Today, we set aside our worries about messy eating in favor of ‘baby led weaning.’ I had never heard of the term when Ashley brought it up last night, but it’s a simple enough concept: let your little one discover food.

We have been trying food with Edie for about a month and a half now, and although she readily goes for the spoon of food, she usually recoils after the food gets in her mouth (Exhibit A). We’ve tried sweet potato, avocado, brown rice, rice cereal, banana (that illicited the funniest response – you would’ve sworn we fed her a lemon!), apples, pears and peas. Our usually method was:

  1. Cook and/or mash up the food, with or without mixing in some breast milk
  2. Dip a spoon in
  3. Either move quickly enough to get it in her mouth before being intercepted by her hands, or hand her the spoon and hope she decided to put it in her mouth

I haven’t been too worried about it, but our pediatrician mentioned that iron becomes important around 6 months old (a subject I’m planning on investigating). Mainly, we’ve just been trying out food because she has shown so much interest in our food over the past couple of months.

Last night, Ashley started reading about baby led weaning, and after reading and talking more about it, we decided that it made sense and felt right to do with Edie. Edie has given us a lot of feedback that she doesn’t like being – I’m trying to think of a good way of putting this – manipulated. Ever since she’s had good control over her limbs, she’s resisted getting dressed, and I think we were getting similar feedback from spoon feeding her. We have some teething biscuits that are the only food she’s really gone for so far, but she’ll only suck on them if she can hold them. When I try to put it up to her mouth, she draws back to look at it and take it from my hand. Our main concern with letting her have it herself is that she’ll break off a chunk and choke on it. But when she has bitten off chunks, she always spits them out, and she has such a strong gag reflex that I don’t think we need more than the normal amount of parental vigilance while she’s eating.

So today we let her go for it on her own (with both of us watching carefully for any signs of choking, of course). Ashley cut up a chunk of pear, and put in front of Edie along with part of a teething biscuit. She picked up the pear, felt it a little bit, and took it right to her mouth. She still put a sour face on, as usual, but she tried it a few more times. And the teething biscuit went well, also.

The clean-up wasn’t too bad, although I did have to spend a bit of time getting teething biscuits out of Edie’s hair. She’s taken to holding things up to her ears a lot lately, like she’s listening to a shell, or (as I like to joke) like she’s receiving transmissions from space (and I hope I don’t regret saying that, because I’m well aware of the potential problems that it could indicate), and the food was no exception. And teething biscuits turn into plaster after they’ve been mixed with saliva and dried.

I’m curious to see how this goes, and I have a good feeling about it. It’s one of those techniques or experiences that, as a parent, just feels right and makes good common sense.