Baby Weaning

Basic Guidelines to accomplish ‘A baby-led’ approach to the introduction of solid foods.
Average and normal, healthy breastfed babies always appear to be above average and quite capable, with the support from their parents, of managing their own introduction to solid foods. However, parents of babies who were born pre-term or premature say 37 weeks before the due date or who have a medical condition which might affect the ability to handle food safely or to digest a range of foods, it is a must by rule to seek advice from their pediatrics health advisers before banking on this method of weaning. Executing a baby-led approach to introduce solid foods requires a thorough realising what it take to make this ‘baby-led’ approach logical and safe.
The first section below explains the basis or the foundation so to say the underlying principle which supports this method of weaning and the concluding section of DOs and DON’Ts, provides a quick referencing list of key points. Adherence to these guidelines will maximise the opportunity and possibility for sure that both the baby and his parents will definitely enjoy the transition to solid feeding, and will help to ensure the baby’s well being, that’s our goal. Parents who are bottle feeding their baby should also consult with their pediatrics health experts or advisers.

1.  Breastfeeding as the foundation for self-feeding

Exclusively breastfeeding is very important factor suggested in the first six months of baby’s life. Breastfeeding is an ideal preparation for self-feeding with all kinds of foods especially solid ones. Breastfeeding babies feed at their own sweet pace; it is impractical to compel them to do anything else!
Babbies have the ability to naturally balance their own intake of foods and fluids by choosing how long each feed should last. Because breast milk varies in flavor and taste as to the changes mother’s diet.
So breastfeeding prepares the baby for different experiences in food tastes.
It is not clear whether a baby-led approach to beginning of solids is right for babies who are bottle fed; more investigations are needed to ascertain this.
It is advisable that parents of babies who are being bottle (formula) fed discuss the matter fully with their pediatrics health care advisers, if they wish to use this method.
As long as care is taken to ensure that adequate of enough fluid in-take has been given, there would be nothing drastic or inherently wrong in adopting this approach.

2. What’s all about drinks?

If the baby wants a drink, he/she will tend to take a feed for a short time, perhaps from both breasts, whereas if he/she is hungry will take the feed for longer. This is why breastfed babies who are allowed to feed whenever they want for as long as they want, do not need any other drinks, even in hot weather.
The fat content of breast milk increases during a feed. A breastfed baby recognizes this change and uses it to control his fluid intake.
The same principle can work right through the weaning period if the baby continues to be allowed to breastfeed ‘by demand’. A cup of water can be offered with meals as part of the opportunity for exploration but there is no need to be concerned if he doesn’t want to drink any. Continuing to feed ‘on demand’ will have the added advantage of allowing the baby to decide how and when to cut down his breast milk intake. As he eats more at shared meal-times, so he/she will ‘forget’ to ask for some of his breastfeeds, or will feed for less long at a time. There is no need for his mother to make these decisions.
Same consistency throughout the feed is observer in the Formula milk.  If the formula-fed baby were to be given milk as his only fluid he would be at risk either of not getting enough fluid, or of consuming too many calories, or both.
Parents who are practicing and further implementing this method of weaning with a bottle-fed baby should therefore offer their baby water at regular intervals once he is seen to be eating small quantities of food. They are advised to consult their pediatrics health care experts on how it should be managed.

3. Ensuring good and healthy nutrition

Babies who readily feed themselves are inclined to accept and acknowledge a wide range of foods. They even enjoy variations in food. This is in all probably as they recognize and have more than just the flavour of the food to focus on – they are familiarizing and experiencing new flavors textures, colours, sizes and shapes as well. In addition, to giving babies different and variety of foods separately, initiates them to enable them to separate each type for themselves, helps them to learn about a range of different variety of various aromas, flavours, feel the textures and tastes. This enables them to leave anything they appear not to like will influence them to be trained and be prepared to try new things.

Just the opposite is likely to be true for a baby who is spoon fed, especially if foods are presented in the form of liquids or could be purees having more than one flavour, in these circumstances the baby has no way of identifying and separating any flavour from the other. If he/she doesn’t like they will tend to reject the whole meal.

Parents should observe and find out which food is causing the problem, they risk more food rejection until they are tracked down.

Babies learn to trust food and doubt the range of foods. He/she will accept but can become severely limited. This can lead to his overall nutrition being compromise by giving all foods separately, but together in single plate, allows the baby to make his own decisions about mixing flavours.

3. General principles of good nutrition for children

There isn’t any need to cut food into larger wafer sized pieces. This will make it complicated for a young baby to handle. A good food guide to the size and shape needed is the size of the baby’s fist, with one important extra factor to bear in mind: Young babies cannot open their fist on purpose to leave/ free things. This means that they do best with food that is normal or small wafer or chip-shaped or has a built-in ‘handle’ like the stalk of a piece of a vege or a potato of broccoli.
Babbies will find it difficult to then chew the bit that is sticking out of their fist and drop the rest later – usually while reaching for the next interesting looking piece. As they repeatedly do the similar process their skills improve slowly step by step and less food will be dropped.

In a broad spectrum the principles of good healthy nutrition for all children apply equally to young babies who are weaning themselves. Fruits and vegetables are the most ideal, with harder foods cooked lightly so that they are soft enough to be chewed. At first, meat is best offered as a large piece, to be explored and sucked; once the baby can manage to pick up and release fistfuls of food, minced meat works well. (Note: Babies do not need teeth to bite and chew – gums do very well!)
It’s a must to avoid those foods with added sugar and salt should be avoided. Thus ‘fastfoods’ and. However, once a baby is over six months old there is no need unless there is a family history of allergy or a known or suspected digestive disorder to otherwise restrict the foods that the baby can be offered.

4. Appreciate and understand and comprehend the baby’s motivation

A conscious motivation utilises his/her desire to explore and experiment, and to imitate the eating habits as well as activities of others. maintaining an emphasis on play and ensuring the baby to set the pace of each meal, and  exploration rather than on eating, enables the transition to solid foods to take place as naturally as possible.
The approach to weaning offers a baby the prospective opportunity to identify, notice, discover and determine, what other foods have to offer as part of finding out about the world around him. This is because it would appear that what motivates babies to make this transition is curiosity, not hunger.

There is no reason for mealtimes to coincide with the baby’s milk feeds. Indeed, thinking of (milk) feeding and the introduction to solid foods as two separate activities will allow a more relaxed approach and make the experience more enjoyable for both parents and child.

4. Won’t he/she choke?

Many parents worry about babies choking. However, there is good reason to believe that babies are at less risk of choking if they are in control of what goes into their mouth than if they are spoon fed. This is because babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have learnt to chew. And they do not develop the ability to chew until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. Thus, a very young baby cannot easily put himself at risk because he cannot get the food into his mouth in the first place. On the other hand, the action used to suck food off a spoon tends to take the food straight to the back of the mouth, causing gagging. This means that spoon feeding has its own potential to lead to choking and makes the giving of lumpy foods with a spoon especially dangerous.

It appears that a baby’s general development keeps pace with the development of his ability to manage food in his mouth, and to digest it. A baby who is struggling to get food into his mouth is probably not quite ready to eat it. It is important to resist the temptation to ‘help’ the baby in these circumstances since his own developmental abilities are what ensure that weaning takes place at the right pace for him. This process is also what keeps him safe from choking on small pieces of food, since, if he is not yet able to pick up small objects using his finger and thumb, he will not be able to get, for example, a pea or a raisin into his mouth. Once he is able to do this, he will have developed the necessary oral skills to deal with it. Putting foods into a baby’s mouth for him overrides this natural protection and increases the risk of choking.

Tipping a baby backwards or lying him down to feed him solid foods is dangerous. A baby who is handling food should always be supported in an upright position. In this way, food which he is not yet able to swallow, or does not wish to swallow, will fall forward out of his mouth, not backwards into his throat.

Adopting a baby-led approach doesn’t mean abandoning all the common sense rules of safety. While it is very unlikely that a young baby would succeed in picking up a peanut, for example, accidents can and will happen on rare occasions – however the baby is fed. Rules of safety which apply in other play situations should therefore be adhered to when eating is in progress.

Please see our related article on DOs and DON'Ts for Baby-Led Weaning.