Hello families! David is 11 months old!
I cannot believe baby D is almost one year old! I still remember when he was inside of me like it was yesterday. He is now almost a toddler who has started his official social life (daycare). I thought it may be time to share how I started solid foods with baby D since our journey start 5 months ago, and he is such a great eater. I think sometimes he eats more I do. He loves eating independently (even though he is a messy eater, but the messier, the better, right?) and has started communicating his needs with sign language (e.g., milk, more, all done). What I have done may not work for some families, but I would like to share my findings from literature and my experiences that may be able to help you make a more informed decision for you and your family.
Before I started solids, I read so many mommy group postings about the benefits of BLW, so I became very interested in it. I knew about it a bit but did not think about it until just before baby D was ready for solids. I like all the benefits that BLW pioneers have argued:
A baby eats what other family members eat and that allows the baby to be exposed to a family diet while enjoying time with the family at the table.
It promotes self-feeding, which can lead to a positive impact on supporting the development of fine motor skills.
It promotes healthy eating.
It prevents obesity.
As a bit of a scholarly nerd, I decided to dive deeper into this. Through a systematic search involving 12 research papers published between 2000-2018, D’Auria et al. (2018) found the following results related to TSF and BLW groups,
No difference in chocking incident rates
No difference in energy intake and impact on growth.
No difference in iron intake.
Overall, no difference in satiety-responsiveness and weight. A small sample study showed less reactive and more positive attitudes toward food and had more lean bodies in the BLW group. However, the researchers of this study noted that these differences were found in parents of children, so these may be more important predictors rather than different styles of introducing solid foods.
The BLW group tented to expose more sugar and salt than TSF, even though it requires more research to confirm.
No adequate data that show BLW increases family relationships during shared meals.
No difference in when to start solids
Mothers who have lower anxiety, lower obsessive-compulsive disorder scores, lower eating restraints and higher conscientiousness tended to choose BLW than the mothers who choose TSF.
My conclusion from these findings is that choosing between either TSF or BLW is a matter of preference of one’s family, as opposed to one being superior to the other. So, I did a modified version of BLW while following baby D’s lead. I had used both TSF or BLW depending on his reactions to particular food or types of food that I offer rather than a set style, and now, I am more close to BLW. However, I am not yet 100 % BLW because I sometimes cook just for baby D when my husband and I eat spicy Korean food (or sometimes not so healthy food on our cheat days), and baby D’s mealtime does not always correspond to the mealtime of my husband and I.
What I really focus on and consider important is letting baby D explore at the meal table with different senses. Developmentally, baby D is in his sensory-motor stage. He explores the world with his senses and this includes food. It is a lot of work to clean afterwards, but I’d rather him experience smelling, picking up, licking, tasting, chewing, squeezing, etc. as opposed to having him focus on having excellent table manners or eating with a spoon. We will work on table manners soon, but there is no reason to rush and take his joy away from these precious experiences.
Sending baby D to daycare during the pandemic was not an easy decision to make as a parent. We do not have that luxury to stay home and take care of baby D. However, the most important factor that impacted our decision was our trust in early childhood educators in BC. We know how they work and where their hearts belong.
My family would like to thank all of the talented early childhood educators out there and recognize their hard work as they assist countless families during these unprecedented times.
Thank you!
- Minnie
Reference
D’Auria, E., Bergamini, M., Staiano, A., Banderali, G., Pendezza, E., Penagini, F., . . . Italian Society of Pediatrics. (2018). Baby-led weaning: What a systematic review of the literature adds on. Italian Journal of Pediatrics, 44(1), 49-11. doi:10.1186/s13052-018-0487-8