gag,” she admits, which can be shocking, “but when you
wait until they are ready and let them feed themselves, you
see they won’t put things in their mouth that they can’t eat.
You do need to stay away from little things they can inhale
[
such as nuts, peas and raisins, for example],” she adds.
The mess and the gagging certainly wasn’t enough
to put Mawgan off. She offered no purées – a total
turnaround from the time she weaned her first son – and
waited to start feeding until the day her baby son crawled
onto her lap, grabbed a piece of melon, and devoured it. “I
thought, here we go!” she recalls.
Now, she couldn’t be more thrilled with the result. “I
was just naturally more demand-led this second time. I
fed more. I stopped watching the clock. Nothing magical
happens at six months that means they are ready for three
meals a day. It’s a very gradual process. Having done both
ways, it seems to me a natural evolution from milk to food.”
The rough and the smooth
But not everyone will be instantly won over. Grandparents
may have a hard time with what appears to be a radical
departure from traditional weaning. And so may helpers.
Michaela Reisinger started baby-led weaning with her
first baby to great success at six months. But when she
went back to work, her daughter was around 13 months,
and her helper started spoon-feeding. Soon, her daughter
was demanding to be fed, and the dinner table became
a battleground. “They don’t want to say she didn’t eat
anything,” says Michaela, about the helper’s reasons for
spoon-feeding. “The first question you ask them as you
walk in is, ‘What did they eat?’ It’s a standard.”
She says that initial year of baby-led weaning did
expose her daughter to a range of textures and flavours,
and that, to this day, she tends to choose healthier options
over non-healthy, and does not overeat, even with sweet
treats. “I’d think that’s a benefit of baby-led weaning. Very
early they can realise when they’ve had enough. Even with
ice-cream, she wouldn’t overeat,” says Michaela.
Mums planning on returning to work may need to set
up ground rules they want followed by helpers. It can help
to have them read a book on the subject and take a first aid
course, and to show them some baby-led weaning in action.
Second time around, Michaela decided to work with her
helper’s “natural inclinations” to feed, allowing some
cereals and mushy foods along with bits to hold, and says
it’s been a success.
Choosing to go the whole hog with no spoons and no
purées is one lifestyle choice, while puréeing and gradually
building up texture is another. What’s probably most
important is choosing what suits parents best. But most agree
that introducing pieces of real food that babies can hold
early on helps build dexterity and coordination, gets them
chewing – which is good for speech later on – and arouses
a natural curiosity for food. If your baby is over six months,
you might want to try sharing that Christmas dinner after all
–
although, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.
December 2012
59