My latest post at Eco Child’s Play is all about debunking the myths about baby’s first solid foods. Not only should it not be started before about six months, but the cereals and purees normally spoonfed as their first foods are completely and utterly unnecessary… and even have a few potential pitfalls, affecting your child’s lifetime attitude towards food and healthy eating.
We followed a “baby-led” self-feeding approach with Pomme and can’t speak highly enough about it. It was easy, it was stress-free, it was fun. She was eating with utensils by the time she was a year old — just from imitating and experimenting. We never had to ‘convince’ her to eat, or ‘make’ her eat, or ‘teach’ her to eat. She enthusiastically explored food and let us know very clearly when she needed food and when she did not. Now, at two years old, she eats a full range of ‘real’ foods, adult foods, spicy foods, and really she always has. After having gone the traditional route of cereals and purees when Flipper was an infant – and having all the typical ‘picky child’ and food battles — we now can’t imagine possibly doing it any other way than baby-led.
Feel free to check out our photo album of Pomme’s early eating adventures!
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Saturday, Mar 14th, 2009 at 1:56
Funny – I raised 3 kids the “traditional” way – starting traditional baby foods at 6 months – and all three eat extremely well – and were self-feeding by one year. I respectfully disagree that your experience with one child and your “baby led feeding” makes you the expert you claim to be. If you’re going to claim that starting with baby cereal is potentially harmful, then you need to back your statement up with actual facts.
Saturday, Mar 14th, 2009 at 3:43
Thanks for your comment, momof3. I make no claims to be an expert, just a “happy customer.” And this post was never intended to provide all the details, just a glimpse into our own experience. It’s not “my” baby-led feeding either, I’m not some guru who came up with the idea. I’m just passing along the information for other moms who, like myself a couple years ago, have not yet heard about it.
If you read the article that I’m linking to, you’ll get more information. Because there are, indeed, actual facts to back all this up.
Of course many kids grow up just fine on the “traditional” method, but not all do. My point is simply that it’s not *necessary*, and since it does carry *some* potential downfalls and is just so much more complicated, then why bother?
If you read the entire article, you’ll get much more information. Even better, read the information from the true ‘expert’, Gill Rapley — http://www.baby-led.com.
Tuesday, Mar 17th, 2009 at 19:23
I thought your post was very informative and not at all false-claiming. I also didn’t precieve any implied expert testimony from it. Just a voice of experience pointing out a different way. Thanks for the information, as intended, it expanded my perception.