Starting Solids

I start this episode giggling because it took me about 2 minutes to find the term "starting solids". I've edited out most of the descriptors I was using instead- "introducing babies to food" "weaning in the UK sense of the term" "ending exclusive breast or formula feeding". But that is what this episode is all about! I've kept this episode short and sweet!

Show Notes:

Background on Baby Led Weaning

World Health Organization on Starting Solids

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Transcript

0:30

This episode is. introducing solids. After the time of exclusive breastfeeding or formula feeding. Sometimes we use the term weaning, which is the UK term for ween weaning. which means introducing food. It doesn't mean stopping breast milk or, or formula completely. This usually happens at around six months though. We're going to talk about different times. This is not going to be about feeding older children, though. We will do a topic on that too. I might need to have a. Therapist or something here when we do that, that is a stressful topic for me, but we will talk about it. But this is specifically about feeding babies. We did an early podcast on nursing and feeding babies formula. This is sort of that next step introducing solids. I always like to check in with my biases in my family. We did baby-led weening for both babies. For my first baby. We did this for all of the sighted reasons that I am going to discuss for my second baby. This is so cliche. I. Because I'm lazy and it was just easier to do baby lead weaning. I will say personally, baby food, mushed up baby food sort of grosses me out. I can't really explain it. It's just a thing for me and. Well, I am generally an anxious person. I've talked about that in a lot of my episodes. For me, this wasn't a source of anxiety. I know that this can be a topic of a lot of anxiety for lots of other parents, but for me it was like I heard about baby led weening. Sounds great. We're going to do it. All of that said, I definitely know that food is complicated and that you can have a complicated relationship with. I myself have a complicated relationship with food. I have a history of eating disorder and disordered eating, and that can definitely play into feeding your children. Food is also cultural, so whenever we're feeding our children, there's all these questions of, of culture and tradition, and there's also questions of. So just to step back now, what is baby lead weening? Maybe you've never heard this before, maybe you have. So like I said, when we use the word weening, it's introducing solids, not stopping nursing. What does baby lead mean? It means that babies are feeding the. They are not having, spoons or forks or anything else put in their mouth. They're taking the food themselves. Food is prepared in a way to be safe for baby, but it's not pureed to implement baby-led weening the way that it is sort of official by baby-led weening baby needs to be six months or older. Baby needs to be able to sit unsup. Baby needs to have head control so they can hold their head upright and steady. Baby can reach and grab so baby is able to pick up objects and easily bring them into their mouth. And interests babies, is mouthing for food or leaning for food. I can say both my children introduced solids by sitting on our laps and putting food in their mouth. for my second baby, it was an everything bagel, which is not really great for, for babies, which she was fortunately just fine. But, um, that that's one of the things they need to sort of show interest in food. So we compare this to what is called. Traditional feeding, which, is an interesting term because tradition implies this is sort of how babies were always fed, which is not necessarily the case. We're going to do a bonus episode on the history of baby food cuz it's, it's actually quite interesting, but, Traditional feeding has l more of, of various ages. The World Health Organization also recommends six months, but doctors will recommend it at different ages. I know in Belgium, a lot of babies start solids, in traditional feeding,, often at four months or five months, and food is pure. and it can either be pureed home or purchased purees specific food, and it is spoonfed into baby's mouth so they don't have to feed themselves. So why would people choose baby-led weaning or traditional feeding? There are some theories about baby lead weaning. One is that it helps babies develop fine motor skills because they have to actually pick the food up themselves and manage to get it into their mouths. They learn to control how much they eat because they put the food in their mouth when they're hungry and they stop when they're done. And related to that, they learn their own hunger cues. So they learn when they're hungry. When they're not hungry, they won't put any food in. And they get to try more foods because it's not just pureed booby food. Babies are essentially eating what parents are eating. So those are a lot of the reasons that people choose baby-led weening. It's sort of what, first draw my interest to it, but I will say that. Doing research beforehand and then coming back to it for this episode, I couldn't find any actual hard evidence on any of these claims. I've seen it in a lot of books, but it's not actually backed up by any research. So on the other side, people often choose traditional feeding because of safety fears. There's fears that baby will choke, when food isn't purely pureed. and I actually couldn't find any evidence of this either. I couldn't find any evidence that baby led weening was actually less safe than traditional feeding. Some people also don't like baby led weening. because it is messy and I don't have scientific evidence for that, but I can definitely speak for my own house, that that is definitely true. Baby led weening is easier if you have a dog that will find their new favorite spot under your baby's chair, but it, it's definitely messy. And if you're already feeling overwhelmed by mess or, mess is a big stress trigger for you, that's definitely something to keep in mind. So like I said, for me, this was definitely one of my crunchy decisions. It wasn't based on the evidence of reading a lot of scientific literature, but it was something that appealed to me. I said earlier in the episode that food and eating are really personal and really cultural. For me, I knew I didn't wanna be forcing food into my children's mouths. I liked the idea of giving them lots of choices. I didn't like the idea of obsessing over food. So often with traditional feeding, especially with very little babies, you're being very specific about what foods in being introduced when you're measuring. They're getting this much food this day, this many grams. I didn't wanna be weighing food. We already have a messy house, even before we had babies, but now I have a great excuse with two kids. so that was not going to be a big issue for me. We have a dog, so we have at least a little bit of cleanup help with the food. and I've always really liked sharing food. So to me that that's a really nice thing to be able to do that with my children. So for others, I know that just knowing that their baby is fed is really important. That can be a trauma response. We talked about that in the episode on trauma response. So if knowing that your baby is full is really important, then baby led weening is not always great because you're not measuring how much they're eating and sometimes it looks like they're eating nothing if mess is triggering for you. I know I had a friend who was like, how can you do this? It would just drive me crazy. Baby-led weening might not be great for you. They will have food all over themselves and all over. and even not so close to their chairs. Sometimes, the choking fears aren't proven, but for some people, having anything that's not completely solid in baby's mouths when they don't have teeth to fully chew can seem scary. So that's totally fair. So another thing for me personally, I found baby led weening easier because it was like one less thing I had to remember to bring. I still sometimes leave the house without a diaper bag, and my second baby is 18 months, so I've been needing a diaper bag. My first one was two when he was potty trained, so like almost four years. And I still, sometimes if it's not on the stroller, I don't remember it. So having to also remember food would've been one more thing. With baby led winning, we would just get something at the restaurant and make it acceptable for our babies. I wanna reiterate that food is cultural and it is spiritual and it is linked to a trauma and family and on and on and on. And I think that when we look at that compared to these specific rules about baby-led weening or traditional feeding, it can feel like they don't match. But I want this to be a reminder to you that as much. Especially the baby led weening side says it has to be just this one thing. There's not any evidence of that. It doesn't have to be just one or another. My daughter did, baby led weening at home and at least when she started at daycare, she was being spoonfed. I don't think that went on very long cuz they were like, How do you feed her? She just keeps grabbing the spoon out of our hands and you know, then we sort of talked about what we do at home and so it's sort of always been a mix for her. But she was definitely eating purees at daycare for the first year. She was being spoonfed for a while, and it has never been an issue at the end of the day, it's really up to you and with some input from your healthcare provider. Of course, there are certain children that have weight issues. Introducing solids at certain times or in certain ways are really important. Sometimes it has to do with. Starting daycare and what they'll eat and what they'll not eat. Like I said earlier, in Belgium, they really like to introduce solids very early here in part because daycare starts pretty early. The maternity leaves only about four months, so it's seen as a way to sort of get more calories into baby. But the World Health Organization does recommend six months for exclusive breastfeeding or formula feeding. There is. evidence behind that. So you know, you can always talk with your health provider about that. Seek out a provider that's providing evidence-based care if that is something that is important to you on this issue. I'll finish by saying that at the end of the day, kids are going to eat how they eat after, you know, sort of that first year, 18 months. I, especially with my first child was like, oh, baby lit weeding. He's choosing the broccoli. My child is going to be such an amazing eater and he always has sort of eclectic taste. He has always loved things like anchovies and octopus, but I promise you, we were walking around Italy and that child was begging for McDonald's I think at the end of the day, all kids are going to eat how they eat and it's all good. So I will leave us here for now. I'm going to just share a little reminder that the first book club for the podcast is coming up in May, and our book that we're reading is the book You Wish your parents had read by Phil Phillipa Perry, you I will put a link to that in the show notes. A reminder that if you are in Brussels, you can join me for prenatal yoga. Postnatal yoga. We're going to have some family yoga coming up soon. Join my newsletter anywhere in the world cuz I've got lots of exciting stuff going on that is virtual as well. You can follow me specifically for the podcast Evidence-Based Crunch on Facebook and Instagram, and if you are enjoying this, please leave a review. It really does help so much. Thank you so much for listening.