado off your sandwich, mango from your fruit salad, a taste of your meatball, a cooked carrot from your minestrone, a chunk of your baked sweet potato without the skin. A handful of the shredded cheese you're tossing into your salad. Yes, even flakes of your flounder or slivers of your salmon. The upside to moving up to table foods faster: your baby is more likely to eat what's served at the family table in the future.
Safety first as always. Make sure whatever you serve your baby is easy to gum. After all, first teeth aren't for chewing, they're for biting. And start small. Large portions of food are overwhelming and can lead baby to biting off more than he can gum, and can lead to gagging, which, by the way, isn't the same as choking. It's just baby's way of cleaning his throat of a too-big bite and doesn't interfere with breathing. Still, it can be scary for you.
Want to keep babies' options open, spoon up purees at some meals and offer finger foods at others, or do both in one sitting with baby munching on melon or you're spooning in some yoghurt. (PS: even yoghurt can be a finger food for your baby. Drop a dollop on the highchair, and you'll see.)
Good news for adventurous eaters and parents who would like to raise them: few foods are considered off the table for newbie eaters. Once red-flagged — eggs including the whites, yoghurt and cheese, whole milk varieties are preferred, fish, even thinly spread nut butters or products containing peanuts or tree nuts (there are even some designed for babies) — are widely considered safe from the start and early introduction may even protect later allergies.
Spice is nice too. And many babies love the flavour kick of cinnamon or curry, or even garlic, but skip the salt and the sugar.
Check with baby's doctor before planning baby's first menus though. Also keep an eye out for any reactions to new foods, such as rash around the mouth, diarrhea or runny nose and steer clear of any food that presents a choking hazard, like grapes and lesser quartered, raisins, whole nuts or spoonfuls of nut butter, or raw or too firm fruits and veggies, and no honey for your little honey until the first birthday. Bon appetit, baby.