Babies grow up, and there comes a time when they are ready to start trying new foods in addition to breast milk. Some babies and children show an enormous interest in food and experimenting with new tastes, and others show less interest in solid foods or directly reject them. It is important to know that little or no interest in eating (or small amounts) in a one-year-old or older may be related to specific times in the infant’s growth, such…
How safe is BLW? One of the biggest fears with Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) for both, families and healthcare professionals, is the risk of choking. It is sometimes perceived that this method might lead to more choking incidents in babies who are fed solid pieces of food from day one without being spoon-fed. For this reason, much research on BLW has focused on whether or not this method of initiation of complementary feeding increases the risk of choking or suffocation. Kahraman…
BLW or pureed food: is there scientific evidence to support the benefits of one method over the other? If a few weeks ago we wrote about the scientific evidence of BLW in relation to breastfeeding, now we focus on reviewing the published scientific evidence on infant growth and food intake of BLW babies compared to traditional spoon-fed babies. BLW or pureed food One of the biggest fears that both health care providers and families have about BLW is that infants…
In this post we review what the scientific evidence says about BLW and breastfeeding. The Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) method allows the baby to feed itself in a self-regulated manner by eating autonomously with its hands and avoiding the traditional method of spooning pureed food. The method has multiple benefits compared to the traditional method of spooning pureed food. One of the most important is that it might be more respectful with breastfeeding. There are several published studies that have studied the…
1 – Why start with solids? Breastmilk is possibly the most complete nutrition and can exclusively nourish a baby up to about 6 months of age. At about this age, breastmilk is still excellent for feeding a baby, but not exclusively, which is why we begin to introduce solids. Iron, zinc and vitamin A are the nutrients that the baby now needs in bigger quantities and so she begins to diversify her diet. 2 – At 4 or 6 months?…
