The idea that you have to feed your baby pureed baby foods is a very cultural one. Here in America at least, many moms are told to start feeding solids (and by solids I mean that mushy stuff in a jar or rice cereal) around 4 to 6 months. Then we spoon feed them until they finish the jar or ‘eat a good meal.’ We fret if they don’t eat and we fret even more if they at a whole jar yesterday and only want two bites today.
However, advice may be changing as UNICEF and others start to talk about what is known as child led weaning. I need to say that this concept is not particularly new to breastfeeding mothers. But it seems now that many health organizations including WHO have started to talk about child led weaning in regards to formula fed infants as well.
Experts say that formula is nutritionally sufficient for the first 6 months of life. (Note: Breastmilk is nutritionally superior, for the first year of life.) Feeding an infant solids before 6 months merely detracts from the nutritional value that the baby needs from formula. If you’ll notice the label on rice cereal, which is what is most often recommended as the first food, it is basically empty calories with vitamins mixed in. Some pediatricians have claimed that baby needs to get used to the texture of something solid going into his mouth, but new studies are showing that this simply isn’t true.
By six months, baby led weaning experts say, a baby is perfectly capable of taking food and putting it into his mouth and chewing it. There is no need to feed mushy food and in fact, they are now saying this can inhibit and delay your baby’s ability to chew food properly. Even more importantly, it is now being recommended that you allow baby to decide how much he is going to eat rather than spoon feeding him. Doctors say that doing this helps your child regulate his food intake as he grows and helps prevent over eating tendencies.
The more children we have had, the closer to this approach we’ve come in terms of feeding our kids solids. Our first daughter had sever gagging issues and so she was breastfed exclusively for almost 13 months. By that time, she was eating food from our plate. Our 2nd and 3rd children had no such issues but happily nursed for 8 months without eating solids and then seemed hungry so we dutifully went out and bought those little jars and began feeding as we were being instructed to do.
With the twins though, I couldn’t stomach using baby food jars. That would cost nearly $4 per day to feed both girls. Consequently, when they started showing an interest in solid foods, I simply made sure there were things on our plate they could eat. Sure enough, they were happily nibbling green beans and corn, chicken and fish. . .whatever we had on our plates. . .they ate.
If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely start solids with each baby as we did with our twins. It was so much easier and they are willing to try anything–a side effect I believe from being allowed to grab at our plates at will.