Baby Led Weaning – what is it?

One of the options when weaning is baby led weaning, I had never ever heard of it and when I mention it even now to friends they haven’t a clue what it is. Some just say, oh ya that’s what I did anyway and some think it’s complete madness.

The idea behind it (correct me if I am wrong please) is that once your child is 6 months old and capable of sitting by themselves you don’t need to blitz their food to puree.

It is basically where your child gets to choose what they want to ear or eats what you eat, no blending, no whizzing, no mush. You give them some options as finger food and you let them gum into it and pick it up themselves and generally they get on pretty well mostly.

For me the big issue with it was the mess, I honestly just cannot cope with children covered in food and the floor was destroyed and the highchair and general surrounding area. So not for me.

I do a mix of traditional and baby led which purists would say is impossible and is just offering finger foods but I disagree because I’ve done it since the start and I do think it’s more baby led than finger food.

For at least one of her meals and all snacks she eats them herself, I put strips of cheese, breadsticks, pancakes, tubes of pasta, fruit, pieces of fruit, banana, carrot sticks, pepper strips and lots more in front of her and she works away herself. At the moment (she’s 9 months) this is not working so well because she wants to just throw everything on the floor but swings and roundabouts, she’ll get back to it when she’s ready.