4 Tips To Make Baby-Led Weaning a Breeze

If your baby is coming close to their six-month birthday, you might be gearing up for the messiest of milestones: weaning. Cue a kitchen splattered in sauce on every possible surface, and a baby covered in more mush than you ever thought possible.

Baby-led weaning means your baby leads the way on their adventures with solid food. Instead of blending food into a puree and spoon-feeding them to wean them, baby-led is all about letting them pick solid foods up by hand, and discovering how to feed themselves.

While that might sound straightforward in principle, it can be a little challenging to start with, so to help you get started, here are some easy tips to help make baby-led weaning an enjoyable time for everyone.

Start with soft foods

To begin with, choose soft foods, broken up into small chunks that are easy to grab hold of with their fists. Soft fruits, like mango slices, banana or avocado are perfect to start with, while cooked veggies like carrots or mashed potato are a great way of adding new flavours.

Once your baby is starting to get the hang of chewing and swallowing, you can start to introduce a variety of firmer textures. Cooked pasta shapes, strips of meat and chunks of cheese are all great additions to the menu.

Embrace the mess factor

At the start of the weaning process, there probably will be more food on the floor than in their tummy, and that’s ok. An important skill your baby will be picking up during the weaning process is learning to work out exactly how to get food from the plate to their mouth.

Of course, once those chubby little hands discover how to grab the first bit of banana, you can expect to do a whole lot more cleaning. When you’re starting baby-led weaning, BIBaDO bibs do help make life a lot easier, especially when it comes to keeping your little one clean.

Don’t be afraid to mix things up

Weaning doesn’t have to be an either-or choice. Both baby-led and traditional weaning have their benefits, and when you’re trying to work out what is best for your family, you might want to try a mixture of both. Small spoonfuls of family foods can be a great way of introducing them to complex flavours, while easy finger foods they can grab and chew on help to develop essential skills.

Little and often is key

Don’t worry if your baby doesn’t seem too keen to try out the food at times. As they’ll still get most of their nutrition from breast or formula milk, you don’t need to worry about your baby eating enough – the weaning process is about getting them used to the idea of eating, and starting to enjoy all the different flavour, textures and aromas out there.

Little and often is the best way to help them get familiar with the fascinating process of eating, and prevents everyone from feeling overwhelmed. Read how Freddie got on with weaning here.